User talk:Vanished user 7b1215e7ef746ac20682e3dbe03f5b84/Archive Feb 2015-Aug 2017

The Signpost: 02 October 2013

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The Signpost: 09 October 2013

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A barnstar for you!

 * Many Tanks. I am back in the saddle again, had some real life issues to take care ofCoal town guy (talk) 01:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 January 2015

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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)

Promise, Oregon
Thanks for starting this, I "Valfontified", it--I think you won't mind! Do you have any info on the fact it was settled by people from West Virginia? Valfontis (talk) 19:22, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I know that Nettie West Virginia had the same nickname, I can check some things about the place in Oregon here at the house. However, it should be noted that there are a few "Promised Land" places throughout the US.......I was seeking a place named Broken Promise, which I have read of BUT NOT seen documented...Coal town guy (talk) 02:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2015

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The Signpost: 11 February 2015

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Coal Camps
Hey there! You wouldn't happen to be the fellow from Coal Camp USA, would you? I have explored many camps, but have posted a handful of them, at my site - abandonedonline.net. What do you do with your findings and such? seicer &#x007C;  talk  &#x007C;  contribs  03:01, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I know the Coal Camp USA guy, but that's not me. I put some of what I find here. But I also maintain a blog and facebook group. Coal town guy (talk) 03:21, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 February 2015

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The Signpost: 25 February 2015

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The Signpost: 25 February 2015

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The Center Line: Winter 2015

 * —MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of 18:37, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2015

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The Signpost: 11 March 2015

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The Signpost: 18 March 2015
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The Signpost – Volume 11, Issue 12 – 25 March 2015
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The Signpost, 1 April 2015

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The Signpost: 01 April 2015

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The Signpost: 01 April 2015

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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)

Big Four
Please don't use the letter as a source: we need secondary sources, which in this context are published historical accounts, not individuals' letters. Have you look at or, for example? Just wondering if you have access to print copies of them. Nyttend (talk) 02:17, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 April 2015

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The Signpost: 15 April 2015
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The Signpost: 22 April 2015
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The Signpost: 29 April 2015
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The Signpost: 06 May 2015
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The Signpost: 13 May 2015
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Springlash
Go ahead; as far as I can tell from the USGS topo maps, they're several miles apart, and definitely separate communities. Nyttend (talk) 02:52, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * See Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century and images such as File:Iuswas2.jpg. Perhaps you could add a note such as "Swastikas predate the rise of Naziism"?  Nyttend (talk) 14:33, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2015
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The Center Line: Spring 2015

 * —MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Imzadi1979 12:11, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Elkhorn WV
Thanks for the picture. McDowell County was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Kind friendly people everywhere. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015
Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information: The link tool has been re-designed: There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.

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

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (,, or ). The cite button is now labeled with the word "" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.  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.
 * If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
 * If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference 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.

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) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 June 2015
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Several upcoming Wikipedia events in Kentucky
<div style="float:right; background:#fff; margin-right:3em; margin-top:-2em; padding:0.5em; width:150px; height:auto;"> <div class="plainlinks" style="width:100%; background:#3097d6; color:#fff; padding:0.5em; font-size:150%; font-weight:200;"> Meet up with Wikipedians in Kentucky! All are welcome to attend!

Lexington, KY Wiki Loves Pride 2015

 * Lexington Pride Festival : June 27, 2015. Location: Lexington Pride Festival venues. Take photographs of the Lexington Pride Festival and upload them to Wikimedia Commons.
 * Wiki Loves Pride edit-a-thon : June 30, 2015. 7:00 pm. Location to be determined.

Lexington, KY/Wiknic 2015
Meet up for a picnic with other Wikipedian in Kentucky on July 25, 2015 from 12:00-3:00pm.

Sign up on event pages. Sydney Poore/FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 23:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Post office
Go ahead, since your point is the post office, not the banner. If I understand you rightly, the situation's similar to the signs and "sculpture" in front of the library in File:Owensboro Carnegie Library.jpg; see the description, which addresses the signs and "sculpture". Nyttend (talk) 14:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 June 2015
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The Signpost: 24 June 2015
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The Signpost: 01 July 2015
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The Signpost: 08 July 2015
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The Signpost: 15 July 2015
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The Signpost: 22 July 2015
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The Signpost: 29 July 2015
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The Signpost: 05 August 2015
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VisualEditor News #4—2015
Read this in another language •  Local subscription list  •  Subscribe to the multilingual edition

Did you know?

