User talk:Kerry Raymond/Archive 11

Growth team updates #6
Welcome to the sixth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Plans for the next three months
The Growth team has been working on features to increase new editor retention for the last seven months. We have made a lot of progress and learned a lot, and we've just finished planning for our next three months. During the next three months, we're going to focus on iterations of the help panel and the newcomer homepage. We have decided not to start the engagement emails project, because we think that we will be able to do better work by improving the projects we have already started. Specifically, these are our team goals:


 * Deploy and iterate on newcomer homepage
 * Continued iteration on help panel
 * Make the help panel available to more wikis
 * Add a fourth Wikipedia to our set of target wikis
 * Publish in-depth quantitative reporting on the data from this year
 * Assemble a report on what our team has learned so far about newcomers

Newcomer homepage
The newcomer homepage is our current major project. We hope that community members can read over the project page, and comment on its discussion page with any ideas, questions, or concerns. You can see in the accompanying mockup how we are thinking about the homepage.

We have recently decided on the specifications for an initial version that we can deploy and iterate on:
 * Shown in the User space
 * Desktop only (mobile comes next)
 * Four modules
 * Help module: help links and ability to ask help desk questions
 * Mentorship module: all newcomers assigned a mentor to whom they can ask questions
 * Impact module: shows the number of pageviews for pages the newcomer edited
 * Account completion module: gives some very simple recommendations of how to get started (add an email, start your user page)
 * Layout not yet personalized for each user

We're currently running live user tests on this configuration. Future work will include adapting the homepage for mobile, working on a task recommendation module, and considering how to encourage newcomers to visit their homepage.

Help panel
During the last month, the help panel was deployed on Vietnamese Wikipedia, adding it to Czech and Korean Wikipedias.As of 2019-03-14:
 * 2,425 newcomers have seen the help panel
 * 422 of them have opened it
 * 175 have clicked links
 * 27 have run searches
 * 40 have asked questions

We have been analyzing the data around usage, and we'll be publishing numbers in the coming weeks. At a high level, we see at least some users are being helped by the panel, with many clicking on links, running searches, and asking questions. We do not yet see any problems that have arisen from the help panel. Therefore, we think that the help panel is generally a positive feature – though data is still coming that will allow us to see its numerical impact. If other wikis are interested in using the help panel, please contact us on our team's talk page, in the language of your choice.

Over the past month, we have iterated on the help panel to take into account the usage patterns we are seeing. You can see in the accompanying image how the help panel currently looks.


 * We added a search capability, in which users can search the Help and Wikipedia namespaces.
 * The help panel was previously available whenever a newcomer was in "edit" mode. We are now also showing the help panel when a newcomer is in "read" mode on a page in the Help, Wikipedia, or User namespaces.

We want to see whether users find the "search" useful. If so, we may spend time on improving search results. We're also looking forward to learning whether exposing the help panel in "read" mode in more namespaces will increase usage.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 18:19, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Palerang Council
Palerang Council is now part of Queanbeyan–Palerang Regional Council.--Grahame (talk) 06:23, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that! Unfortunately many of our NSW articles are still using old local government areas and not being a NSW local, I don't always realise this. Kerry (talk) 07:04, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I took some pictures in Araluen and Major's Creek (Dad's best work friend use to live in the old school: File:Majors_Creek_School.jpg) last year, but I didn't think to take any pictures of the creek. I guess I'll be back sooner or later, although I'm off for 9 weeks in Iran, the Caucuses and Europe on Saturday.--Grahame (talk) 07:21, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a wonderful trip! Araleun can wait :-) Kerry (talk) 07:46, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

yeahbut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Australian_historic_places - the big problem is assessment against a project - the talk pages of  NSW are in general still a real mess. As much as you may wish to ignore that part of the process - Grahamec and a few others try to to keep up with you - and really deserve some comment as well JarrahTree 07:31, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * point is drovers has had it for the moment - and has gone for a break if not for good - and really - the basic way that most projects evaluate success is not volume on the main space - but actually on the talk pages and the manner in which the assessment is made - I think you have a way to go yet - the point is there no assessment invoked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australian_historic_places compared to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australian_history - a really serious short coming for an assessment system JarrahTree 07:44, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
 * and obviously you tend to want to ignore my comments - but hey - an effective thing would be to enlist a tech oriented person to create an assessment system for the historic places of Australia as a subset of the Australian project - and it would really take it into the main way that most of wikipedia assesses and understands projects and their success. JarrahTree 07:50, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Photographs
Thanks for pointing out the 'request for photos' page. I will take a look. I am more interested in getting out and about than actually taking photos but the photos give me a sense of purpose. I still have lots of heritage photos to do. Col Collywolly (talk) 21:31, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Women in Red April Events
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

