User talk:Mz7/September–November 2014

Talk:SpongeBob SquarePants
For your information, I read those footnotes, but I could not find any information on SpongeBob initially becoming #1 on Nickelodeon as late as the second quarter of 2002! These citations don't seem to say anything about the precise date SpongeBob became #1 on Nick. You need to give me a direct quotation supporting your claim. If you fail, I'm afraid I'll have to remove your answer and wait for a user that is capable of doing some more thorough research on the matter (if you can't, that is). 69.121.17.200 (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and I did a quick Google search for articles on when SpongeBob first became #1 on Nick. No such luck. It seems to me that this topic hasn't been widely documented or discussed in the media. Do you have any advice on where to find such documentation? 69.121.17.200 (talk) 15:15, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

News flash: I have found a source that supports information against what is in the SpongeBob SquarePants article, miraculously. 69.121.17.200 (talk) 16:06, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for elaborating on the issue. Note that I was only responding to your edit request. Edit requests to semi-protected articles should only be "quick fixes" to things such as grammar, tone, and inaccurate information. If an edit request claims a part of the content is inaccurate, a reliable source is generally expected from the editor who requests the edit to support their requested change. There is an unusually large backlog of edit requests right now (over 50 outstanding requests). I'm currently reviewing the situation. Mz7 (talk) 16:15, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I've just responded at Talk:SpongeBob SquarePants. Feel free to reply there. Cheers, Mz7 (talk) 16:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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Is this really neccesary?
Hello, this is CharlieBrown25. If you remember, we decided that we would remove the character list on the Dinosaur Train page. I just got around to doing that three days ago, but I noticed that all the television program articles I've read have character lists with biographical information. This made me dubious of the neccesity of deleting the list. Please answer as soon as possible. Thank you - CharlieBrown25 (talk) 03:43, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi CharlieBrown25. It is certainly possible for a character list to include a description of the character's fictional characteristics (the "biographical information" for a character); however, the description itself should be written from a real-world perspective per MOS:FICTION and verifiable through reliable sources per the verifiability policy. The reason the information we discussed earlier this year gained a consensus against inclusion in the character description is because it failed both points: it wasn't from a real-world perspective and it wasn't verifiable (it was deemed original research, which is by nature unverifiable). The reason why I would support you in removing the character list at Dinosaur Train entirely is sort of summarized in the essay at WP:TNT, except I am not arguing for the deletion of the entire article—just one section. TNT states that it is possible for a page to be so hopelessly irreparable that the only solution is to blow it up and start over. I am inclined to blow up the section with the character descriptions, and rewrite them from scratch, if possible. If it isn't possible to write a character description that is neutral, verifiable, and from a real-world perspective, then we shouldn't write one. However, I believe that TNT is a cleanup solution of the last resort. If you think it is possible to fix the character list without deleting the whole thing, then I won't stop you from retaining it. Hope this helps. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Gee, that sounds like a very difficult task. Just a question, why do we need to write the list from a real-world perspective anyway? - CharlieBrown25 (talk) 04:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * For the case of Dinosaur Train, it does seem difficult because of the scarcity of sources that exist for the characters. If you look at more well-known, longstanding fictional characters, some of them even have full-length articles. See Homer Simpson for example. The reason we write from a real-world perspective is because we are an encyclopedia, not an extension of a fan base. Encyclopedias are references people go to for factual, encyclopedic information. Over the years, the Wikipedia community has decided what is and what isn't considered "encyclopedic information". An "in-universe" perspective is not considered something that a quality encyclopedia should have. Mz7 (alt) (talk) 11:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * But perhaps we can take what seems like the writers are attempting to convey, and if someone thinks the information is false or opinionated, delete it? Because we can probably make some very good character descriptions from common sense. (I've seen it work on other articles before). - CharlieBrown25 (talk) 03:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Sure. I'm not saying that fictional characteristics and backgrounds shouldn't be written about—quite the opposite. It's about how we are writing about those characteristics and backgrounds. Sometimes the best way to describe them is to say flat-out: "Buddy likes to ask questions." The problem comes when articles start to appear as if they are written in the fictional universe they are about. A lot of fan wikis take this approach, but on Wikipedia, it should be avoided. "Buddy likes to ask questions" is, in my opinion, in a real-world perspective, if the implied context is: "In the show Dinosaur Train, Buddy likes to ask questions." As long as we are encyclopedically stating things, I'd be okay with it. By the way, here's a source that supports that statement. Mz7 (talk) 04:44, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:List of banned users
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Dinosaur Train Character List "Citation Needed" Mark
@Mz7 I decided to reincorporate the "crush" idea with Shiny and Gilbert in the character list. I placed a "citation needed" mark after it. But again, FilmandTVFan28 is complaining. I thought the "citation needed" mark was for keeping reasonable but unproven pieces of information in the article. I have had several editors tell me that it isn't reasonable information, but by using scientific reasoning, we can see that it is. First, we use indirect reasoning. We'll assume the opposite, which is that Shiny hates Gilbert. But this can't be true, because she treats him at least as a friend. Now we'll go a step further. That she regards him as only a friend. This also can't be true, since she has been around other males in her age group, and responds with less enthusiasm to them. Now this proves that she at least holds Gilbert in high regard. Now we use inductive reasoning to form a conjecture based on other impirocal truths, that can be proven with experimentation. Shiny's responses to Gilbert have sometimes been misconstrued as mere admiration or idolization, but this often goes hand in hand with amorous emotions; and, keeping in mind that Gilbert is a male, and he is also in her age group, it is highly reasonable that she harbours amorous feelings for him. Which shows that we should keep the crush statement, and put the "citation needed" mark after it. (If the mark's purpose is for reasonable but unproven information). — Preceding unsigned comment added by CharlieBrown25 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 19 September 2014‎ (UTC)