You can add quotations marks before and after a title or phrase with a single click.

Select the relevant text. Find the correct quotations marks in the special character inserter tool (marked as Ω in the toolbar). Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected. You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania
The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince,  जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top.

In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.

Future changes
The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help.
 * If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
 * Please file requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 26 August 2015
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Couple of quick ones
Long time, no talk, friend. I'm working on another quick little project to clarify the pronunciation of some places around me that might be less-than-intuitive. I've uploaded some sound files to Commons of me pronouncing the names, and I'm going to see if I can get someone familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet to do their voodoo to the leads of the corresponding articles. I noticed a couple of missing articles, though, and I was hoping you might stub them in for me. Onton, Kentucky, is a redlink in the navbox for Webster County, Kentucky, and the similarly-spelled-but-far-differently-pronounced community of Anton, Kentucky (in Hopkins County, Kentucky) doesn't even show up as a redlink, as far as I can tell. Have you got enough info in your oracles to turn those links blue when you have a chance? Acdixon (talk · contribs) 02:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * HEY, no problemo, I will nail them tonigt. Had my knee rebuilt and I have just earned the ability to ride a bike again AND do photography of non flat places..WOO HOO....Its only been a year..SO, I should be able to easily get those tonight. Getting rid of red links, a good thing. Let me know if you have a target county.Coal town guy (talk) 21:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The Center Line: Summer 2015

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The Signpost: 16 September 2015
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The Signpost: 23 September 2015
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The Center Line: September 2015
<div style="margin-left: 10%; width: 80%; text-align: center; border-radius: 2em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);"> <div style="background-color: #006A4D; color: white; border-right: 0.3em solid #fff; border-top: 0.3em solid #fff; border-left: 0.3em solid #fff; padding: 1em 2em; border-radius: 2em 2em 0 0;"> Volume 8, Issue S1 • September 2015 • About the Newsletter
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• USRD through the years

• A goal for success

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• Article assessment over time

• How to measure a WikiProject's load

• Conflict over article titles 1=

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• Collaboration

• Our valued contributors

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VisualEditor update

 * This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

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VisualEditor News #5—2015
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Did you know?

You can use the visual editor on smartphones and tablets. Click the pencil icon to open the editor for a page. Inside that, use the gear menu in the upper right corner to "".

The editing button will remember which editing environment you used last time, and give you the same one next time. The desktop site will be switching to a system similar to this one in the coming months. You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs, added new features, and made some small design changes. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages like Japanese and Arabic, making it easier to edit on mobile devices, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements
Educational features: The first time you use the visual editor, it now draws your attention to the and  tools. When you click on the tools, it explains why you should use them. (T108620) Alongside this, the welcome message for new users has been simplified to make editing more welcoming. (T112354) More in-software educational features are planned.

Links:  It is now easier to understand when you are adding text to a link and when you are typing plain text next to it. (T74108, T91285) The editor now fully supports ISBN, PMID or RFC numbers. (T109498, T110347, T63558)  These "magic links" use a custom link editing tool.

Uploads:  Registered editors can now upload images and other media to Commons while editing. Click the new tab in the " " tool. You will be guided through the process without having to leave your edit. At the end, the image will be inserted. This tool is limited to one file at a time, owned by the user, and licensed under Commons's standard license. For more complex situations, the tool links to more advanced upload tools. You can also drag the image into the editor. This will be available in the wikitext editor later.

Mobile:  Previously, the visual editor was available on the mobile Wikipedia site only on tablets. Now, editors can use the visual editor on any size of device. (T85630)  Edit conflicts were previously broken on the mobile website. Edit conflicts can now be resolved in both wikitext and visual editors. (T111894) Sometimes templates and similar items could not be deleted on the mobile website. Selecting them caused the on-screen keyboard to hide with some browsers. Now there is a new "" button, so that these things can be removed if the keyboard hides. (T62110) You can also edit table cells in mobile now.

Rich editing tools:  You can now add and edit sheet music in the visual editor. (T112925)  There are separate tabs for advanced options, such as MIDI and Ogg audio files. (T114227 and T113354)  When editing formulæ and other blocks, errors are shown as you edit. It is also possible to edit some types of graphs; adding new ones, and support for new types, will be coming.

On the English Wikipedia, the visual editor is now automatically available to anyone who creates an account. The preference switch was moved to the normal location, under Special:Preferences.

