User talk:PKM/18 July 2013-June 2015

DYK
Just letting you know that I nominated an article that you started for DYK - Template:Did you know nominations/The Nativity (Burne-Jones). SL93 (talk) 03:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

The Nativity
Nice work; thank you. I'm going to nominate it for DYK, and I hope there will be a QRpedia code on the sketch in Walsall shortly. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I see it's already at DYK. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * thanks, Andy. You may find this amusing... http://www.francisfrith.com/torquay/photos/st-johns-church-picture-by-burne-jones-1906_54033/ - PKM (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

DYK for The Nativity (Burne-Jones)
— Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:02, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetup
You are invited to "Come Edit Wikipedia!" at the West Hollywood Library on Saturday, July 27th, 2013. There will be coffee, cookies, and good times! -- Olegkagan (talk) &mdash; Message delivered by Hazard-Bot at 04:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Heraldry and Vexillology project
Greetings! I have requested commentary from members of the heraldry and vexillology project at WT:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology. Please comment there. Thank you! Wilhelm Meis (&#9742; Diskuss &#124; &#x270D; Beiträge) 18:20, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetup
Help build the Wikipedia community in Southern California at "Come Edit Wikipedia!" presented by the West Hollywood Library on Saturday, August 31st, 2013 from 1-5pm. Drop in for some lively editing and conversation! Plus, it's a library, so there are plenty of sources. --Olegkagan (talk) &mdash; Message delivered by Hazard-Bot at 02:55, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Erastus Salisbury Field
I think I just saw this article for the first time, but it had a familiar and well-done look. The smartvideo looks great. I experimented with the new packed gallery and wanted to see what you think. In general I think these look better, but they adapt to your page formatting, which can have surprising results for different people. You might want to get rid of the "-hover". In any case please let me know what you think and remove the "mode=packed" too if you think that's for the best.

Smallbones( smalltalk ) 00:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It does seem to act differently on different machines. See Thomas Cole for a packed gallery without the "-hover" Smallbones( smalltalk ) 01:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Simple thanks
Last year you uploaded File:Lanterman House Screened Porch.JPG for Wiki Loves Monuments. Just wanting to say thanks for including it — I've just written an article on screened porches (how didn't anyone write one before?), and your image was perfect. I've nominated the article for DYK and suggested that your photo be the lead image. Nyttend backup (talk) 13:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, and thanks for the compliment. It's been forever since last I heard of a new article on a topic of common knowledge (doctor's office), and I've never before written one myself.  It was really hard to find sources — everyone knows what they are, and there's not much to study about them, so nobody mentions them very much.  Nyttend (talk) 23:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia-smarthistory collaboration project listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Category:Wikipedia-smarthistory collaboration project. Since you had some involvement with the Category:Wikipedia-smarthistory collaboration project redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Another Believer ( Talk ) 16:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Merging Cambric and Batiste
Hello PKM, could you give your opinion (for example on my talk page) on which to merge into which ? Cheers, &mdash;&thinsp;Racconish&thinsp;Tk 16:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Edit-a-thons at UC Riverside
The UCR Libraries are hosting three edit-a-thons focusing on their great special collections (science fiction, water resources, the Inland Empire and more) on Oct. 12, 2013, Oct. 26, 2013, and Nov. 23, 2013. Please participate if you can! Details and signup here. All are welcome, new and experienced editors alike! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Netherlandish tapestry
Hi again PKM. Johnbod recommended I contact you re, to make sure its comprehenisve and correct, so here I am. I've made a broad stab at the section, but might appreciate a more informed view. The intention is to get the article overall to FAC, so I'm now asking for input from the people that are expert on the different areas. If you are preoccupied or otherwise indisposed, thats fine, not going to be offended. Ceoil (talk) 23:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. A wearly and watchful eye would be appreciated. Ceoil (talk) 02:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

New Hoefnagel
.

