User talk:Thryduulf/archive14

Hi Thryduulf
Tx for supporting my Arb motion. Lately it occurred to me however the crux of the problem was probably not so much kafkaeske conditions being imposed on someone, but that person unscrupulously imposing them on others. No amount of arbcom remedy (rewrites) would probably change that.

I had hoped at least ArbCom would have reminded the person that also remedy 3.3 of the infoboxes case is still in force (no battleground behaviour!). Maybe some day the person understands. Maybe not. But from my side, no regrets the motion has been canned. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:00, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem from my point of view is that the arbitration sanctions have instead of stopping the infoboxes dispute's impact on the encyclopaedia it has made it worse by requiring WP:OWNERSHIP and all the battleground behaviour that comes with that. I have hopes that one day the committee will see the mistake that it has made and act. Instead it has yet again refused point blank to even consider the possibility that it isn't all sweetness and light - very much a head in the sand attitude. Thryduulf (talk) 22:19, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, agree. Under current conditions they are leaving the work to us chickens every time we come across such ownership-oriented editors, to get the situation defused. I'll be still more uncompromising on ownership issues from now on I suppose, at least that's what I took from the arbcom motion proceedings I initiated. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Guy Fawkes Night cheers!


Happy Guy Fawkes Night!

Hello Thryduulf: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Guy Fawkes Night!   –  Si Trew Si Trew (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC) Spread Guy Fawkes cheer by Tarring and feathering a Roman Catholic!
 * You're a day early, but thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 21:56, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I see almost everything coming ahead, as if it were laid down in the stars or a ready-reckoner, or perhaps calendar, my child. It is all written in the stars, and in this diary my aunt gave me. The only exception to my plan of life is whatever the wife says, for that will be done, whether I like it or not, but is never predicted by the oriel. Si Trew (talk) 22:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

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.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

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

Wooton House image on Commons
The picture of Wotton House on Commons for which you reverted my change is of the one in Surrey. It should not be given the category Wotton House because that one is in Buckinghamshire. Thats why I removed it. I suggest you do now.Plucas58 (talk) 17:10, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I've undone my edit. It was the combination of removing that category and the removal of the The Iron Bridge category from another image that made me think this was in error. Thryduulf (talk) 19:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I might have a pic for Wootton House which I can freely share (taken by my family). Can you ping me to remind me. I think it is about 1959. Si Trew (talk) 16:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies
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RfD nov 9 10 and 11
Any idea why they are missing on these dates? Did I do somethng by mistake to knock them out? I don't want to bother you unnecessarily but it seems a bit odd to me. Si Trew (talk) 16:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Erm, afaict they are not missing. Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 9, Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 10 and Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 November 11 are all blue links for me. They will not be transcluded onto the main RfD page until that day (i.e. tomorrow UTC for November 9). Thryduulf (talk) 16:35, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think I am a complete idiot, since it is (was) only 8 November. Si Trew (talk) 01:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks (RfD)
Thanks for fixing the RfD template at the Awake! redirect. Twinkle failed to automatically add the template, and it's been so long since I've done it manually that I'd forgotten which template was the right one.-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 07:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: October 2014
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 23:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Awake (RfD) - thanks
Thanks for that revert, I must have slipped and saved it by mistake, was not my intention to subvert the discussion. Si Trew (talk) 08:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

ARCA
Thanks for your comments, and for leaving notes on the article talk pages. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC).

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources
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Thanks for your input on the wiki markup RFD!
Hey Thryduulf, I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for taking the time to analyze the status of the huge amount of redirects that I had nominated. At this time, I have nothing to debate or add to your comments. (However, that may be subject to change if I have more time, or if I think of something else.) I also wanted to come here to say ... if you believe that my nomination would be better off going through the RfC process in one way or another, I will in no way oppose. (I thought that the technical complications behind these redirects would have been merit enough for the majority of these to be clearly deleted, so thus, I didn't nominate then separately. [Though I was unsure about nominating '', considering that its usefulness is blatantly obvious, but ended up nominating it anyways since it falls in the scope of my concern regarding all of the redirects I nominated.] However, I also believe that if one person thinks this way, then there are most likely others who think the same.) Steel1943  (talk) 00:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No I think RfD is the correct process to use for these. If I was nominating this many though I'd probably have broken them into chunks (perhaps alphabetically) and nominated them over several days to make it easier to digest - but that might have resulted in less input and/or just "per yesterday" type comments so it's a toss-up who is right.
 * Generally I don't see the need for these redirects, and I would discourage their creation (but as several I've seen have been the result of different people independently trying to achieve what does, that's not going to do much; and I just know that a title blacklist would get in the way of something somewhere!) but there are ones that are seeing significant use or have some other reason they should be kept. A way to see what traffic is bot driven would help (possibly coming AIUI) and which comes from internal links and which comes from outside Wikipedia would be very helpful though (not possible afaik). Which leaves the requirement to make some educated guesses, and I always err on the side of keeping something if it seems likely people are using it. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Imran Khan
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Proposed Closure of Formula 1 2015 season German Flag dispute
I have proposed a closure to the dispute as most parties seem to have understand the opposing views and simply disagree with them and there appears to be a consensus, as an uninvolved editor I would appreciate you weighing in here. SPACKlick (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. I've only just seen it, so far too late to comment, but I am happy with teh outcome. Thryduulf (talk) 18:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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section edit at RfD
dear Thry,

Am I just my usual idiot or every time I go to edit section I get the whole page for that day (at RfD) not just the section. That is a change. It is not that I cannot be bothered to track it – I shall – but the usual business if you edit a section is that it edits a section, not the entire section.

