User talk:Simon Burchell/Archive 17

DYK for Título C'oyoi
— Maile (talk) 13:11, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Central Acropolis
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Today's featured article/May 23, 2016
I've raised the issue with David that I don't think it's a good idea to delete images on the day an article is due to hit the Main Page. Personally, I don't keep up with image issues, and I don't know what the problem was. Do you have other images that might work? - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, how about one of the maps? Simon Burchell (talk) 19:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Which one do you like? - Dank (push to talk) 19:08, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * How about the one with the Yucatan Peninsula, with invasion arrows - it is then immediately evident where the events took place - I'm using an Android at the moment, so not easy for me to copy and paste filenames, it's about half way down the page. Simon Burchell (talk) 19:13, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks like File:17th century Spanish routes to Petén flat.gif, I'll pass that along. - Dank (push to talk) 19:28, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The image is relevant to the area's geography (the context in which it's presented in the article), but it provides no meaningful illustration of anything mentioned in the blurb (which, to be clear, isn't indicative of any problems therewith).
 * Please see my talk page for additional thoughts on the matter. —David Levy 03:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Byzantine navy
Hi Simon! Regarding this edit, can you please point me to where it has been mentioned? As the main author, I'd like to see what it's about :). Cheers, Constantine  ✍  14:12, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi - it was mentioned here on the Independent website. Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 14:15, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot! Constantine  ✍  14:21, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

DYK for K'atepan
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 7 June
Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. as follows: Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=User:A930913/RBpreload&editintro=User:A930913/RBeditintro&minor=&title=User_talk:A930913&preloadtitle=ReferenceBot%20–%20&section=new report it to my operator]. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:15, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
 * On the Central Acropolis page, [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=724214548 your edit] caused a broken reference name (help) . ([ Fix] | [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Help_desk&action=edit&section=new&preload=User:ReferenceBot/helpform&preloadtitle=Referencing%20errors%20on%20%5B%5BSpecial%3ADiff%2F724214548%7CCentral Acropolis%5D%5D Ask for help])

Books & Bytes - Issue 17
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 17, April-May 2016 by The Interior, Ocaasi, UY Scuti, Sadads, and Nikkimaria

 Read the full newsletter The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:36, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * New donations this month - a German-language legal resource
 * Wikipedia referals to academic citations - news from CrossRef and WikiCite2016
 * New library stats, WikiCon news, a bot to reveal Open Access versions of citations, and more!

TWL Questia check-in
Hello!

You are receiving this message because The Wikipedia Library has record of you receiving a one-year subscription to Questia. This is a brief update to remind you about that access:


 * Make sure that you can still log in to your Questia account; if you are having trouble feel free to get in touch.
 * When your account expires you can reapply for access at WP:Questia.
 * Remember, if you find this source useful for your Wikipedia work, make sure to include citations with links on Wikipedia: links to partner resources are one of the few ways we can demonstrate usage and demand for accounts to our partners. The greater the linkage, the greater the likelihood a useful partnership will be renewed.
 * Write unusual articles using this partner's sources? Did access to this source create new opportunities for you in the Wikipedia community? If you have a unique story to share about your contributions, email us and we can set up an opportunity for you to write a blog post about your work with one of our partner's resources.

Finally, we would greatly appreciate if you filled out this short survey. The survey helps us not only better serve you with facilitating this particular partnership, but also helps us discover what other partnerships and services The Wikipedia Library can offer.

Thanks! 20:25, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

FAC voluntary mentoring scheme
During a recent lengthy discussion on the WP:FAC talkpage, several ideas were put forward as to how this procedure could be improved, particularly in making it more user-friendly towards first-time nominees. The promotion rate for first-timers at FAC is depressingly low – around 16 percent – which is a cause for concern. To help remedy this, Mike Christie and I, with the co-operation of the FAC coordinators, have devised a voluntary mentoring scheme, in which newcomers will guided by more experienced editors through the stages of preparation and submission of their articles. The general format of the scheme is explained in more detail on Mentoring for FAC, which also includes a list of editors who have indicated that they are prepared to act as mentors.

Would you be prepared to take on this role occasionally? If so, please add your name to the list. By doing so you incur no obligation; it will be entirely for you to decide how often and on which articles you want to act in this capacity. We anticipate that the scheme will have a trial run for a few months before we appraise its effectiveness. Your participation will be most welcome. Brianboulton (talk) 21:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Many thanks for signing up. The response from would-be mentors has been most encouraging. Schemes like this are often slow to take off, and it may be a while before we know if it's  working.  But with this level of support, including that of many of our most experienced FA editors, I think it has  every chance. Brianboulton (talk) 17:01, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Books & Bytes - Issue 18
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 18, June–July 2016 by, Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

 Read the full newsletter The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
 * Spotlight: GLAM and Wikidata
 * TWL attends and presents at International Federation of Library Associations conference, meets with Association of Research Libraries
 * OCLC wins grant to train librarians on Wikimedia contribution