More Precise ?
Marrangaroo, really ? Is there another to confuse ? Dave Rave (talk)
 * thats the edit summary I use when re-categorising photo requests from NSW into LGA sub-categories. there was a photo request for the prison which happens to be at Marrangaroo. It's got nothing to do with the placename. Kerry (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Grand Master of Lists
You are hereby proclaimed "World Grand Master of Lists" by one who knows a bit about list making and who knows some prolific list makers. If the alleged "heart" icon appeared anywhere on my user page, as suggested at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WikiLove, a fitting tangible memento would have been minted to mark the occasion. Collywolly (talk) 21:36, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Hack-a-Thon workshop
I noticed that you are scheduled to conduct a Wikipedia Hack-a-Thon here at the ANU in Canberra on 3-4 April. Hawkeye7  (discuss)  02:00, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't recall ever using the term Hack-A-Thon, but I am running a training class on 3 April and a edit-a-thon on 4 April (biographies of dead people in the Australian Dictionary of Biography). Kerry (talk) 02:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Bidgee has just organised a meetup in Canberra on 4 April. Kerry (talk) 21:32, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * See you there then! (nb: )  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  21:49, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Not quite what I would have written. Sigh! Kerry (talk) 21:54, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 March 2019
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Maryborough School of Arts
Back in 2015 you started a new article on Maryborough School of Arts, but might have missed that there was an older article on the same topic at Maryborough School of Arts building which was started in 2013. Given your expertise in the area, I wonder if you might be in a position to merge those articles? Klbrain (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing it out. Yes, I will get onto it. Kerry (talk) 00:46, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

thank you
for your really great cleanup of the Australian welcome lamington shemozzle - your effort in the cleanup is much appreciated. as for those of us using it (the oz welcome image of lamington) and not realising that it was a dubious image, well goes to show... JarrahTree 02:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The image had been on Commons for years unchallenged so I guess it's just a case of "such is life". Kerry (talk) 02:50, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * needless to say the effort to go through the damned list of required changes is appreciated. JarrahTree 02:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I do them in batches of 50-100 and then my click-click-click finger gets tired. But at least we can be confident that we don't have a problem with the new lamington photo. I saw Bidgee take it at our ANU edit-a-thon last week so we have no potential copyright issue with it. And then we ate the evidence; they were excellent lamingtons! Kerry (talk) 02:54, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
 * well done all around then! trust the edit-a-thon went ok JarrahTree 02:58, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Jupiter Mosman >> Duncan McIntyre (explorer)
Hi Kerry,

Congrats on your good work on Jupiter Mosman.

His article led me to Duncan McIntyre (explorer), where I discovered an anomaly in the Cooper Creek Camp section, which I have marked with strikeout and Who? tag. I thought you might like to rise to the challenge of fixing it. Cheers, John. Downsize43 (talk) 03:29, 10 April 2019 (UTC)


 * The constant joy of writing about Queensland history is discovering how the various stories are interconnected. This is yet another one. The answer to your question is that it was Duncan McIntyre who searched the Flinders River with Welbo for Leichhardt, described here in his own words:

Enjoy! Kerry (talk) 05:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Downsize43 (talk) 00:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Demonstrating ping for Collywolly
This is a demonstration of me pinging you. Kerry (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Category:Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame inductees has been nominated for discussion
Category:Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame inductees, which you created, has been nominated for conversion into a list. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
hi, thanks for your recent thanks involving Julian Hooper, i created the article after buying a Hooper Dunedin Public Art Gallery art catalogue from a local charity shop and confirming that WP didnt have an entry, its funny where an article can start from...

Coolabahapple (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2019 (UTC) 