A previously unpublished Joris Hoefnagel, sold at Christie's last December. - PKM (talk) 02:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter
Books and Bytes Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013 by , Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved... New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted. New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis?? New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration Read the full newsletter ''Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)''

Wikimedia LGBT
I just wanted to bring Wikimedia LGBT, a proposed user group and thematic organization that promotes the development of content on Wikimedia projects which is of interest to LGBT communities, to your attention. I am sure you are so busy with your current projects, but I hope you might be able to direct people to this group if they are interested in LGBT content in any way. Of course, you are also more than welcome to indicate your interest/support, if you wish. Hopefully we can get some LGBT-related GLAM/Education/etc. projects up and running in the near future. Best, -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey
As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasit &#124; c 15:51, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Greetings! and request for collaboration...
Hello PKM-- In 2012 my students and I worked on the 18th century fashion pages and you were a wonderful collaborator. I wanted to let you know that I'm back (with a different username because I forgot my old name!) and this time we are doing a history of fashion class from the Renaissance to the present. My students will be editing the different timeline pages for the next 6 weeks, adding brief, factual remarks and appropriate citations. They will not be making any major edits to anything until later in the semester. I hope you'll be willing to answer questions or offer us newbies guidance or advice as we go along. Many thanks in advance.FashProf (talk) 11:07, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Streatham portrait
Hi PKM, I recently wrote an article on the Streatham portrait of Lady Jane Grey and was hoping to bring it to GA. User:Johnbod said you are great with the subject area (portraits and female period dress), so I was wondering if you could take the time to look at the article and verify that I'm using the terminology correctly? I'm a complete dud when it comes to fashion (from any age) and thus would not feel comfortable with nominating this for GA unless there were third party verification. Thanks beforehand. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:30, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you right kindly. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:02, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That sounds quite interesting... wonder why nobody's mentioned it in any of the sources I've had access to? Thank you for looking, I'll nominate the article for GA shortly. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:51, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Peer review request
Hi PKM, I was polishing up our article on the Streatham portrait in preparation for a run at FAC, and was wondering if you could be so kind as to participate in the peer review? No worries if you are too busy, though. Thanks beforehand, and another thank you for the help with the sleeves. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:44, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Done! - PKM (talk) 19:14, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:47, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

JSTOR Survey (and an update)
Hi! Just a quick update that while JSTOR and The Wikipedia Library discuss expanding the partnership, they've gone ahead and extended the pilot access again, until May 31st. Thanks, JSTOR!

It would be really helpful for growing the program if you would fill out this short survey about your usage and experience with JSTOR:

SURVEY

Cheers, Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Just bought
Pope-Hennessy, John, A Lecture on Nicholas Hilliard, 1949, Home and Van Thal, London, with ex libris plate for "Dr. Roy Strong F.S.A.", for £2, or about $2.50. A very decent read too. Unlike my Kenneth Clark, he has left it un-marked otherwise, though the wrapper is ragged. He seems to have bought it when marked down 75%, perhaps when being the impecunious teenager he loved to talk about. All the best, Johnbod (talk) 13:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That's great! What a find. - PKM (talk) 17:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

See User:Smallbones/Pandora (Rossetti)
Mostly just a collection of refs and related pix. It will take me awhile to get going on this, but at least it's going. I do have a small photo from the V&A of the pose in 1865, but looking for a larger version. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 17:26, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Portraiture of Elizabeth I of England
Stumbled upon this article. Fascinating and completely engaging. Thought I'd just leave a comment at the author's page to complement you on creating it! It's a very engrossing article, and if you had the time and willpower I'd certainly encourage you to nominate it for good article status, which it deserves. --LT910001 (talk) 00:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library: New Account Coordinators Needed
Hi Books & Bytes recipients: The Wikipedia Library has been expanding rapidly and we need some help! We currently have 10 signups for free account access open and several more in the works... In order to help with those signups, distribute access codes, and manage accounts we'll need 2-3 more Account Coordinators.

It takes about an hour to get up and running and then only takes a couple hours per week, flexible depending upon your schedule and routine. If you're interested in helping out, please drop a note in the next week at my talk page or shoot me an email at: jorlowitz@undefinedgmail.com. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Please fill out your JSTOR email
As one of the original 100 JSTOR account recipients, please fill out the very short email form you received just recently in order to renew your access. Even though you signed up before with WMF, we need you to sign up again with The Wikipedia Library for privacy reasons and because your prior access expired on July 15th. We do not have your email addresses now; we just used the Special:EmailUser feature, so if you didn't receive an email just contact me directly at jorlowitz@undefinedgmail.com. Thanks, and we're working as quickly as possible to get you your new access! Jake (Ocaasi) 19:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 7
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 7, June-July 2014 by, ,

 Read the full newsletter MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Seven new donations, two expanded partnerships
 * TWL's Final Report up, read the summary
 * Adventures in Las Vegas, WikiConference USA, and updates from TWL coordinators
 * Spotlight: Blog post on BNA's impact on one editor's research