Do you still perform spotchecks for Spanish-language sources?
Hello Simon! I was wondering if you still do spotchecks for Spanish-language sources for featured articles candidates. Thanks! Erick (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi - yes I am still willing to do Spanish-language spotchecks when I have the time. Did you have a particular article in mind? Simon Burchell (talk) 10:04, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. I have nominated Aries (album) for FAC which, like my previous nominations, has a large amount of Spanish-language sources. Thank you Simon. Erick (talk) 13:40, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Latin American 10,000 Challenge invite
Hi. The WikiProject Latin America/The 10,000 Challenge ‎ has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland The 10,000 Challenge and WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Argentina etc, much like The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. At some stage we hope to run some contests to benefit Latin American content, a destubathon perhaps, aimed at reducing the stub count would be a good place to start, based on the current WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon. If you would like to see this happening for Latin America, and see potential in this attracting more interest and editors for the country/countries you work on please sign up and being contributing to the challenge! This is a way we can target every country of Latin America, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant!♦ Dr. Blofeld  16:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Doc. I seem to be really busy off-wiki these days, but I'll see what I can do. Best regards, Simon Burchell (talk) 12:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:11, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Latin American 10,000 Challenge invite
Hi. The WikiProject Latin America/The 10,000 Challenge ‎ has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland The 10,000 Challenge and WikiProject Africa/The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Argentina etc, much like The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. At some stage we hope to run some contests to benefit Latin American content, a destubathon perhaps, aimed at reducing the stub count would be a good place to start, based on the current WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon. If you would like to see this happening for Latin America, and see potential in this attracting more interest and editors for the country/countries you work on please sign up and being contributing to the challenge! This is a way we can target every country of Latin America, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant!♦ -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 00:52, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 19
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 19, September–October 2016 by Nikkimaria, Sadads and UY Scuti  Read the full newsletter 19:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * New and expanded donations - Foreign Affairs, Open Edition, and many more
 * New Library Card Platform and Conference news
 * Spotlight: Fixing one million broken links

Interview invitation from a Wikipedia researcher in University of Minnesota
Hello Simon Burchell,

I am Bowen Yu, a Ph.D. student from GroupLens Research at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Currently, we are undertaking a study about turnover (editors leaving and joining) in WikiProjects within Wikipedia. We are trying to understand the effects of member turnovers in the WikiProject group, in terms of the group performance and member interaction, with a purpose of learning how to build successful online communities in future. More details about our project can be found on this meta-wiki page.

I would like to invite you for an interview if you are interested in our study and willing to share your experience with us. The interview will be about 30 - 45 minutes via either Skype or Google Hangout. You will receive a $10 gift card as compensation afterwards.

Please reach me at bowen@cs.umn.edu if you are interested or have any questions.

Thank you, Bowen

DYK for Beatriz de la Cueva
— Maile (talk) 00:01, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Carazamba
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

DYK for El Progreso Department
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 20
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 20, November-December 2016 by, , ,

 Read the full newsletter MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Partner resource expansions
 * New search tool for finding TWL resources
 * # 1lib1ref 2017
 * Wikidata Visiting Scholar

Precious five years!
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Simon Burchell (talk) 08:49, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Spanish conquest of Honduras
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Spanish conquest of Honduras you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Auntieruth55 -- Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 11
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Alonso de Cáceres, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Cáceres. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Beacon Hill, West Sussex
Mifter (talk) 12:01, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Blewburton Hill
— Maile (talk) 12:04, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I, for three reasons: (i) they weren't shown in the top-right, so I altered inline to inline,title; (ii) they were given to six places of decimals, which according to WP:OPCOORD, implies a precision of 10 cm, or an object about one metre across - so I altered it to three places, or a precision of about 100 metres; (iii) there were no type: or region: parameters, so I added them.
 * Do you live near Blewburton Hill? I live five miles away from it. You might be interested in a Wikipedia meetup in Oxford tomorrow. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries about the coords - no I don't live locally (2 hours by train), I just had a day off work and went hiking out that way. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 21:41, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Peñol de Cerquín
— Maile (talk) 12:04, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

DYK for King John's Hill
Mifter (talk) 00:02, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 21
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 21, January-March 2017 by, , , ,

 Read the full newsletter Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * # 1lib1ref 2017
 * Wikipedia Library User Group
 * Wikipedia + Libraries at Wikimedia Conference 2017
 * Spotlight: Library Card Platform

I agree, but... what is the harm? 'younger then' list

 * I agree that one should not have to write to a list like that but if the change of a word that does not change the meaning of the sentence and removes a false positive which saves time for the editor working on that list; what is the harm? Thank you for considering another possibility. Bobdog54 (talk) 17:29, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. The harm is the insidious creep of writing to keep the bots happy. We do not write articles for the bots/scripts etc. we write them for the general readership. If a false positive is being thrown up, the problem is not the article, it is the script, which should be amended. There was nothing wrong with the phrase as written, and rewording it is painting over the real problem. As for the list itself, it is effectively invisible to the normal readership, and by no means obvious to an experienced editor. There are potentially many, many instances where "younger then", with or without punctuation/capitalisation etc., is not a typo for "younger than". I would argue that word combinations should be removed from such lists altogether - any typos will be picked up by a reader sooner or later. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 08:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for helping me to realize that I was being wagged a bit. Your considered response has given me food for thought. Regards, Bobdog54 (talk) 13:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem - thank you for considering my response! All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 10:29, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Sagunto Castle
Mifter (talk) 00:03, 20 April 2017 (UTC)