VEFriendly
Did VEFriendly quit working last Thursday? Doc Taxon has reported that the German Wikipedia's sandbox page stopped being editable in the visual mode, and it looks like that's when it happened. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it doesn't seem to be working, but I cannot say since when and I don't know why. I don't actually use it myself as I can edit in source. It's there for the convenience of the VE-only users. Looking at my watchlist, I am seeing more VE edits so I presume we have an increasing number of VE-only editors. Of course if we were to switch to Flow or something else instead of Talk, that would solve a large amount of the problem. The Wikipedia namespace though would remain a problem for project activity. Kerry (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Flow, in its current state, needs quite a bit of work. Based on User talk:Jorm, the superficial things that editors don't like mostly seem to be departures from the original design.  But I don't think most people understand it:  it was supposed to replace WP:AFD pages, not necessarily/just User talk: or Talk: pages.  I mean, anyone who's looked through the actual history of user talk pages like this one and seen how many tries it took him to figure out how to copy and paste the unblock request template can only conclude that "simple" wikitext is not at all simple for most people, but we (i.e., we, the editors) need something that handles huge, hairy, complicated things, not just the ability to post a note on my talk page.
 * Since I'm here and talking about this, one of the most striking combinations of information from the information-collecting phase of the big Talk pages consultation comes from the French Wikipedia: Half the people who responded to the RFC started editing ≥10 years ago (this is probably <1% of all accounts), and an editor who has "only" made ~1500 edits over "only" the last five years wrote that if you didn't start before the current decade, then you realistically can't participate fully.
 * This has reminded me of an old secretary/bookkeeper I met 20 years ago. I asked her how she managed to do the complicated payroll/tax paperwork herself, because everyone else was outsourcing to specialist businesses.  She said that it was actually pretty easy – because when she started, there was only one set of paperwork, and the others had all been added slowly over the decades.  I am thinking that participation on Wikipedia works that way, too.
 * No question about it. The learning curve for newbies gets bigger and bigger. And the community has very little tolerance of newbie errors, which is due partly to the fact that this encyclopedia matters to the world and we have to make sure it is as good as we can make it, and partly, because with the gradual decline of the number of active editors vs the increase in the edits done by the active editors, we are all too busy to help the good faith newbie, and it's easier just to revert their problematic edit than to either fix it or to educate them. And communicating with new people isn't always effective; most never reply and I really don't know if they see the messages anyway. We need to make a working email address mandatory on sign-up as we need a more reliable way to communicate with new people than relying on them logging in and seeing User Talk messages. Kerry (talk) 04:05, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The devs deny having (deliberately) broken your button. I'll go talk to them and see whether they have any ideas.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:40, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Part of it's the "templates" – not exactly just templates, but all the "stuff". I've probably mentioned before that I do a little volunteer work at htwiki (which I can't read or write in, but I can still fix wikitext errors), and it's like working in a different world.  There are only a couple hundred templates on the entire wiki, and a large proportion of them are language templates (like the sort we use in ==External links== to say that a website isn't available in English).  The typical article contains one template.  You don't really need to know anything about "wiki" to write a decent article there, especially if you use the visual editor.  You just search for the article you want, click the Edit button, and go.  Communication mostly doesn't happen, but when it does, it's mostly on individual editors' user talk pages or the couple of central forums (which are mostly ignored).  It really feels like an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, because just about anyone who can use a word processor (and speaks Haitian Creole) really could contribute there.
 * The English Wikivoyage is another low-template wiki. Their articles are filled with templates, but they basically only use about 10 templates (over and over and over)n, and only about 1,000 templates are installed on the wiki (by page count, but many of those are actually sub-templates).  Making it easy for people to contribute is one of their explicit goals.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile I and others keep making more templates (and the other stuff) because it increases maintainability. We have the constant problem in Australia that our governments constantly redesign their websites that we frequent use as sources, so URLs are constantly deadlinking in citations. However, generally it is only the domains and top level of the URL that is changing and not final parts of the URL so we template these citations so when yet another website redesign occurs, we just have to fix the URL once in the template and not in the hundreds or thousands of articles that cite that URL. Templates make it easier and faster to do maintainance. But as we build this increasingly elaborate universe, the barriers to entry get higher. Is it time to take down the "anyone can edit" shingle? And replace it with "anyone can edit after doing our online training course?" As much as htwiki may represent "the good old days" of Wikipedia editing, it also is a wiki that has few editors, few articles and few readers. en.WP shows us the realities of a wiki with massive numbers of editors, articles and readers. I see analogies with real-world volunteering. Here in Australia, as a parent you can't just go to your kid's scout leader and say "I'm happy to assist". You have to agree to do a bunch of training (e.g. First Aid, have police checks done, etc). Almost all organisations expect their volunteers to do "General evacuation training", "Code of Conduct", etc. And for good reasons, they need to reduce the risk of letting volunteers loose who do the wrong thing from ignorance. Once upon a time we didn't need road rules, traffic lights and drivers licences (which test your understanding of the road rules etc) but imagine our roads today if we had not introduced these measures. Time to change? Kerry (talk) 01:32, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * If we had global templates and a few similar tools, or systems that let people mass-change normal URLs in the articles without having to learn complicated stuff, then the barrier would be lower. Thinking about the "online training course", I imagine that when you're doing the sixth or seventh nearly identical training course for your kids' sixth or seventh club/program/whatever, you're probably wishing that there was some sort of standardized system, so you could train once and be done.  I don't know if the rest of the US is like this, but in California, I understand that you need a police check to volunteer for anything involving kids, and the checks aren't transferrable, so (in the case of a friend of mine), she's had to do multiple checks for work, plus another for her kids' school, and another for her church, etc., and if the kids show any interest in scouts or similar organizations, then a separate one each for every single group or club.  The going rate in our area is something like $25 for fingerprinting and $100 per organization to get a report, and the volunteers are expected to pay those fees themselves.  So "anyone can volunteer" – as long as anyone can afford hundreds of dollars to pay for the privilege.  I wonder how much we've moved into that kind of a model, except paying in stress and complications instead of money.  Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:54, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Like many things in life, it's important to manage expectations. Under-promise and over-deliver is the key to success, not vice versa. The "anyone can edit" premise is over-promising and the actual newbie experience is under-delivering and so we lose potentially good people. We need to be up-front that there is a learning curve and have an online training modules that help them get started with simple edits, then move onto other things. The people who insist that "anyone can start editing without any training" probably started themselves back in 2003 and learned as they went as you comment above. 07:23, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Growth team updates #7
Welcome to the seventh newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