I make it plain. Editing an entry on "Fitzrovia" on "12 December 2014" does not lead you to "2014_December_12#Fitzrovia". Call me mr stupid but I spend most of my time editing articles and improving them. Something has changed but I can't put my finger on it, but now every time I make a contribution to RfD it has the whole day;s page when I just wnat the one bloody item. And then I cock it up by editing another item when I meant to put one at the bottom. You know me well enough, I am no stranger to cock-ups, but that is absurd.

but also I should like to say, Merry Christmas all to you and yours. Another year survived and improved by good people like thee and I hope me trying to make things better. I know you are perfect and I am not very good, but I try. I hope at least I have made it a little better.

May your god go with you.

S.

Our Dear Leader on Question TIme
Hi Thry,

Where should we announce it? I imagine it is kinda common knowledge, but my search here in Hungary has nothing about it. I think it will be 8 anuary but was ust announced at the end of the programme as "Our guests will be, Jimmy Wales [I think Jimmy was announced by the chairman David Dimbleby not "James" etc] and other boring politicians [my edit]." I know RfD was the wrong forum, but pace there is no other, really. I have no idea how to submit to Signpost, I just humbly gnome in the background. I get enough abuse about that. I edited a parish rag with 500 delivery for four years and had it set up in type and had to correct middle class English from this comprehensive inky who knows a split infinitive when he sees one, a special pleasure of mine telling the high middle classes that "the hoi polloi" is not good because "hoi" means "the", see fowler, and see them squirm from this poor comprehensive kiddy. I also beat the hell of em out of them at some village do at scrabble, and I wasn't even do ing the nips and tucks but laid some Shakespearean word and was called on it. And of course it is in Shakespeare. Never think a comprehensive schoolboy is thick. I have been fighting tha all my life and will continue to do so. That is about the only chip on my shoulder. When someone assumes I am thick because I speak with a cockney accent, my word you have my hackles up. And I even know what hackles are.

Take your laughs where you can. I still wish you a merry Christmas. I think I signed S. last time, which is how i usually sign in real life, but you can have Si Trew (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: November 2014
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 22:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You've made it
Make us proud. 86.106.137.3 (talk) 02:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I will do my best. Thryduulf (talk) 02:32, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I came also for congratulations! So far arbitration was (for me at least, as you watched,) a synonym for waste of time, and ideally it shouldn't even be needed, - let's work on that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed, you had the misfortune to be involved in the case that was the committee's low point over the past few years. I'm going to do my best to make sure nobody else has that experience. Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * My experience is nothing compared to Andy's, - did you see ? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * My condolences on your election. ;-)
 * I hope that you turn out to be one of those amazing people who can be exposed to the worst problems in the community every day, and still remain optimistic about our future. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Induction to the 2015 Arbitration Committee
Congratulations on your success in the elections and welcome onto the 2015 Arbitration Committee. In the next few days we will induct you and the other new arbitrators. Please email from the email address you wish to use for registration on the various private wikis and mailing lists. Please also indicate which, if any, of the checkuser and oversight permissions you wish to be assigned for your term (if you don't already hold both).

Over the coming days, you will receive a small number of emails. Please carefully read them. If they are automated registration emails, please follow the instructions in them to finalise registration. You can contact me or GorillaWarfare (the designated newbie contacts) directly if you have difficulty with the induction process. Lastly, you must identify to the Wikimedia Foundation prior to being appointed. Please promptly go to the Identification Noticeboard and follow the instructions linked there if you are not already identified.

Thank you for volunteering to serve on the committee. We very much look forward to working with you this term.

For the Arbitration Committee, AGK  [•] 08:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this message. I am toying with the idea of setting up a new email address specifically for arbitration-related matters, so it might be tomorrow before I email to set up registration, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 08:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!!