 * Actually, that's not quite right. Two of Wikipedia's core content policies are verifiability and no original research. The verifiability policy states that readers must be able to check that Wikipedia articles are accurate. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The no original research policy bars Wikipedians from using Wikipedia to publish their own thoughts/conclusions that haven't been reported in independent reliable sources. In other words, Wikipedia should be used to report information that has already been reported about in reliable sources. The purpose of the citation needed template is for editors to flag questionable unsourced information, and call upon other users to help in finding a source that verifies the information. The presence of a citation needed template does not immunize the information it accompanies from further scrutiny and potential removal. As a matter of fact, it is Wikipedia policy to remove unsourced content. How quickly this removal happens depends on the unsourced claim and the overall state of the article. The citation needed template is sort of like a buffer to allow for time to find a source to verify the information before it is removed. If it is discovered that there are no sources that can be found to support the information, or if the citation needed template has accompanied the information for a significant amount of time, then the information should be removed.


 * In all honesty, I do not watch Dinosaur Train. The last episode I watched was... I can't even remember. I think in the entire statement you made above, and in comments you've made on the issue in the past, the underlying reasoning for your position is that the information is supported by common sense after watching a few specifc episodes. And I believe you. Seriously I do. However, what I also believe is that it is not necessary to say this information. Especially with other users in disagreement. It is what I call fancruft and is only important in a few aspects of a few episodes. It is not a central part of the character or the series as a whole. From what I've gathered, the series is about promoting discoveries and scientific thinking through education about dinosaurs. I don't see how this information is important to that end, which is why I don't believe it is necessary to include the information. Mz7 (talk) 00:04, 20 September 2014 (UTC), revised 00:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Wow, you know what? I think you just cleared up the whole thing! Everything makes sense now. Even if the crush is common sense, it needs mention from a reliable source to back it. That makes perfect sense. I've muddled over this for four months now, and I never fully put it to rest in my mind. Now I see everything. I'm glad I at least convinced you to believe the crush idea was true (I should probably join a debate team). Very well done Mz7, I think you should be voted Wikipedian of the Year. Now if people like FilmandTVFan28 were helpful like you, instead of just yelling at people who don't fully understand Wikipedia policies and making them feel stupid this whole mess never would've happened. If you were here in person, I'd shake your hand. Thank you VERY much. Graciously - CharlieBrown25 (talk) 01:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

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VisualEditor newsletter—September and October 2014
Did you know? TemplateData is a separate program that organizes information about the parameters that can be used in a template. VisualEditor reads that data, and uses it to populate its simplified template dialogs.

With the new TemplateData editor, it is easier to add information about parameters, because the ones you need to use are pre-loaded.

See the help page for TemplateData for more information about adding TemplateData. The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Since the last newsletter, the Editing team has reduced technical debt, simplified some workflows for template and citation editing, made major progress on Internet Explorer support, and fixed over 125 bugs and requests. Several performance improvements were made, especially to the system around re-using references and reference lists. Weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org.

There were three issues that required urgent fixes: a deployment error that meant that many buttons didn't work correctly (bugs 69856 and 69864), a problem with edit conflicts that left the editor with nowhere to go (bug 69150), and a problem in Internet Explorer 11 that caused replaced some categories with a link to the system message, MediaWiki:Badtitletext (bug 70894) when you saved. The developers apologize for the disruption, and thank the people who reported these problems quickly.

Increased support for devices and browsers
Internet Explorer 10 and 11 users now have access to VisualEditor. This means that about 5% of Wikimedia's users will now get an "Edit" tab alongside the existing "Edit source" tab. Support for Internet Explorer 9 is planned for the future.