Newcomer homepage release this week
The main feature that the team has been working on over the last month is the newcomer homepage. This feature gives newcomers a place on the wiki to get oriented, learn about editing, and see their impact (see the accompanying screenshot from Test Wikipedia). We intend to release this feature to Czech, Korean, and Vietnamese Wikipedias on May 2nd.

Like the other Growth team features, this will be deployed in a controlled experiment, in which half of newcomers will have access to their homepage and half will not. Users with the feature will be able to access it by clicking their username at the top of their browser, and it will only be available on desktop -- not mobile. Experienced users who want to see their homepage will be able to turn it on in their preferences.

Wikis receiving the newcomer homepage can expect these things:


 * Additional questions will come to the help desk from the "help module" on the homepage.
 * Mentors who have signed up for the "mentorship module" will start to receive questions on their user talk pages.
 * More users may create and edit user pages through the "start module".



Recent and future homepage development
The most important piece developed for the homepage over the last month is the "start module", which gives newcomers clear actions to take when they are new: add/confirm their email, go through a tutorial, start their user page. We learned about the need for this module from user tests last month. The next priorities for the newcomer homepage are:


 * Mobile design: to work well in mobile browsers, the homepage needs a separate design and engineering. See the accompanying mockups for potential mobile designs.
 * Features for discovery: only about 15% - 30% of newcomers will discover their homepage by clicking their username at the top of their browser. We are going to be designing additional ways for newcomers to find out about it.
 * Additional modules: the initial version contains some of the simpler modules. Potential upcoming modules include task recommendations and a feed of activity on the wiki.

Other updates

 * Help panel leading indicators: our team published data on the help panel's initial performance. The evaluation exposes some areas for improvement, but we think the help panel's behavior so far is healthy and that it is not having a negative impact on the wikis.  We will be publishing additional data, making plans, and asking for community thoughts around the future of the help panel over the course of the next two weeks.  If you are interested in trying out the help panel on your wiki, please let us know on our team's talk page.
 * Long term plans: the team had a week of planning meetings, in which we talked about some longer-term ideas for Growth work. Some of the top ideas are: to extend the newcomer homepage to help user's build their identity through a user profile, and to revisit the "engagement emails" project that the team put on hold.  Over the next month, we will be asking for community conversation around how the team can spend our time in the next fiscal year, that starts in July.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 16:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 April 2019
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cement for Sydney Harbour Bridge
I see there was some discussion about where the cement for Sydney Harbour Bridge came from and whether the University of Tasmania is a reliable source. Of course it is. There is a follow-up blog post on www.kandoshistory.com called "Fake History". It explains how an error came about (that Railton provided the cement for SHB) and how it was corrected (Kandos provided the cement for SHB). I hope this satisfies. Colleen
 * Hi, Colleen! One of the problems we face is that with many people contributing to any article is that erroneous information (that comes from an apparently reliable source) tends to get re-discovered by someone new and re-added to the article after it has been removed (often time and time again). The only way to protect against such information permanently returning to the article is to let as many people interested in that article to know what the situation is. The purpose of my message at Talk:Sydney Harbour Bridge was not to question what you were saying but to make other people aware of the problem, so we don't find Railton cement slipping back into the article based on finding erroneous information on the U Tas web page (or some copy of it or some other work derived from it). The best place to let people know about a matter related to an article is on its Talk page, which is why I wrote there. You might want to follow up there with your Fake History blog post as it's relevant to a lot more people than just me. If you need help as a newcomer, please don't hesitate to ask me! Kerry (talk) 06:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Commonscat proposal
You've submitted an excellent analysis regarding the commonscat proposal. Thank you. - Sitush (talk) 08:11, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Articles to be merged?
Thanks for the tip about Trove citations. It is almost too easy to use. Makes one want to cite, cite, cite.

Coincidentally, I was just going to contact you to mention that the articles on The Gunnery, Woolloomooloo and HMAS Mindari are about the same building. I found the Trove article when looking for something more to say about The Gunnery, for which I took a photo yesterday. It was interesting going to Woolloomooloo as I have never been there before, and then walking up a long flight of steps to Potts Point to take another photo. see Category:55_Victoria_Street,_Potts_Point.