E-e-bayer_lover  (talk)  is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message. E-e-bayer_lover  (talk)  22:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, although it doesn't really feel that Christmasy yet - despite it being the WMUK Christmas Party tomorrow!. Thryduulf (talk) 23:14, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh you poor sod
You poor, poor sod. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR - David Gerard (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)
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Experience?
Re your comment about the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=prev&oldid=638646360 "appallingly written"] decision, I find myself wondering if you have any prior experience serving on an authoritative decision making board? NE Ent 12:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have experience in dispute resolution in the online world, and just shy of a decade's experience of Wikipedia and the need for remedies to say what they mean in the least ambiguous way possible, and of the need for remedies to actually be capable of solving the problem the set out to (which is not true of the infoboxes case remedies as a whole). Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * (watching) last time today's favourite edit summary peace and joy - I am convinced that my "remedies" might have worked better, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:12, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Which reads like a "none" -- the key word being "board." As a member of the committee ya'll have as close to absolute power as it gets on English Wikipedia, but as an individual, in theory you have no more cred than you currently have: in practice I think you'll find you have less freedom of moment because begin "arbitrator" puts you in a bit of a glass bowl. (See WP:Bradspeak). Your job will be difficult enough without making your fellow committee members look bad by excessively harsh and unnecessary public criticism -- you can't make remedies say anything without the support of the other members.
 * Incidentally, I couldn't care less about infoboxes. As a reader, if I want to know when Ada Lovelace passed away, what possible difference does it make to me whether the date's in the lead, the Death section, or an infobox? 1852 is 1852. A great tragedy of Wikipedia is editors who care so much and work so hard end up in conflict over things that, in the big scheme of things, aren't really that important. NE Ent 18:25, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * (still watching) I am not interested in infoboxes, no more than in images in articles. Both are nice to have. What got me into a situation that was interpreted as fighting were two things: I don't like people being so interested in "no infobox" that they remove them from articles others wrote (actually that was the reason why the infobox case was requested, - I wasn't asked, would have said nooooooo), and I saw a friend in danger to be banned who hasn't done anything I would call disruptive since 2012 (26 December, to be precise, two days after TFA on her birthday, - she is not even a classical composer, actually I wouldn't call it disruptive, but there are others who think a FA should not be edited at all.). - I think the situation improved greatly, and have proclaimed the 2005 infobox wars over more than once. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I do not want to rehash the arguments for or against infoboxes here, as that will not be productive, but as a reader I am very appreciative when there is an infobox and I severely disliked the attitude and behaviour of some who disagree. I also think that the remedies in that arbitration case have not resolved the dispute (the number of subsequent amendment and clarification requests does nothing to dispel this view), and the way it required WP:OWNership of articles has been particularly counter-productive and just further entrenched views. I was not alone in predicting this at the time. My being on the committee does not mean that I cease to have an opinion - especially about the work of committees past. Thryduulf (talk) 21:31, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for having an opinion and not changing it, - possibly some voted for you because of it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—December 2014


Did you know?

Basic table editing is now available in VisualEditor. You can add and remove rows and columns from existing tables at the click of a button.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor. Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on table editing and performance. Their weekly status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

VisualEditor was deployed to several hundred remaining wikis as an opt-in beta feature at the end of November, except for most Wiktionaries (which depend heavily upon templates) and all Wikisources (which await integration with ProofreadPage).

Recent improvements
Basic support for editing tables is available. You can insert new tables, add and remove rows and columns, set or remove a caption for a table, and merge cells together. To change the contents of a cell, double-click inside it. More features will be added in the coming months. In addition, VisualEditor now ignores broken, invalid  and   elements, instead of trying to repair them.

You can now use find and replace in VisualEditor, reachable through the tool menu or by pressing ⌃ Ctrl + F or ⌘ Cmd + F.

You can now create and edit simple  paragraphs for quoting and indenting content. This changes a "" into a "".

Some new keyboard sequences can be used to format content. At the start of the line, typing " * " will make the line a bullet list; " 1. " or " # " will make it a numbered list; " == " will make it a section heading; " : " will make it a blockquote. If you didn't mean to use these tools, you can press undo to undo the formatting change. There are also two other keyboard sequences: " [[ " for opening the link tool, and " {{ " for opening the template tool, to help experienced editors. The existing standard keyboard shortcuts, like ⌃ Ctrl + K to open the link editor, still work.

If you add a category that has been redirected, then VisualEditor now adds its target. Categories without description pages show up as red.

You can again create and edit galleries as wikitext code.

Looking ahead
VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme designed by the User Experience group. The new theme will be visible for desktop systems at MediaWiki.org in late December and at other sites early January. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" theme and the new "MediaWiki" one which will replace it.)

The Editing team plans to add auto-fill features for citations in January. Planned changes to the media search dialog will make choosing between possible images easier.

Help
If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Meta.
 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Translations of the user guide for most languages are oudated. Ukrainian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch translators are nearly current. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language.
 * Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Wednesday, 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC.
 * File requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.