Books and Bytes - Issue 8
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 8, August-September2014 by, ,

 Read the full newsletter   MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * TWL now a Wikimedia Foundation program, moves on from grant status
 * Four new donations, including large DeGruyter parntership, pilot with Elsevier
 * New TWL coordinators, Wikimania news, new library platform discussions, Wiki Loves Libraries update, and more
 * Spotlight: "Traveling Through History" - an editor talks about his experiences with a TWL newspaper archive, Newspapers.com

Talk:1930–45 in fashion
Left some comments there. Churchh (talk) 09:07, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Tudors and Melancholy
Good to see you back PKM. Dürer's Meisterstiche are something I've long wanted to tackle in this place. Interesting page youve picked up on. Ceoil (talk) 15:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Byzantine silk needs more pics
I've just added some miniatures of people (ok emperors) wearing them to Category:Byzantine_textiles on commons. Johnbod (talk) 00:12, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * not ignoring, just busy :-) - PKM (talk) 21:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

TfDs of likely interest
Please see WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 22 (and the related WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 20), as the outcome will strongly affect WP:WikiProject Glossaries and MOS:GLOSSARIES. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:08, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Cross wiki issue
Hello PKM, I have been informed on my French talk page of a massive cross wiki spam, with the replacement of the 'big four' fashion capitals by an alleged notion of the 'big five' including Berlin, based on a single questionable source (see my talk page and my last contributions). Your third opinion on the related articles would be most welcome, as well here as on other projects where you feel comfortable. Mabalu is trying to help too (see my talk page), and your opinion would be most helpful. Thanks, &mdash;&thinsp;Racconish&thinsp;&#9993; 16:14, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing any recent discussion on the relevant talk pages where consensus could be built.  Maybe I'm looking at the wrong articles? - PKM (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As I said, the discussion is on my talk page. Thanks; &mdash;&thinsp;Racconish&thinsp;&#9993; 06:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (November 2014)
Hello Wikimedians! The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:


 * DeGruyter: 1000 new accounts for English and German-language research. Sign up on one of two language Wikipedias:
 * English signup
 * Deutsch signup
 * Fold3: 100 new accounts for American history and military archives
 * Scotland's People: 100 new accounts for Scottish genealogy database
 * British Newspaper Archive: expanded by 100+ accounts for British newspapers
 * Highbeam: 100+ remaining accounts for newspaper and magazine archives
 *  Questia: 100+ remaining accounts for journal and social science articles
 * JSTOR: 100+ remaining accounts for journal archives

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team 23:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)


 * You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
 * This message was delivered via the Mass Message to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

New GLAM Project Page
Hi PKM! You helped my colleague Craub get our GLAM project page up and running at George Washington University. I'm looking to use the same page template here in my new role at Johns Hopkins (with the tabs at the top) but I'm not sure how to create it. Would you be able to offer some guidance? There is actually already a GLAM/JHU page, but it's only about one standalone class project from a couple years ago. I contacted Kippelboy, who created it, and he gave me the okay to make it over as a broader GLAM page and include the class project as a component of our larger initiative. I was thinking that would be better than making another page called GLAM/Johns Hopkins University or something like that. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer! Flappable (talk) 22:29, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * . happy to help - watch for an email from me. - PKM (talk) 02:49, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

New GLAM Project Page
Hi PKM! This is Craub aka Chloe again, you helped me out a couples years ago with GWU's GLAM project page. I'm now at the Newcomb Archives and Vorhoff Library Special Collections, a branch archive and special collections library of Tulane University. I'm working to create a GLAM presence for us - I got over my fear of code and created the page using your awesome template for tabbed project pages! Check it out here. However, I'm still stumped on a few things and would LOVE your assistance if you have the time. I'd like to add an article quality assessment table to our welcome page, and also create a template for assessing articles. I'd also like to create a user box for volunteers. I can provide an image - I was unsure of how to best upload our image into Commons, as it's still technically under our copyright, and we would like to add it in WikiMedia Commons but I don't want to claim that I am the rights holder and none of the other rights categories seem to fit. Thanks in advance for your help, I'd be grateful for your expertise, once again! Craub (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
 * sure I can help. Assessment templates aren't hard to set up, they're just tedious and finicky.   Your tabs look great!