Collywolly (talk) 02:06, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I tagged them as a potential merger. Sit back and let people respond to the proposal. I doubt anyone will object to the merge (it's clearly the same place), but there might be some opinion on which name (or a 3rd name) would be better for the article title (the others will be redirects). And yes Trove does make me want to cite, cite, cite, which is good for Wikipedia. Kerry (talk) 02:33, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Bethungra spiral
Wikimapia has a nice map of the spiral http://wikimapia.org/4786050/Bethungra-rail-spiral though it omits the gravel road (to Bethungra dam) from where some of the Trip Advisor pics were taken. What's the proper way to appropriate this image? Doug butler (talk) 04:36, 12 May 2019 (UTC) P.S. familiar image?


 * Although it's not immediately obvious, if you dig your way through to Wikimapia's Terms of Service, it appears that all maps and other content are licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0. So anything on the site can be legitimately uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. I think because the images themselves are not individually marked as being CC-BY-SA-3.0, I think when you get to the "Source" question in the Commons upload tool, I would put

Bethungra rail spiral from Wikimapia with CC-BY-SA-3.0 licence

I find it's easy to get images knocked back at Commons on the grounds of copyright when the source URL doesn't mention the licence, so hence the explicit inclusion of the site-wide licence. As for TripAdvisor, there is nothing I can see that suggests there is any Creative Commons licensing (or similar), so no joy there. Kerry (talk) 05:17, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Kerry, the Tripadvisor link was just FYI. Those pics are OK but not irreplaceable. Doug butler (talk) 06:59, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks & question re citations using Trove
Hi Kerry, thanks for noticing my edits in rolling out the Template:cite NSW Parliament - not only does it fix link rot now, but it should make it easier to fix when they change the url again as did in Victoria. As the Queensland former members has a similar url structure https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/members/former/bio?id= #### I will implement a similar template for Queensland once I have figured out how to automate the process.

Like you I love Trove, it is amazing to have access to historical records that means research that would have involved vast time pouring through old papers can now be done quickly and easily. It is similarly brilliant in being able to copy & paste a well formatted & complete wikipedia citation. On that note, I have just noticed that there are a few errors in the way it generates the links to the newspapers. Some are as simple as a miscapitalisation which is easily fixed by a redirect. Others however are more problematc, notably the Daily Telegraph, which links the half dozen or so Australian papers to the British paper & the Australian which links the 1824 paper to the current paper. My watchlist showed that User:Certes has an automated process for fixing the links to The Daily Telegraph so I have reached out to them to see if they can help fix the Australian as well. I am sure there are issues arising from wikipedia's end too, such as people creating pages under unexpected names, moving articles & disambiguation pages etc.

Do you know how we can work with people at Trove to keep things together ? Cheers Find bruce (talk) 02:47, 25 April 2019 (UTC)