Thank you! WhatamIdoing (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

RfD closures
Thank you for closing all these RfD discussions. However, where the result is not delete please could you add to the redirect's talk page. When I'm doing that I normally tag the redirect for the same wikiprojects as the target (using class=redirect and no importance parameter), but this is entirely optional. See Talk:Windows X in a couple of minutes for an example. Thryduulf (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I have generally been adding Old RfD, but I missed that one. Guess I'm still new at the process.  8) -- Beland (talk) 01:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It was the only one I had time to check, so a bit of good/bad luck! Thryduulf (talk) 02:24, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasonal Greets!
Thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 10:48, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion
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Penlee inflation help please
Hello Thryduulf, Happy New Year, and sorry to bother you out of the blue. I watch Tees Transporter Bridge and I was interested by your edit there sorting out the inflation-adjusted figure. If you had a moment, could you please have a quick look at the £3M/£10M thing in Penlee lifeboat disaster (first paragraph), which has a similar issue? I was already concerned about its ambiguous wording, which I've now had a try at; but I think it may need a similar treatment to sort out the year thing, as it is currently showing 2015. I did look at your work on the bridge but I don't feel confident about how the syntax works, so I would be very pleased if you could find time to see to this one too. Sorry for the cheeky request, but thanks! Best wishes DBaK (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem at all and now done. The syntax for is very simple - it takes one mandatory parameter which is the country the inflation figures are for (in the same format as the  template uses), e.g. "UK" in this case. I noticed a couple of days ago that  is not mentioned in the documentation for the main template so there are probably hundreds of uses of CURRENTYEAR or vague time statements (as I happened across at B-25 Empire State Building crash the other day), but haven't had chance to fix. I'll drop a note on it's talk page - thanks for the reminder! Thryduulf (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's brilliant, thank you very much. Best wishes DBaK (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Article titles
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This Month in GLAM: December 2014
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 11:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you! Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Speedy keep
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Question
Could you see if the editor who made this diff has any registered accounts and if so quietly have a clerk block them? Thank you. Jehochman Talk 05:07, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've forwarded your request to the Functionaries list as I am not awake enough myself (it's 5:20am here). Thryduulf (talk) 05:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Lightning in a tropical cyclone
I've closed the longstanding RFD for Lightning in a tropical cyclone as no consensus with an unusually detailed rationale. Basically, nobody wanted to keep it, but there wasn't consensus on what to do, so I've taken a bold step of un-redirecting it and immediately sending it to AFD to get input from people who don't often show up at RFD. I'd really appreciate your input at Articles for deletion/Lightning in a tropical cyclone, where I've given a strong suggestion that people pick between the RFD-favored steps of deletion or retargeting to lightning. I'm attempting to notify everyone who participated in the RFD (that's BDD, Ivanvector, Inks.LWC, Guy1890, Steel1943, and Thryduulf), but if I missed someone, please do the notification for me. Nyttend (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

ITN for Leon Brittan
-- Spencer T♦ C 00:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Note
Before casting your vote in the Wifione case, please be sure to have read and understood this thread. If you have any questions, please ask. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Wifione is accused of editing tendentiously and avoiding accountability. The topic area is the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), its owners and its competitors. A massive sock farm (sockmaster named Mrinl Pandy) dominated the topic area until it was revealed shortly before Wifione arrived. DGG's statement (linked in the last thread on the above-linked page) is a good place to start. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 20:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ban appeals reform 2015
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Please look at the substance
There are reasons I'm saying what I am saying. Please look at the substance of the complaints and what is actually being said. We are dealing with a person with a history of manipulation and dishonesty. If you haven't noticed this same user is trying to use that case as a blunt hammer to gain her ends. I have voluntarily stayed away from Lightbreather because our paths do not cross in article space, my only involvement is seeing a page that is against WMF policies (after massive canvassing it was hard to miss) about discrimination and the SPI which remains in my watchlist. The others have been directly related to the arb case. TKOP assessment is actually quite true but he also misse3s the fact that Lightbreather was pulled into the SPI because she accused me of casting aspersions then too and after a large investigation it was proven true. Please look into the substance, it's vastly important so you won't be manipulated. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW the committee didn't endorse anything, two arbs were involved in a discussion started by Lightbreather on her talkpage. Again it's the manipulation of the facts surrounding the presentation is vital. I have added enough evidence I think including I believe 5 admin comments showing that TKOP and myself are not in any way casting aspersions. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 17:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Mind keeping it on the case page? Thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 01:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Please consider the merits of Salvio's oppose. I think it's the best idea in front of the committee now for this situation and will help vastly address both peoples complaints. Nothing say it has to be a popular result but a fair result that benefits the encyclopedia that stops disruption is the way to go. Those sanctions of admin boards removal is something that has seemed to work well with Tarc. I would ddefintely sacrifice my pride for such an equitable result. It doesn't address the off wiki issues butI don't follow people on private websites and can easily ignore the attack page. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 14:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News 2015—#1


Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's appearance, the coming Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. Upcoming plans are posted at the VisualEditor roadmap.

The Wikimedia Foundation has named its top priorities for this quarter (January to March). The first priority is making VisualEditor ready for deployment by default to all new users and logged-out users at the remaining large Wikipedias. You can help identify these requirements. There will be weekly triage meetings which will be open to volunteers beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Tell Vice President of Engineering Damon Sicore, Product Manager James Forrester and other team members which bugs and features are most important to you. The decisions made at these meetings will determine what work is necessary for this quarter's goal of making VisualEditor ready for deployment to new users. The presence of volunteers who enjoy contributing MediaWiki code is particularly appreciated. Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Due to some breaking changes in MobileFrontend and VisualEditor, VisualEditor was not working correctly on the mobile site for a couple of days in early January. The teams apologize for the problem.