 * The image may be an issue, as you'll need to freely license it. But the OTRS process to allow someone with the Library to release it may work. I'll drop you an email (probably Friday) and we'll get this all sorted.  - PKM (talk) 01:54, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Now Available (December 2014)
Hello Wikimedians! The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:


 * Elsevier - science and medicine journals and books
 * Royal Society of Chemistry - chemistry journals
 * Pelican Books - ebook monographs
 * Public Catalogue Foundation- art books

Other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team.00:25, 18 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
 * This message was delivered via the Mass Message tool to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

Macrame spammed?
I guess the last edit on macrame is spammy but I am too inexperienced to draw the line and know how to deal with it Jo Pol (talk) 12:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look later today. - PKM (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone beat me to it. Known spammer. - PKM (talk) 18:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 9
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 9, November-December 2014 by, ,

 Read the full newsletter MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * New donations, including real-paper-and-everything books, e-books, science journal databases, and more
 * New TWL coordinators, conference news, a new open-access journal database, summary of library-related WMF grants, and more
 * Spotlight: "Global Impact: The Wikipedia Library and Persian Wikipedia" - a Persian Wikipedia editor talks about their experiences with database access in Iran, writing on the Persian project and the JSTOR partnership

Orphaned non-free image File:Marshall Fields Catalog 1936 1.jpg
 Thanks for uploading File:Marshall Fields Catalog 1936 1.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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) 00:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 1
Hi! Thank you for subscribing to the WikiProject X Newsletter. For our first issue...

'''Has WikiProject X changed the world yet? No.'''

We opened up shop last month and announced our existence to the world. Our first phase is the "research" phase, consisting mostly of reading and listening. We set up our landing page and started collecting stories. So far, 28 stories have been shared about WikiProjects, describing a variety of experiences across numerous WikiProjects. A recurring story involves a WikiProject that starts off strong but has trouble continuing to stay active. Most people describe using WikiProjects as a way to get feedback from other editors. Some quotes:
 * "Working on requested articles, utilising the reliable sources section, and having an active WikiProject to ask questions in really helped me learn how to edit Wikipedia and looking back I don't know how long I would have stayed editing without that project." – Sam Walton on WikiProject Video Games
 * "I believe that the main problem of the Wikiprojects is that they are complicated to use. There should be a a much simpler way to check what do do, what needs to be improved etc." – Tetra quark
 * "In the late 2000s, WikiProject Film tried to emulate WP:MILHIST in having coordinators and elections. Unfortunately, this was not sustainable and ultimately fell apart." – Erik

Of course, these are just anecdotes. While they demonstrate what is possible, they do not necessarily explain what is typical. We will be using this information in conjunction with a quantitative analysis of WikiProjects, as documented on Meta. Particularly, we are interested in the measurement of WikiProject activity as it relates to overall editing in that WikiProject's subject area.

We also have 50 people and projects signed up for pilot testing, which is an excellent start! (An important caveat: one person volunteering a WikiProject does not mean the WikiProject as a whole is interested; just that there is at least one person, which is a start.)

While carrying out our research, we are documenting the problems with WikiProjects and our ideas for making WikiProjects better. Some ideas include better integration of existing tools into WikiProjects, recommendations of WikiProjects for people to join, and improved coordination with Articles for Creation. These are just ideas that may or may not make it to the design phase; we will see. We are also working with WikiProject Council to improve the directory of WikiProjects, with the goal of a reliable, self-updating WikiProject directory. Stay tuned! If you have any ideas, you are welcome to leave a note on our talk page.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing!

– Harej 17:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 10
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 10, January-February 2015 by, ,

 Read the full newsletter MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
 * New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
 * TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 2
For this month's issue...

Making sense of a lot of data.

Work on our prototype will begin imminently. In the meantime, we have to understand what exactly we're working with. To this end, we generated a list of 71 WikiProjects, based on those brought up on our Stories page and those who had signed up for pilot testing. For those projects where people told stories, we coded statements within those stories to figure out what trends there were in these stories. This approach allowed us to figure out what Wikipedians thought of WikiProjects in a very organic way, with very little by way of a structure. (Compare this to a structured interview, where specific questions are asked and answered.) This analysis was done on 29 stories. Codes were generally classified as "benefits" (positive contributions made by a WikiProject to the editing experience) and "obstacles" (issues posed by WikiProjects, broadly speaking). Codes were generated as I went along, ensuring that codes were as close to the original data as possible. Duplicate appearances of a code for a given WikiProject were removed.