 * I was their contact point when they did the revamp of Trove a few years back where they made various changes to the pre-formatted Wikipedia template to resolve some issues which were irritating the community. I emailed them yesterday afternoon re the issue and I assume it will be fixed, but have no idea when. There's been a lot of cuts to the library funding which impacts what they can do and how quickly they can do. Yes, the problem with our newspapers is that renaming/disambiguating the article titles on Wikipedia breaks their citations. When they did the revamp, they pretty much got it right, but then things moved on at Wikipedia.
 * Like you, I am increasing moving to templates for these government websites as a response to them changing URLs etc. So the former and current members of Qld Parliament were both on my list to do when their URLs changed (they will probably change together). The reason I have not done it pre-emptively was partly because their last URL change also changed the identifiers, so you don't get as much benefit from a template if the identifiers change as well as the URL :-( As the Qld Parliament don't tend to update their former member entries very often, it may be just as easy to archive their URLs as a pre-emptive action. The downside of a template approach is that it takes you to the current version of the source which may not be the version cited, whereas pre-emptive archiving can take you to the same version as was cited. So it's a bit of a toss-up. Kerry (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I noticed you have seen at John Heussler an example of the older identifiers for Qld politicans. Kerry (talk) 03:39, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding automation, are you aware of AutoWikiBrowser and meta:PetScan? AutoWikiBrower allows you to do repetitive simple edits over a set of articles. Even if the task is too complex to be done as an AWB edit, it is still useful to use AWB to iterate over the articles and for the user to do the more complex edit manually (e.g. when you are disambiguating and you need to read the context to work out which one you want). Petscan is another tool for quickly finding articles that meet certain criteria (e.g. have a citation needed template and are within the Queensland category directly or indirectly). I use both of these from time to time to get tedious jobs done. The only caveat I would make about AWB is that it makes it easier to fix things quickly, but it comes with the risk of getting lots of things wrong very quickly and the often manual cleanup is tedious in the extreme, so you really need to keep your eye on exactly what it is changing in case there are unintended consequences. Kerry (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to use AWB yourself, if you have a mass edit task, please get in touch and I will see if I can do it for you with AWB. It is a massive time-saver for the right kind of task (and Queensland Parliament templates might be among them). Kerry (talk) 03:24, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Kerry, I had heard of funding issues & sadly I am not surprised. I was thinking of 2 things from Wikipedias end, (1) having a list of newspapers that are available on trove & their associated articles, even if they are redlinks, although at 1408 papers its a long list & (2) whether there is a form of move protection or a template that warns of the risk of breaking the connection with Trove. On that note the lists of newspapers are currently a bit of a mess.
 * Changing from one URL to the next is not too difficult when you have a list of the urls. For NSW (& Qld) there is an index page & it is a 10 minute job to copy the entire index to obtain a list of the urls. Add another 10 minutes for the archived index. I had recently discovered PetScan as a way of resolving the difficulties of WP categories - I have used it to generate a single list of members of the NSW Parliament (ie in either LA or LC category). I am currently data matching the 3 lists to get a table that lists the details of all of them.
 * You make a good point about archive-urls. I managed to rescue the Vic template using them. In doing so I discovered that archive.org is not fussy about the date & time in the archive url being accurate - it will take the you to the earlier archive if there is one & if not, to the more recent. I think I should be able to add an archive url based on the access date, but using the dead-url=no switch for current urls. That way the reader will be able to go to the version current when the reference was added.
 * I had heard of AWB but had been holding off on it because of (1) the need to learn it & (2) as you say the risk of borking things up in a dramatic way. It sounds like it is probably time to learn but I might take you up on your kind offer if I get stuck or at least when I think I am ready to go but before I take the leap. Find bruce (talk) 05:15, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Kerry - I got a message from, hoping we could help Trove to help editors with better links - it seems one of their projects is fixing links to the correct papers. I mentioned you were on to it, but it would be good if we could keep them in the loop. BTW I have just been approved for AWB, so now need to work out how it works. Find bruce (talk) 13:29, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Once you have installed it, I'm happy to talk you through the basics (I don't pretend to have mastered it all myself) if you want to exchange phone numbers (use "Email this user" on the left-hand tool bar to do that rather then exchange on-wiki). Also, when you work with AWB, you can save your "setup" for a task in a file so you can reuse it on another occasion. I don't think we really have a repository of these anywhere on Wikipedia, but you can exchange them via email etc. So if you want to show me a setup before you work with it or get me to help fix it, we could do that via email. Kerry (talk) 07:29, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I think I am getting the hang of AWB, through an iterative process better targeting my list and reducing the extent of manual changes. One thing that occurs to me for Trove is that categorising existing pages & redirects should make them easier to find and refer to. I'm thinking something like, and for the redirects sub-categories   and   The latter 2 whilst descriptive are a bit clunky, so happy to hear if you have any better suggestions. Find bruce (talk) 02:26, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think these would have to be hidden categories as they are administrative in character. But I am not entirely how we would make use of them. Kerry (talk) 04:32, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

You might be interested
Hi Kerry, I noticed that you do a lot of good work in Queensland-related articles! I thought you might be interested in this ANI report about the user who's been creating a lot of empty "History" sections, copyright violations, and other problems. I guess you're fairly familiar with them, as I can see you've been helping to clean up after them. Not asking you to do anything, just thought I'd let you know... --IamNotU (talk) 21:43, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the work you did to make the report. I had thought it might be impossible to stop the flow of disuptive edits because of the frequent change in IP address (whether deliberate or unintentional). Let's hope something positive comes from your report. Kerry (talk) 10:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

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Call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019
Welcome to a special newsletter from the Growth team! This special newsletter is not about Wikimedia Foundation Growth team projects. Instead, it is a call for submissions for the Community Growth space at Wikimania 2019. We think that many people who receive this newsletter may have something valuable to contribute to this space at Wikimania. We haven't translated the newsletter, because Wikimania's language is English.

Please see below for the message from the organizers of the Community Growth space at Wikimania.

---

Wikimania 2019 is organized into 19 “spaces”, which are all accepting proposals for sessions. This message comes from the team organizing the Community Growth space.

Since you are interested b Growth team projects, and potentially involved in welcoming newcomers initiatives on your wiki, we would like to invite you to submit a proposal to the Community Growth space because of the actions you’ve done around newcomers on wikis. The deadline for submission is June 1. See below for Community Growth submission topics and session formats. Topics and sessions have to be in English.

In the Community Growth space, we will come together for discussions, presentations, and workshops that address these questions:


 * What is and is not working around attracting and retaining newcomers?
 * How should Wikimedia activities evolve to help communities grow and flourish?
 * How should our technology and culture evolve to help new populations to come online, participate and become community members?

Recommended topics: please see this link for the list for the list of recommended topics. If you do not plan to submit a proposal, you can also suggest additional topics here. If your topic does not fit into our space, remember that there are 18 other spaces that could welcome you sharing your knowledge and perspective.