Future changes
You will soon be able to switch from the wikitext to the visual editor after you start editing. (T49779) Previously, you could only switch from the visual editor to the wikitext editor. Bi-directional switching will make possible a single edit tab. (T102398) This project will combine the "" and "" tabs into a single "" tab, similar to the system already used on the mobile website. The "" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback. This feedback page uses Flow for discussions.
 * Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - [//jp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ビジュアルエディター/フィードバック/IME Japanese]).
 * Local admins can set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki. If you need help, then 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 weekly task triage meetings are open to volunteers. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration, though.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you can't read 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) 04:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 October 2015
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The Signpost: 04 November 2015
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Virginia Tech Project Invite
Go Hokies (talk) 04:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 November 2015
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The Signpost: 18 November 2015
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ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 November 2015
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The Center Line: November 2015
<div style="margin-left: 10%; width: 80%; text-align: center; border-radius: 2em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);"> <div style="background-color: #006A4D; color: white; border-right: 0.3em solid #fff; border-top: 0.3em solid #fff; border-left: 0.3em solid #fff; padding: 1em 2em; border-radius: 2em 2em 0 0;"> Volume 8, Issue 4 • November 2015 • About the Newsletter

1=
 * Departments

• Assessment roundup

• Portal selected articles and pictures

• KML Corner 1=
 * Features

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• WikiConference USA 2015

• The Junction template and you

• Harnessing map archives 1=
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• State updates

• In other project news...

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 * —delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of on 22:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 December 2015
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The Signpost: 09 December 2015
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The Signpost: 16 December 2015
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VisualEditor News #6—2015
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Did you know?

A new, simpler system for editing will offer a single Edit button. Once the page has opened, you can switch back and forth between visual and wikitext editing.

If you prefer having separate edit buttons, then you can set that option in your preferences, either in a pop-up dialog the next time you open the visual editor, or by going to Special:Preferences and choosing the setting that you want: The current plan is for the default setting to have the Edit button open the editing environment you used most recently. You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs and expanded the mathematics formula tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for languages such as Japanese and Arabic, and providing rich-media tools for formulæ, charts, galleries and uploading.

Recent improvements
You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing.

The LaTeX mathematics formula editor has been significantly expanded. (T118616) You can see the formula as you change the LaTeX code. You can click buttons to insert the correct LaTeX code for many symbols.

Future changes
The single edit tab project will combine the "" and "" tabs into a single "" tab, like the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as a cookie for logged-out users and as an account preference for logged-in editors. Logged-in editors will be able to set a default editor in the tab of Special:Preferences in the drop-down menu about "".

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the following Wikipedias in early 2016: Amharic, Buginese, Min Dong, Cree, Manx, Hakka, Armenian, Georgian, Pontic, Serbo-Croatian, Tigrinya, Mingrelian, Zhuang, and Min Nan. (T116523) Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. The developers would like to know how well it works. Please tell them what kind of computer, web browser, and keyboard you are using.

In 2016, the feedback pages for the visual editor on many Wikipedias will be redirected to mediawiki.org. (T92661)

Testing opportunities
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.
 * Please try the new system for the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You can edit while logged out to see how it works for logged-out editors, or you can create a separate account to be able to set your account's preferences.  Please share your thoughts about the single edit tab system at the feedback topic on mediawiki.org or sign up for formal user research (type "single edit tab" in the question about other areas you're interested in).  The new system has not been finalized, and your feedback can affect the outcome.  The team particularly wants your thoughts about the options in Special:Preferences. The current choices in Special:Preferences are:
 * , and
 * .  (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
 * Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - [//jp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ビジュアルエディター/フィードバック/IME Japanese]).
 * .  (This is the current state for people using the visual editor. None of these options will be visible if you have disabled the visual editor in your preferences at that wiki.)
 * Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help, and report it on Phabricator (Korean - Japanese) or on Wikipedia (Korean - [//jp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ビジュアルエディター/フィードバック/IME Japanese]).