Recent improvements
The new design for VisualEditor aligns with MediaWiki's Front-End Standards as led by the Design team. Several new versions of the OOjs UI library have also been released, and these also affect the appearance of VisualEditor and other MediaWiki software extensions. Most changes were minor, like changing the text size and the amount of white space in some windows. Buttons are consistently color-coded to indicate whether the action: The TemplateData editor has been completely re-written to use a different design (T67815) based on the same OOjs UI system as VisualEditor (T73746). This change fixed a couple of existing bugs (T73077 and T73078) and improved usability.
 * starts a new task, like opening the dialog: blue ,
 * takes a constructive action, like inserting a citation: green ,
 * might remove or lose your work, like removing a link: red, or
 * is neutral, like opening a link in a new browser window: gray.

Search and replace in long documents is now faster. It does not highlight every occurrence if there are more than 100 on-screen at once (T78234).

Editors at the Hebrew and Russian Wikipedias requested the ability to use VisualEditor in the "Article Incubator" or drafts namespace (T86688, T87027). If your community would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace on your wiki, then you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.

Looking ahead
The Editing team will soon add auto-fill features for citations. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to contribute to the Citoid service's definitions for each website, to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections.

We will need editors to help test the new design of the special character inserter, especially if you speak Welsh, Breton, or another language that uses diacritics or special characters extensively. The new version should be available for testing next week. Please contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF) if you would like to be notified when the new version is available. After the special character tool is completed, VisualEditor will be deployed to all users at Phase 5 Wikipedias. This will affect about 50 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh. The date for this change has not been determined.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Please help complete translations of the user guide for users who speak your language.
 * Join the weekly bug triage meetings beginning Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 12:00 (noon) PST (20:00 UTC). Information about how to join the meeting will be posted at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal shortly before the meeting begins. Contact James F. for more information.
 * Talk to the Editing team during the office hours via IRC. The next session is on Thursday, 19 February 2015 at 19:00 UTC.

Subscribe or unsubscribe at VisualEditor/Newsletter. Translations are available through Meta. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Nikki Craft
This article appears to be a copyvio of the nickywicky (Craft's own website, that isn't a wiki, as far as I can tell)... but its hard to be sure, and I haven't attempted to determine by analysis, because there are deeper problems. The article has been extensively edited by users who appear to be Craft and her intimates over the years. Looking back the nature of the Craft's campaigning seems to have been rewritten. I saw that you had some involvement with this article over the years. What, if anything, do you think should be done with this article?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC).


 * I haven't had anything to do with this article since 2006 and have had to read the first AfD to find out what that involvement was, so I have no opinions about what should be done with it - for that I suggest you use the talk page or a relevant WikiProject. However if you think an article is a copyvio, then follow the instructions at WP:COPYVIO. I don't have time to do anything about it myself, sorry. Thryduulf (talk) 10:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No worries, I'll put it on my pile. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC).

February 2015
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 * points on the route. The race ended in Madison Square Garden, where the $25,000 first prize equal to $0 in  was awarded to [[Andy
 * points on the route. The race ended in Madison Square Garden, where the $25,000 first prize equal to $0 in  was awarded to [[Andy

Please comment on Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–14)
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This Month in GLAM: January 2015
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

How dare you..?
Fir the record, no apology was necessary for. Thank you for your attentiveness and kind action. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I have to ask though whether applying pine leaves to vinyl is a recommended way of treating LPs? ;) Thryduulf (talk) 11:44, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Debauchery listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Debauchery. Since you had some involvement with the Debauchery redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Mr. Guye (talk) 00:29, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