Types of session. We prefer sessions that are participatory, interactive, promote conversations, and give a voice to parts of our movement that are heard less often. Please see this link for the list of recommended session formats.

Poster submissions. Posters are also a good way to introduce a topic, or show some results of an action. Please consider submitting one!

More information about the Community Growth space, topics, and submission formats is available on the proposal page.

Please submit your proposal. The reviews will happen at the beginning of June.

If you have questions about Wikimania in general, please ask them on the Wikimania wiki.

On behalf of the Community Growth leadership team, Trizek (WMF), 11:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the Lamos
They were delicious. At this stage I'm struggling on with the html about which I know little; but it's coming to me. When I'm in trouble I'll try help but hopefully if that fails I can contact you. I'm impressed by your work on heritage databases. Sarimarais (talk) 01:00, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

is there any reason for..
incomplete tags at all? JarrahTree 13:53, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * What else you do want in them? Kerry (talk) 13:54, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I thought earlier in your edit history you used to actually put most of what is needed - it is now that most are now in the unassessed australian and new south wales lists are being filled by a very experienced editor, it is quite curious why it isnt possible to actually utilise the tags that are made after you - it is also a lot less about what I want - it is more the larger picture where the whole of the australian project now looks like no one is interested in maintenance on the talk pages anywhere in the larger project anymore - your recents only need a small extra bit - like what has just happened at Hampton villa -  thedefault lows are better than none at all.  Thanks for your tagging, if it isnt a problem to add the extra bits - it would be much appreciated as we have so few eds left in the oz project that are actually with your level of article creation, and to be able to help on the other side or talk page - would really help improve the larger project with so little actual extra effort, really.  Hope you are able to see the reason for having a larger picture to this and are able to help. JarrahTree 14:04, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Just tell me exactly what you want added and I will add it. It has many parameters and I don't know which ones you want or what values you want beyond knowing the state. I don't share your enthusiasm for tags, but if some AWB work will make you happy, so be it. Kerry (talk) 14:10, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The example given was Hampton Villa. Thanks for responding. I repeat, it is nothing to do with my personal happiness, (and nothing to do with AWB in any way) it is the mess the Australian project now looks with so few eds actually doing anything like keeping up with assessment and maintenance. If it helps, just check my edits when I follow yours - and bingo - in most cases you will get examples of where assessment can go... JarrahTree 14:23, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * In all fairness, it was late last night that I was asking something, and it was perhaps not the best place and time to suggest a process of project tagging, sorry about that. A page watcher has since sent a particularly bilious quote from someone who thinks any tagging is a waste of time, however until such time as assessment is officially dismissed across wikipedia, the use and application outweighs the weird ideas that counter it.  JarrahTree 00:17, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * And thank you very much for your NSW tagging on the 15th - it is appreciated JarrahTree 01:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Heritage Images
Hi, I have visited 3 heritage houses where I could only photograph the entrance driveway as I did not want to encroach on private property. Would you use the photos in these circumstances, or do you think it is better to leave the articles without a photo. Perhaps I could just make a not on the talk page regarding the situation. Collywolly (talk) 07:28, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * yes,add the photos. It’s a common problem with private residences. You could caption it as “Entranceway, the house is out of sight at the end of a long driveway”, or whatever the situation is. That way, at least others know there is a barrier to going to house hoping to get a photo. If there’s no photo, others may waste their time. 10:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Queensland

 * 1) boycottqueensland Mark melb (talk) 02:25, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks again
Ta for the advice re referencing my Hugh Scott submission. I'm pleased the reviewer is keeping me honest - a second look at the references I have has lead to a new, and exciting, discovery. Sarimarais (talk) 00:03, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 28
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The Signpost: 31 May 2019
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Meeting in Sydney
Hi Kerry, I'm looking forward to meeting you next month at the Wikimedia conferences. Our paths frequently cross here on Wikipedia, it will be good to say hello in person. Oronsay (talk) 05:21, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
 * yes, I am looking forward to meeting more Wikipedians in a face-to-face way. Kerry (talk) 04:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

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A bit of explanation
Hello, I'm glad to see you found a source for the name of Kuluin. I noticed I've been working on quite a few of the same articles you do in the last few days. It may seem I'm removing content left and right, and I wanted to explain. There's an IP editor who's been block-evading, adding (and re-adding!) copyright violations, empty sections with expand tags, and unsourced material to articles. Unsurprisingly for someone who edits this way, they've refused to communicate, ignoring the messages on their talk pages asking them to stop. It's one thing to initially add copyrighted text. It's quite another to remove a large pink template explaining the problem. This has been going on for over six months, and I'm one of many people trying to clean up the mess. You may see the effects of this more than most editors as you and the IP are both interested in Australia. With luck, they'll eventually get bored and find something not-Wikipedia to do, and we'll be done with all this. Cheers, BlackcurrantTea (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's OK. I am well aware of the problem user (albeit with numerous IP account, but the same kinds of edit behaviour) as I see it myself in my watchlist everyday, and appreciate that many people are trying their best to clean up after them. Kerry (talk) 22:22, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Kerry - I was just about to come over and see if you knew about this cleanup, but I see got here first. Just in case you haven't caught up with the magnificent documentation done by, you can now read all about it! Cheers, Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:05, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