Whatamidoing (WMF), 00:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

A question for you.
You have not been around much lately. Hope all is well. I stumbled across an article about a ghost town in Michigan thru some weird link on Facebook and thought I'd take a crack at improving it. Please take a look at your convenience. It's Pere Cheney, Michigan. Can you recommend an infobox for a formerly settled place? It was apparently at one time the county seat. It interests me because I've zoomed by near there on the highway hundreds of times and never knew it existed, and because the preacher that married my parents name was Cheney and he hailed from that part of Michigan. Thanks in advance. Have a great 2016. John from Idegon (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 December 2015
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The Signpost: 06 January 2016
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The Signpost: 13 January 2016
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 * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:17, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Another Kentucky place
Hey, friend. Haven't seen you around for a while. If you're still contributing, could you see if you could dig up enough information for an article on Epley Station, Kentucky, (or perhaps Epley's Station, Kentucky) in Logan County? The subject of a recently-created article hails from there. Incidentally, my granddad pastored a church there in the early 80s. Thanks, as always. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 19:11, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I did some research of my own out of curiosity, and it looks like the community is also known as Epleys, which is the name it goes by in the GNIS. According to Robert M. Rennick's Kentucky Place Names, Epleys and Epley Station are one and the same. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 02:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I started the Epleys, Kentucky article and it can be expanded per The Catalyst 31-Thank you-RFD (talk) 13:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I've never heard the "Station" part dropped around here, and I live just one county over. Anyway, thanks for creating the article, and I've created the appropriate redirects. The work you place-creation gurus do is always appreciated. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 14:22, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 27 January 2016
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The Signpost: 03 February 2016
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The Signpost: 10 February 2016
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VisualEditor News #1—2016
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Did you know?

Among experienced editors, the visual editor's table editing is one of the most popular features. If you select the top of a column or the end of a row, you can quickly insert and remove columns and rows.

Now, you can also rearrange columns and rows. Click "Move before" or "Move after" to swap the column or row with its neighbor.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indic, and Han scripts, and improving the single edit tab interface.

Recent changes
You can switch from the wikitext editor to the visual editor after you start editing. This function is available to nearly all editors at most wikis except the Wiktionaries and Wikisources.

Many local feedback pages for the visual editor have been redirected to mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

You can now re-arrange columns and rows in tables, as well as copying a row, column or any other selection of cells and pasting it in a new location.

The formula editor has two options: you can choose "Quick edit" to see and change only the LaTeX code, or "Edit" to use the full tool. The full tool offers immediate preview and an extensive list of symbols.

Future changes
The single edit tab project will combine the "" and "" tabs into a single "" tab. This is similar to the system already used on the mobile website. (T102398) Initially, the "" tab will open whichever editing environment you used last time. Your last editing choice will be stored as an account preference for logged-in editors, and as a cookie for logged-out users. Logged-in editors will have these options in the tab of Special:Preferences: The visual editor uses the same search engine as Special:Search to find links and files. This search will get better at detecting typos and spelling mistakes soon. These improvements to search will appear in the visual editor as well.
 * , and
 * .  (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)
 * , and
 * .  (This is the state for people using the visual editor now.)

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at most "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers would like to know how well the visual editor works in your language. They particularly want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Thai, Aramaic and others.

Let's work together
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. Thanks!
 * Please try out the newest version of the single edit tab on test2.wikipedia.org. You may need to restore the default preferences (at the bottom of test2wiki:Special:Preferences) to see the initial prompt for options. Were you able to find a preference setting that will work for your own editing? Did you see the large preferences dialog box when you started editing an article there?
 * Can you read and type in Korean, Arabic, Japanese, Indic, or Han scripts? Language engineer David Chan needs help from people who often type in these languages. Please see the instructions at mw:VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help. Report your results on wiki (Korean – Japanese – all languages).
 * Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Join the Tech Talk about "Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it" with Sebastian Karcher on 29 February 2016.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 March 2016
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The Signpost: 09 March 2016
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The Signpost: 16 March 2016
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The Signpost: 23 March 2016
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The Signpost: 1 April 2016
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Do you want one Edit tab, or two? It's your choice
The editing interface will be changed soon. When that happens, editors who currently see two editing tabs – "Edit" and "Edit source" – will start seeing one edit tab instead. The single edit tab has been popular at other Wikipedias. When this is deployed here, you may be offered the opportunity to choose your preferred appearance and behavior the next time you click the Edit button. You will also be able to change your settings in the Editing section of Special:Preferences.

You can choose one or two edit tabs. If you chose one edit tab, then you can switch between the two editing environments by clicking the buttons in the toolbar (shown in the screenshots). See Help:VisualEditor/User guide#Switching between the visual and wikitext editors for more information and screenshots.

There is more information about this interface change at mw:VisualEditor/Single edit tab. If you have questions, suggestions, or problems to report, then please leave a note at VisualEditor/Feedback.