The Harm
I am coming to you directly because, it's not quite relevant to the motion but your view of non-disclosure seems quite blinkered. As stated in the WP:TOU non-disclosure is a kind of dishonesty, which is barred for all users (including you and me every-time we press save) for that reason. The harm is to the integrity of the project and the work product. It may not bother you personally that you are reading autobiography or product communication from the manufacturer in the guise of an encyclopedia article, but the general reader should be able to at least be have some access such information. All that is asked is for the user to be up front and honest or don't press save. Dishonesty is harm. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Disclosure is best, for transparency and ethical reasons even if nothing else, and should absolutely be encouraged in the strongest terms. However, non-disclosure and non-neutrality are not the same thing - every article should be neutral, regardless of who has written it. Every article that is not neutral should be tagged and/or improved, regardless of who has written it. The harm cause by a non-neutral article is identical whether the author was paid or not and if they were whether they disclosed this or not. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It cannot be. Autobiography that is written as an encyclopedia article is missing a key encyclopedic fact about the content - that it is a direct communication from the subject.  The harm of dishonesty also exists independent of the content - casting doubt on the encyclopedias integrity. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Dishonesty is not unique to undisclosed paid relationships - someone not disclosing they are the child of an article subject, or that they volunteer for the organisation the article is about, or that their dad is the CEO of the article subject, or that they work for the article subject (but are editing Wikipedia entirely in their own time), or are a passionate believer in the subject but are not affiliated with it at all, are a student at the educational institution they are editing about are all doing exactly the same as an undisclosed paid editor, are far more numerous than undisclosed paid editors.
 * I'll admit that it's probably a rare example, but someone who declares they have a conflict of interest with an article and engages only on the talk page without disclosing the nature of the COI is that they are paid by the subject is breaking the letter of the TOU without being dishonest in a relevant sense.
 * How is autobiographical content relevant here? If something is autobiographical, it is autobiographical (with all the issues that entails) regardless of whether someone is being paid to write about themselves or not. Thryduulf (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (Autobiography was just used as a simplifying form.) You identify other dishonesty, but so?  Paid COI just happens to be a well defined thing in society. Nor have you dealt with the issue of disclosure of direct communication between the subject's agent and the reader or the agent and the writer, which is hidden, deliberately so, and is the reason for mistrust. You speak of a culture of transparency but you don't get there by saying it does not matter -- yes every writer on this project should be examining themselves all the time in what they do -- request and guide them to do that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:54, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Nor have you dealt with the issue of disclosure of direct communication between the subject's agent and the reader or the agent and the writer, which is hidden, deliberately so, and is the reason for mistrust. I'm sorry but I do not understand that sentence.
 * What I am saying regarding transparency is that for all we can and should encourage transparency we cannot know when people are not being. We are all here (or at least we all should be) to write a general purpose, neutral point of view encyclopaedia - does knowing whether someone is an undisclosed paid editor or biased for another reason really help us to get to that end?
 * I also disagree that paid editing is well defined as a whole - yes someone who receives money to edit an article about Company X is a paid editor. Is someone who uses Wikipedia as part of research for which they are paid and who fixes typos they encounter while doing so a paid editor? What about someone who, in their own time, adds information to their employer's article? Does it matter if their employer knows? What if the employer knows but doesn't approve?
 * You haven't explained why undisclosed paid editing is worse than (or indeed different to) any other form of undisclosed conflict of interest, when the effect on the articles is identical.
 * The bottom line is that while transparency is important, it is not as important as making sure the articles are neutral and of high quality. Anything that distracts as from that goal, such as trying to identify a particular editor's motives, is ultimately a hindrance. Thryduulf (talk) 01:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * COI in written work is a well defined concept in society. All one has to do is read reliable sources on it.  More importantly the sentence you don't understand is key.  It is part of producing comprehensive neutral encyclopedic coverage to 'say where you got it': Eg. If the manufacturer of the product is the one writing the article on the product, they are the source. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * But "editors with a conflict of interest" and "paid editors" are not synonyms, they are overlapping sets and neither wholly encompasses the other. Just because one term is defined does not mean, or even imply, that the other is also defined or definable. The problem is that the outcome is non-neutral writing, not whether one author is or is not being paid. If the article is neutral then it doesn't matter who wrote it because it is neutral. If the article is not neutral then it doesn't matter whether this is because of undisclosed paid editors, fanboys, narcissism, or any other reason. Thryduulf (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. If the disclosure that the company is writing about the company is not made, the article is informationally incomplete. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That is not an answer to my question. Why and how is this one form of COI different to any other form of COI? Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm a sorry. I did not see a question mark. COI's differ based on relationship to the material, but other than that they only differ because to the extent the writer represents the subject, they need to disclose that for appropriate coverage of the subject, because they agree to do that when they use this website. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Because people come here to write about what interests them, most editors have to some degree a conflict of interest This is assumed as a matter of course, and all pour NPOV policies are there to deal with it. Paid editing is a particular virulent form of COI editing, because in practice it generally leads to work that is more like a press release than an encyclopedia article, and needs to be both monitored and discouraged. Our COI policy provides for that also. Undisclosed paid editing makes it much harder to maintain NPOV, and has the potential to destroy the encyclopedia by turning it into a medium for advertising. Opinions vary on whether paid editing should be permitted at all: the  most convincing reason to permit it,  is   to  decrease the incentive for a paid editor not declaring themselves, by providing a legitimate way of proceeding.  DGG ( talk ) 03:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And yet we encourage certain kinds of paid editing on a regular basis (in fact the original draft of the TOU would have pretty well wiped out the Wikipedian-In-Residence program, not to mention any edits by subject matter experts); and the vast majority of COI editing does not require disclosure, because there's no money involved. Risker (talk) 05:19, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * These policies are still a work in progress. I use Wikipedia all the time at work and sometimes fix broken things along the way. If I want to point a client to an article so they can understand a technical topic, is there something wrong with me fixing (unpaid) that article? If on the other hand I'm writing a report for a court case and will be citing an article, I wouldn't touch it.  ("Mr. Hochman, you cited this article, but first you edited it to say what you wanted. Didn't you?")  Jehochman Talk 07:34, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Many times people who are paid to edit are people who we want to engage with us on the talk page. Often they will have knowledge of and access to sources we want. Particularly if the article is not comprehensive or is negatively or recently biased they can tell us about significant events we are missing. Also we should be reporting what the organisation's POV is about events - and we can't do that unless we know what it is. Similarly on the talk page of articles about competitors they can be a voice to discourage hagiography. Not forgetting that if staff members get a good experience with Wikipedia then they are more likely to be receptive to approaches about open licensing their content. Paid editing of Wikipedia does not always mean being paid to write encyclopaedia articles, and being paid to write encyclopaedia articles does not necessarily mean writing non-neutral encyclopaedia articles. Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Most of wikipedia's serious neutrality problems stem from people who carry a burning Truth in their hearts, and don't need to be paid - they have a mission to spread that Truth. Whether it's religious or ethnic or national wrongs that need to be righted; every discredited theory from marxism to shiatsu; or simply telling the world how awesome some obscure 90s popstar is. Wikipedia's structure makes it harder to deal with this when there's more than one person; but the tiny minority paid to promote a topic are usually lone editors, so their particular neutrality problems are much easier to clean up.
 * Focussing on a small and relatively benign subset of neutrality problems is unhelpful; transferring that to an outgroup of editors whether or not they're responsible for a particular problem is worse; the fact that members of this outgroup are very hard to conclusively identify is just icing on the cake. bobrayner (talk) 06:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty good summary of my opinion too, rather better put as well. Thryduulf (talk) 12:08, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Unhelpful? What?  Focusing on a subset, is more likely to bring change to the set as a whole than saying 'nothing matters' as you argue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence of that. All I see those hunting undisclosed paid editors are doing is attempting to eliminate one motivation to edit Wikipedia while caring (almost) nothing for the effect of those editors (there is no attempt to determine whether they are editing neutrally or not) and ignoring completely bias introduced by any editor who is not failing to disclose they are paid. I'm also not saying "nothing matters", what I'm saying is that the only thing that matters is whether articles are biased or not. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What hunting undisclosed paid editors? When do these huntings arise? They certainly don't happen when there is non-problematic editing.  What do you mean ignoring bias?  If everyone is ignoring bias, as you contend then you are right to say nothing matters.  It's not about motivation, it is about honesty.  Promote honesty, be up front, or you will support a culture of dishonesty. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * For hunting, see for example WP:COI/Freelance. I do not accept your dichotomy between promoting honesty and not regarding biased articles as a bigger problem than undisclosed paid editing. I also strongly reject your characterisation of my position as "nothing matters", I strongly believe that biased articles do matter and are one of the biggest problems the encyclopaedia has. This is not being ignored by "everyone" as you claim, but it is being overlooked by those who see the undisclosed paid editing as the problem rather biased articles resulting from (un)disclosed conflicts of interest as the problem. Thryduulf (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I've created no dichotomy, you have. You say we can't expect product manufacturers who write about their product to disclose that because "bias is the problem".  You, therefore, rely on a non-sequitor - for your approach.  We promote both honesty and non-bias.  They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are mutually reinforcing.  You're simply wrong that bias is overlooked - and have at any rate provided no evidence of that from anyone. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:18, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Another misrepresentation of my position (who said anything about not product manufacturers? who said anything about not expecting disclosure?) so I think it's best we just leave this conversation here. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Just to apologize, as I did not intend to misrepresent. A misunderstanding, perhaps, but at any rate, thank you for the discussion and perhaps we may come to greater understanding in conversation in the future. Again, sorry for the false impression. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Deletion process
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Music
Thank you for understanding "disruption" as I do ;) - I like Chopin, do you? Both Andy and I need to be taken to AE for too many comments in the process of achieving the compromise. - I fail to understand why "poppycock" is regarded as inflammatory language, while bla bla bla is not. - I to translate my simple concept of peace reduced conflict to the complicated language that arbs seem to need ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:30, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