We found 52 "benefit" statements encoded and 34 "obstacle" statements. The most common benefit statement referring to the project's active discussion and participation, followed by statements referring to a project's capacity to guide editor activity, while the most common obstacles made reference to low participation and significant burdens on the part of the project maintainers and leaders. This gives us a sense of WikiProjects' big strength: they bring people together, and can be frustrating to editors when they fail to do so. Meanwhile, it is indeed very difficult to bring editors together on a common interest; in the absence of a highly motivated core of organizers, the technical infrastructure simply isn't there.

We wanted to pair this qualitative study with quantitative analysis of a WikiProject and its "universe" of pages, discussions, templates, and categories. To this end I wrote a script called ProjAnalysis which will, for a given WikiProject page (e.g. WikiProject Star Trek) and WikiProject talk-page tag (e.g. Template:WikiProject Star Trek), will give you a list of usernames of people who edited within the WikiProject's space (the project page itself, its talk page, and subpages), and within the WikiProject's scope (the pages tagged by that WikiProject, excluding the WikiProject space pages). The output is an exhaustive list of usernames. We ran the script to analyze our test batch of WikiProjects for edits between March 1, 2014 and February 28, 2015, and we subjected them to further analysis to only include those who made 10+ edits to pages in the projects' scope, those who made 4+ edits to the projects' space, and those who made 10+ edits to pages in scope but not 4+ edits to pages in the projects' space. This latter metric gives us an idea of who is active in a certain subject area of Wikipedia, yet who isn't actively engaging on the WikiProject's pages. This information will help us prioritize WikiProjects for pilot testing, and the ProjAnalysis script in general may have future life as an application that can be used by Wikipedians to learn about who is in their community.

Complementing the above two studies are a design analysis, which summarizes the structure of the different WikiProject spaces in our test batch, and the comprehensive census of bots and tools used to maintain WikiProjects, which will be finished soon. With all of this information, we will have a game plan in place! We hope to begin working with specific WikiProjects soon.

As a couple of asides...


 * Database Reports has existed for several years on Wikipedia to the satisfaction of many, but many of the reports stopped running when the Toolserver was shut off in 2014. However, there is good news: the weekly New WikiProjects and WikiProjects by Changes reports are back, with potential future reports in the future.
 * WikiProject X has an outpost on Wikidata! Check it out. It's not widely publicized, but we are interested in using Wikidata as a potential repository for metadata about WikiProjects, especially for WikiProjects that exist on multiple Wikimedia projects and language editions.

That's all for now. Thank you for subscribing! If you have any questions or comments, please share them with us.

Harej (talk) 01:44, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

A new reference tool
Hello Books & Bytes subscribers. There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3
Greetings! For this month's issue...

We have demos!

After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:
 * A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
 * An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.

We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.

Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.

While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.

Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.

We need volunteers!

WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!

As an aside...

Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.

Harej (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy
I just ran into this article at DYK nominations and am a bit interested in it, but haven't had much time to edit it. You might be interested in it as well. Seeing Jackie in 1962 is quite something. The White House and its furnishings is also a gas. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 14:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I actually remember watching that when it first aired, a long, long time ago.  - PKM (talk) 20:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 11
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 11, March-April 2015 by, , ,

<div style = "margin-top: 1.5em; border: 3px solid #ae8c55; border-radius: .5em; padding: 1em 1.5em; font-size: .9em"> Read the full newsletter MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * New donations - MIT Press Journals, Sage Stats, Hein Online and more
 * New TWL coordinators, conference news, and new reference projects
 * Spotlight: Two metadata librarians talk about how library professionals can work with Wikipedia

The Wikipedia Library needs you!
<div style = "color: #936c29; font-size: 4em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif"> The Wikipedia Library <span style="font-size: 2em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif">Call for Volunteers

<div style = "margin-top: 1.5em; border: 3px solid #ae8c55; border-radius: .5em; padding: 1em 1.5em; font-size: .9em"> The Wikipedia Library is expanding, and we need your help! With only a couple of hours per week, you can make a big difference in helping editors get access to reliable sources and other resources. Sign up for one of the following roles:
 * Account coordinators help distribute research accounts to editors.
 * Partner coordinators seek donations from new partners.
 * Outreach coordinators reach out to the community through blog posts, social media, and newsletters or notifications.
 * Technical coordinators advise on building tools to support the library's work.

Sign up to help here :)  Delivered on behalf of The Wikipedia Library by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4
Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?


 * A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
 * A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
 * New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
 * SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
 * Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.

Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)