Whatamidoing (WMF) 19:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 April 2016
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Welcome Back!
Welcome Back! Thank you!RFD (talk) 11:53, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Editor of the Week&thinsp;: nominations needed!
The Editor of the Week initiative has been recognizing editors since 2013 for their hard work and dedication. Editing Wikipedia can be disheartening and tedious at times; the weekly Editor of the Week award lets its recipients know that their positive behaviour and collaborative spirit is appreciated. The response from the honorees has been enthusiastic and thankful.

The list of nominees is running short, and so new nominations are needed for consideration. Have you come across someone in your editing circle who deserves a pat on the back for improving article prose regularly, making it easier to understand? Or perhaps someone has stepped in to mediate a contentious dispute, and did an excellent job. Do you know someone who hasn't received many accolades and is deserving of greater renown? Is there an editor who does lots of little tasks well, such as cleaning up citations?

Please help us thank editors who display sustained patterns of excellence, working tirelessly in the background out of the spotlight, by submitting your nomination for Editor of the Week today!

Sent on behalf of <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  for the Editor of the Week initiative by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:18, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 April 2016
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The Signpost: 2 May 2016
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VIllanous METH addicts...
...chasing people off. ):< Good work 104.229.143.192 (talk) 23:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 May 2016
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The Signpost: 28 May 2016
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The Signpost: 05 June 2016
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The Signpost: 15 June 2016
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Help for a new user
I just noticed Draft:Patesville, Kentucky, created by a new user called User:Buffalowildwings03. His requested AfC got declined, for reasons that will be obvious when you look at the draft. Wondering if you might work your magic on this article to get it to the main space and maybe reach out to the guy to teach him the ropes of creating articles about small places. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 21:18, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * , CTG has not been real active lately, but if you want to help, here is enough to establish notability


 * http://transportation.ky.gov/planning/pages/official-highway-map.aspx - It is on the official state map.


 * http://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:0508779


 * Hope that helps. John from Idegon (talk) 21:40, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I will try to clean this article up as I have a chance. I just know that CTG and others who watch this page have this thing down to a science, so I figured he could turn it around quicker, but I noticed he hasn't been around as regularly. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 14:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There is a database on post offices someplace, but I'm not sure where. Good luck! John from Idegon (talk) 14:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Editing News #2—2016
Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "" menu and click the "" icon (three books).

If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references.

Finally, click "" in the dialog to insert the. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes
The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "" and "" tabs into a single "" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes
The "" button will say "". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together
If you aren't reading this in your preferred 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.
 * Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor?  Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce.
 * Learn how to improve the "automagical" citoid referencing system in the visual editor, by creating Zotero translators for popular sources in your language! Watch the Tech Talk by Sebastian Karcher for more information.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 July 2016
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The Signpost: 21 July 2016
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The Signpost: 04 August 2016
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Hi!
Hi! How are you doing? Many thanks as always for your work on Wikipedia-RFD (talk) 15:46, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 August 2016
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The Signpost: 06 September 2016
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The Signpost: 29 September 2016
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Editing News #3—2016
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?



Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.

Recent changes

 * You can now set text as small or big.
 * Invisible templates have been shown as a puzzle icon. Now, the name of the invisible template is displayed next to the puzzle icon.  A similar feature will display the first part of hidden HTML comments.
 * Categories are displayed at the bottom of each page. If you click on the categories, the dialog for editing categories will open.
 * At many wikis, you can now add maps to pages. Go to the Insert menu and choose the "Maps" item. The Discovery department are adding more features to this area, like geoshapes. You can read more on MediaWiki.org.
 * The "Save" button now says "Save page" when you create a page, and "Save changes" when you change an existing page. In the future, the "" button will say "".  This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems.  More information is available on Meta.
 * Image galleries now use a visual mode for editing. You can see thumbnails of the images, add new files, remove unwanted images, rearrange the images by dragging and dropping, and add captions for each image.  Use the "Options" tab to set the gallery's display mode, image sizes, and add a title for the gallery.

Future changes
The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining 10 "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next month. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including Thai, Burmese and Aramaic.