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Level crossing accidents CFD
As the last participant in the Category:Level crossing accidents in the United States CFD, I suggested that it be renamed to Category:Railroad crossing accidents in the United States instead of the proposed Category:Grade crossing accidents in the United States. An admin closed the proposal as "move to Grade crossing...", but he also noted that another CFD regarding my proposal would be a valid option, so I've nominated Grade crossing accidents in the USA for renaming to Railroad crossing accidents in the USA. Please visit Categories for discussion/Log/2015 March 5 and offer your opinion, if you have one. Nyttend (talk) 02:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Alma mater
I don't care for the term "alma mater" too much, but those who do find it important ;) - I use education for all levels and think that it is often important. In my first article, it is of value to know that he studied at three universities in three countries, - a former version (13 March 2013) also listed the teachers because in music it is often interesting whose "pupil" (they still call it that) a performer or composer is. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

 Thank you, out of the blue, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Please join the discussion on Talk:Glengarry Glen Ross (film)
Hello! I am soliciting comments for an RfC that is currently open on the "Glengarry Glen Ross (film)" page. There is disagreement about where the film was set (New York vs. Chicago).

One of the issues is whether it is original research to cite to elements in the film itself (including props, dialogue, and a statement in the end credits that it was "filmed on location in New York City") to establish setting.