Tablet users browsing the site's mobile mode now have the option of using a mobile-specific form of VisualEditor. More editing tools, and availability of VisualEditor on smartphones, is planned for the future. The mobile version of VisualEditor was tweaked to show the context menu for citations instead of basic references (bug 68897). A bug that broke the editor in iOS was corrected and released early (bug 68949). For mobile tablet users, three bugs related to scrolling were fixed (bug 66697, bug 68828, bug 69630). You can use VisualEditor on the mobile version of Wikipedia from your tablet by clicking on the cog in the top-right when editing a page and choosing which editor to use.

TemplateData editor
A tool for editing TemplateData will be deployed to more Wikipedias soon. Other Wikipedias and some other projects may receive access next month. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

Other changes
Several interface messages and labels were changed to be simpler, clearer, or shorter, based on feedback from translators and editors. The formatting of dialogs was changed, and more changes to the appearance will be coming soon, when VisualEditor implements the new MediaWiki theme from Design. (A preview of the theme is available on Labs for developers.) The team also made some improvements for users of the Monobook skin that improved the size of text in toolbars and fixed selections that overlapped menus.

VisualEditor-MediaWiki now supplies the or  class on links to redirects and disambiguation pages, so that user gadgets that colour in these in types of links can be created.

Templates' fields can be marked as ' required ' in TemplateData. If a parameter is marked as required, then you cannot delete that field when you add a new template or edit an existing one (bug 60358).

Language support improved by making annotations use bi-directional isolation (so they display correctly with cursoring behaviour as expected) and by fixing a bug that crashed VisualEditor when trying to edit a page with a attribute but no  set (bug 69955).

Looking ahead
The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon, perhaps in late October.

The team is also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables, and early work for this may appear within the month. Please comment on the design at Mediawiki.org.

In the future, real-time collaborative editing may be possible in VisualEditor. Some early preparatory work for this was recently done.

Supporting your wiki
At Wikimania, several developers gave presentations about VisualEditor. A translation sprint focused on improving access to VisualEditor was supported by many people. Deryck Chan was the top translator. Special honors also go to संजीव कुमार (Sanjeev Kumar), Robby, Takot, Bachounda, Bjankuloski06 and Ата. A summary of the work achieved by the translation community has been posted here. Thank you all for your work.

VisualEditor can be made available to most non-Wikipedia projects. If your community would like to test VisualEditor, please contact product manager James Forrester or file an enhancement request in Bugzilla.

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— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:11, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Track listing
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On creating a user account, etc.
I noticed you gave me a "cookie" for my work on the SpongeBob SquarePants article. You are probably not aware of this, but I actually did create an account here on Wikipedia a long, long time ago. Then, I lost access to my username account a few years ago. From my recent research, the earliest edit I made here with this IP address was in June 2012.

I briefly returned here with my old username account in December of that year, but I never bothered to associate the IP address I am currently using with that account, for fear of being blocked indefinitely when found out. Then, a little while after that, I tried editing the talk page of a semi-protected Wikipedia article; that talk page was also semi-protected.

I then tried logging into my old username account again, but this time, I was unsuccessful. I forgot my password, and when I tried getting Wikipedia to send me an Email to reset my password, my Email service never detected a single Email from Wikipedia. And so I have continued editing using this IP address ever since, and never bothered to get my old account back.

But now, since you gave me a reward for my actions, I think I've learned a lesson. If I am ever successful in getting my old username account back into my usage, I promise I will no longer revert back to using an IP address. All I'd be afraid of then is getting an angry or frustrated message on a discussion page or my talk page, or a warning message on my talk page in case I made a big mistake.

Do you have any advice for how to handle these kind of messages if they really annoy me? Just so you know, my Email service is Gmail, by the way. Best regards, 69.121.17.200 (talk) 20:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Replied on your talk page. —Mz7 (talk) 21:21, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. By the way, I tried resetting my password yet again. Unfortunately, I did not receive a response this time either. Based on what you said in your recent response, I have no choice but to create another account. I must have never updated my Email address on my old account. I used to have Hotmail a while back. Would it be wise to create a new account right away? 69.121.17.200 (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't believe there is currently anything restricting you from creating an account right away. —Mz7 (talk) 19:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Very well. I have created a whole new account just now. I was the IP address 69.121.17.200, but now I'm replying under my new username. I hope you're glad, and have fun on Wikipedia! Classicalfan626 (talk) 20:07, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons
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VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014
Did you know? VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web. Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements
The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData
''' The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November. ''' This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead
Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.  You can influence VisualEditor's design . Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

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— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:41, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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Copyright checks when performing AfC reviews
Hello. This message is part of a mass mailing to people who appear active in reviewing articles for creation submissions. First of all, thank you for taking part in this important work! I'm sorry this message is a form letter – it really was the only way I could think of to covey the issue economically. Of course, this also means that I have not looked to see whether the matter is applicable to you in particular. The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered. If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.) If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Wikipedia to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with. Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors. I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC). Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Every Soul a Star book cover.jpg
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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 00:22, 29 November 2014 (UTC)