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together
Do you teach new editors how to use the visual editor? Did you help set up the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki? Have you written or imported TemplateData for your most important citation templates? Would you be willing to help new editors and small communities with the visual editor? Please sign up for the new VisualEditor Community Taskforce. If you aren't reading this in your preferred 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) 18:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 October 2016
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The Signpost: 4 November 2016
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Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:38, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 November 2016
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The Signpost: 22 December 2016
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Editor of the Week seeking nominations (and a new facilitator)
The Editor of the Week initiative has been recognizing editors since 2013 for their hard work and dedication. Editing Wikipedia can be disheartening and tedious at times; the weekly Editor of the Week award lets its recipients know that their positive behaviour and collaborative spirit is appreciated. The response from the honorees has been enthusiastic and thankful.

The list of nominees is running short, and so new nominations are needed for consideration. Have you come across someone in your editing circle who deserves a pat on the back for improving article prose regularly, making it easier to understand? Or perhaps someone has stepped in to mediate a contentious dispute, and did an excellent job. Do you know someone who hasn't received many accolades and is deserving of greater renown? Is there an editor who does lots of little tasks well, such as cleaning up citations?

Please help us thank editors who display sustained patterns of excellence, working tirelessly in the background out of the spotlight, by submitting your nomination for Editor of the Week today!

In addition, the WikiProject is seeking a new facilitator/coordinator to handle the logistics of the award. Please contact if you are interested in helping with the logistics of running the award in any capacity. Remove your name from here to unsubscribe from further EotW-related messages. Thanks, Kevin ( aka L235 ·&#32; t ·&#32; c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 January 2017
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The Signpost: 6 February 2017
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The Signpost: 27 February 2017
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The Center Line: Spring 2017
<div style="margin-left: 10%; width: 80%; text-align: center; border-radius: 2em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);"> <div style="background-color: #006A4D; color: white; border-right: 0.3em solid #fff; border-top: 0.3em solid #fff; border-left: 0.3em solid #fff; padding: 1em 2em; border-radius: 2em 2em 0 0;"> Volume 9, Issue 1 • Spring 2017 • About the Newsletter

1=
 * Departments

• Assessment roundup

• Portal selected articles and pictures 1=
 * Features

• Commons and Wikidata revamp

• Route logs for junction lists

• Finding friends at the DOT

• This space for rent 1=
 * State and national updates

• State updates

• In other project news...

<div style="background-color: #FCD116; font-weight: bold; border-right: 0.3em solid #000; border-top: 1px solid #000; border-bottom: 0.3em solid #000; border-left: 0.3em solid #000; border-radius: 0 0 2em 2em;"> Archives • Newsroom • Full Issue • Shortcut: WP:USRD/NEWS
 * —delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of on 01:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Editing News #1—2017
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

<div style="float:right;width:230px;margin-left:1em;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;padding:1em;"> Did you know?

Did you know that you can review your changes visually?

When you are finished editing the page, type your edit summary and then choose "". In visual mode, you will see additions, removals, new links, and formatting highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.



Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.



The wikitext diff is the same diff tool that is used in the wikitext editors and in the page history.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and adding the new visual diff tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes
A new wikitext editing mode is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. The 2017 wikitext editor has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. Go to Special:Preferences to enable the.

A new visual diff tool is available in VisualEditor's visual mode. You can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. More features will be added to this later. In the future, this tool may be integrated into other MediaWiki components. 

The team have added multi-column support for lists of footnotes. The  block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. You can request multi-column support for your wiki. 

Other changes:
 * You can now use your web browser's function to switch typing direction in the new wikitext mode. This is particularly helpful for RTL language users like Urdu or Hebrew who have to write JavaScript or CSS. You can use Command+Shift+X or Control+Shift+X to trigger this.
 * The way to switch between the visual editing mode and the wikitext editing mode is now consistent. There is a drop-down menu that shows the two options. This is now the same in desktop and mobile web editing, and inside things that embed editing, such as Flow.
 * The item has been moved to the top of the  menu (from clicking on the  VisualEditor - Icon - Menu.svg icon) for quicker access.  There is also now a "Templates used on this page" feature there.
 * You can now create   tags (sometimes used as  ) for chemical formulas inside the visual editor.
 * Tables can be set as collapsed or un-collapsed.
 * The menu now includes characters for Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics and angle quotation marks (‹› and ⟨⟩) .  The team thanks the volunteer developer, Tpt.
 * A bug caused some section edit conflicts to blank the rest of the page. This has been fixed.  The team are sorry for the disruption.
 * There is a new keyboard shortcut for citations:  + +  on a PC, or  + +  on a Mac.  It is based on the keyboard shortcut for making links, which is  +  on a PC or  +  on a Mac.