Response so far in the RfC has been mixed. Comments welcome! Xanthis (talk) 13:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the invite, but I don't have the time to get involved with a debate about a disagreement about a minor problem with an article I've never edited about a film I didn't know existed. Sorry. Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: February 2015
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 23:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment at AE
Orlando and I don't have any interaction issues. MarkBernstein is upset with both of us (and Dreadstar). This blew up when MB posted a number of requests. He's topic banned so the drama should be amped down anyway. You can review the actions but it isn't multiple parties filing multiple requests, it's one party (MB) taking out his frustration first on the topic-banning admin Dreadstar at ANI and ARCA, then Orlando at AE (for Orlando's comment at ARCA) and then me (for my comment at MB's Orlando AE filing). Gamaliel might have been frustrated by Mark's fourth filing in 24 hours but the issue is resolved with Mark's topic ban. Everyone seems to have a solution in search of a problem that was resolved when the topic-ban was enforced. If you'll note there is no diffs presented of behavior issues because they don't exist. --DHeyward (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Reference desk
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. Legobot (talk) 00:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Bloody hell you are back
Sheesh, I just saw you posted at RfD (somewhere in the middle).

I for one really missed you there. I tried to hold the fort but you do better than I do with the admin stuff and closures

So great to see you back. that's made my morning. Si Trew (talk) 02:52, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't promise to be back full time - arbcom is slack at the moment and I had some time yesterday, but I'll do what I can. Thryduulf (talk) 10:03, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggest
"as long as the one it isn't at is a redirect." Suggest you say what it should redirect to. (You probably meant "to the other" but just letting you know this isn't clear.) Prhartcom (talk) 04:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Cheers, that is indeed what I meant. I thought it was clear, but as it apparently isn't I'll go and make it explicit. Thryduulf (talk) 04:37, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to be critical, but now "the one it isn't the article" also isn't clear. Cheers. Prhartcom (talk) 04:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what you get for doing things at 4:30am. I've changed "the one it isn't" to "the one that isn't" and now I'm going to bed! Thryduulf (talk) 04:48, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking. Legobot (talk) 00:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

RfD, nothing for 25th
I don't know how much you keep stats on these things, but I recall your saying before "Oh this is the first time in 759 days that nothing has been listed". Here's another for your book, then!

Best regards as always Si Trew (talk) 06:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion ;) Thryduulf (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

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VisualEditor News #2—2015
Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:



Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:



After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements
VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead
The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language.  Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
 * File requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Medical disclaimer
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Medical disclaimer. Legobot (talk) 00:08, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Please note . ..
. . . my request here. Writegeist (talk) 03:10, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Writegeist (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: March 2015
Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:36, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

About Template:G13
While I was looking at links to Template:G13, I noticed that about two years ago, you brought up a concern on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion regarding the fact that G13 was a template with a function prior to the G13 criterion being created. Well, I just wanted to inform you that ... that is no longer the case. I know this news is probably two years too late, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to let you know. Cheers! Steel1943 (talk) 01:33, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Thryduulf (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

You've got an email
Re: a pending issue. Thanks  Occult Zone  (Talk • Contributions • Log) 09:53, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Status in ArbCom Case - double check
Greetings, Thryduulf. I have a question for you, and  since I see you listed as the lead Arbs in the "American politics 2" case. With less than 24 hours remaining before the close of the Evidence phase of the case, I see that I have not been added by motion as a party to that case. I am relieved by this, as I was really not looking forward to having to defend myself against the handful of baseless charges wherein my name was mentioned by one named party seeking to have me join him. Since the Arbs are aware that one individual wanted to have me added, but the only accusations he produced were "still rather out of scope here", I figure that is why I haven't been dragged into the fray. I understand how hectic things can get on the many pages of an ArbCom case (even one as dormant as this case appears to be), so I'm pinging you guys here for one last reassurance that I'm not going to receive an unwanted surprise as that case progresses. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 00:51, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As nobody has present evidence about you, it is very unlikely you will be added as a party. There is a small chance that something brought up in the workshop phase might involve you, particularly if you make relevant actions between now and when the case closes (in the topic area or on the case pages) so we cannot guarantee that you wont be a party, but it seems very unlikely this will happen. It is worth stressing again though that being listed as a party is not an indication, assumption or allegation of wrongdoing. Thryduulf (talk) 08:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the response. Nobody has presented evidence against me within the scope of American politics, true, but just so there is no confusion, one editor has indeed posted a small section of accusations about me from our interactions outside of the scope of this case. That is what caused me concern, and prompted my question above. I understand your point that being listed as a party ≠ indication of wrongdoing, but the unfortunate reality is that once an editor is listed as a party, the dynamic changes for that editor from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent". That is why I am happy to see that I haven't been added as a party. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 20:40, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Legobot (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 16
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Board of Longitude, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Thomas Young. 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) 09:24, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

As discussed earlier...
... see User talk:Redrose64. Also Sheepwash Channel, Sheepwash Channel Railway Bridge, Rewley Road Swing Bridge, Castle Mill Stream, Isis Lock, Oxford Canal, Hythe Bridge. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:32, 19 April 2015 (UTC)