A. Prokhorov
Hello, I am Beliknol. I would like to explain my edits to the page Alexander Prokhorov. I agree that he was born in Australia, however this information in accordance with wikipedia guidelines, shouldn't be mentioned in the first paragraph. "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless they are relevant to the subject's notability." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography —Preceding undated comment added 17:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, there are a couple of issues here. Nationality is complicated - there are some articles like the Bee Gees where it is omitted from the lede because it is too complicated. And historically notions of nationality/citizenship are unclear as it was a simpler world that we live in today; place of birth was largely the determinant. Given the time he was born in Australia, he was a British subject from birth (Australian citizenship as a separate concept does not exist until 1948). There is nothing in the article or any source I have read (although such a source may exist) that he ever renounced being a British subject or under what circumstances he obtained Russian and/or Soviet citizenship (he may have acquired it at birth from his parents, for example, or formally applied as a later step). The other thing is notability. He is often written up (in Australia at least) precisely because he was Australian-born as people find it surprising given his life as a Soviet scientist, so it does bear on his notability (why people write about him and why people may be searching for his article). Kerry (talk) 22:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Growth team updates #8
Welcome to the eighth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.

May was a busy month, and we apologize for a slightly late newsletter.

General news

 * The Growth team will begin to work with the Arabic Wikipedia community as a new target wiki. This is in addition to Korean, Czech, and Vietnamese Wikipedias.
 * Several members of the Growth team attended Wikimedia Hackathon. To see what we worked on and learned, read this update (in English).
 * Wikimania 2019 is coming up in August. The conference will include a "Community Growth" space, for sessions about how our communities expand through software and programs.

Early results from newcomer homepage release



 * The newcomer homepage was deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on May 6 for desktop users. It is deployed in an A/B test, so that half of newcomers have access to the homepage and half do not.  They access it by clicking on their username in their personal tools along the top of the window.
 * After about a month of usage, we see a few interesting trends. We think that the usage is going well so far, as we continue to work on the feature
 * About half of users who visit the homepage click on a link or button.
 * About half of users visit the homepage more than once, with about a fifth of users visiting on multiple days.
 * Users are interacting with all the different modules on the page -- there is no clear favorite.
 * Users have been asking questions to their mentors -- but not on the help desk.

Next steps for homepage



 * Because we are seeing good reactions to the homepage from the first users, we are prioritizing work that helps more users find their homepage:
 * Mobile homepage: the team is currently building the mobile version of the homepage. We tested this design with five users, giving us confidence that the design is strong.
 * Features to aid discovery: only a minority of newcomers who have a homepage will find their homepage on their own. The team is designing features that help newcomers learn where to find their homepage.  The most important feature will point to the homepage link using a GuidedTour.
 * User tests showed that the most important thing to add to the homepage are clear task recommendations to help newcomers get started with editing right away. This is the module that we will be working on next.

Future of team in the next year

 * The Growth team has been working since September 2018, and we're now planning for the work we'll be doing for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.
 * Though we have not yet developed a feature that clearly increases growth in our target wikis, we believe that the features we have been developing have high potential to increase growth if we continue to work on them.
 * Therefore, the team will continue to work on the features we have started, and we will develop related features that improve the overall newcomer experience. These features may include:
 * Improvements to how newcomers can build their user pages and develop their on-wiki identity. See initial notes here.
 * Improvements to how newcomers receive notifications on-wiki and through email, so that they quickly find out if other users are contacting them.
 * Processes that help newcomers get awards or recognition for good work.
 * Ways for newcomers to see the activity on the wiki and find others who share their interests.
 * We will start discussions with communities to help us define these ideas before we work on them.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 09:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Mount Isa Mines
Hello Kerry Raymond, mcnuggets is the right name for silver? Regards --Serols (talk) 11:23, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The version I was shown had you replacing silver with gold. Guessing this is the caching bug again. Had one bad 1lib1ref session a few weeks ago when no edit changes were visible in the viewed article but reappeared in edit mode. Kerry (talk) 11:42, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I reverted mcnugget, silver to gold was the IP before. When you have problems, please use the preview button. Regards --Serols (talk) 13:35, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

The June 2019 Signpost is out!
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Disambiguation link notification for July 7
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New Brisbane skyline
Hi Kerry, I put up a new message on Brisbane talk page regarding changing the skyline image which dates from 2012 to one from 2019 which I think is much better. Your thoughts are welcome there--Caltraser55 (talk) 05:01, 14 July 2019 (UTC)