Future changes

 * The VisualEditor team is working with the Community Tech team on a syntax highlighting tool. It will highlight matching pairs of   tags and other types of wikitext syntax.  You will be able to turn it on and off.  It will first become available in VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode, maybe late in 2017.
 * The kind of button used to, , and finish an edit will change in all WMF-supported wikitext editors. The new buttons will use OOjs UI.  The buttons will be larger, brighter, and easier to read.  The labels will remain the same.  You can test the new button by editing a page and adding   to the end of the URL, like this:  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Sandbox?action=edit&ooui=1  The old appearance will no longer be possible, even with local CSS changes.
 * The outdated 2006 wikitext editor will be removed later this year. It is used by approximately 0.03% of active editors.  See a list of editing tools on mediawiki.org if you are uncertain which one you use.

If you aren't reading this in your preferred 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. User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed
Hello Coal town guy! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to AutoWikiBrowser may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the CheckPage. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at WP:PERM/AWB. Thank you! &mdash; MusikBot II  talk  20:20, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 June 2017
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The Signpost: 23 June 2017
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The Signpost: 15 July 2017
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WV Capitol
It's not all statuary, just statuary that's still copyrighted. For any statue, the date is crucial: Regardless of the situation, please explain how you learnt that it's PD, because otherwise people might challenge you. "Pre-1923" easily works, but something more complicated needs an explanation, especially not-renewed; "It has a notice, but I checked the renewal database for sculptures for [insert year] and didn't find this one" would really be necessary in such a case. You can follow this flowchart, or you can ask me about individual statues before you upload them; I'll be happy to help.
 * Does it predate 1923? If so, it's in the public domain; upload away.
 * If the statue is from 1923 or later, is it from 1977-or-earlier, or is it from 1978-or-later? Anything 1978-or-later is prohibited.
 * If the statue is from 1923, 1977, or any year in between, does it have a copyright notice? Be careful to inspect all of the statue that you can, especially around the base; a proper notice will include name, date, and "Copyright" or "Copr." or ©; if you find part of a notice but not all of it, the notice is defective and doesn't count
 * If no copyright notice, the statue is PD-US-no notice; upload away.
 * If it has a notice and predates 1963, was it renewed? If not, it's PD-US-not renewed; upload away.  However, renewal checking can be difficult, so unless you want to do a lot of work, just skip anything 1923-or-newer with a notice.
 * If the statue has no date inscription, you can always do research to establish the date. For example, the Virginia state capitol lawn has an undated statue, but I uploaded it as File:Harry Flood Byrd statue on capitol lawn.jpg because a nearby plaque gives the date, 1976.  The date was mandatory in all pre-1978 copyright notices, so all pre-1978 statues without date inscriptions are in the public domain.

Nyttend (talk) 21:37, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Those are all parts of the building; buildings weren't copyrighted at all until comparatively recent years (long after the Capitol was completed), and photos of copyrighted buildings are specifically permitted by the US Code anyway. Nyttend (talk) 00:21, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * All fine from a copyright standpoint, and I definitely like them from an aesthetic/illustrative standpoint, especially "WV Capitol Dome interior View" and "WV Capitol Dome architecture". Definitely better than my interior shots of the Colorado State Capitol eight years ago.  Nyttend (talk) 00:29, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Many Thanks. The building has its issues and getting the views I did was a favor from some there for sureCoal town guy (talk) 00:35, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight is fine: as the article notes, it was placed in 1974, and since an undated sculpture can't possibly have a sufficient copyright notice, it's PD-US-no notice. Nyttend (talk) 21:24, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * GROOOOOOVYYYYCoal town guy (talk) 21:36, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi!
Hi! Welcome back! I hope you are doing well-many thanks-RFD (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hey friend, nice to see you back. Time to go to HooHoo for more pictures!  Magnolia677 (talk) 15:09, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks
Many thanks for helping with the Dalcour, Louisiana article-RFD (talk) 11:46, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 5 August 2017
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Kentucky
Hi-I started the Glenville, Kentucky and the Garrett, Meade County, Kentucky articles; they needed info boxes. I had to redirect the Garrett, Kentucky that you started to Garrett, Floyd County, Kentucky. Multiple places with the same name. The Kentucky Department of Transportation has an excellent section on county maps which is very useful. Again thank you for help-RFD (talk) 13:17, 8 August 2017 (UTC)