User talk:WereSpielChequers


 * Welcome to my talk page. If you just want to make a short comment why not put it in my guestbook. If you want to add something to one of the existing topics go ahead, [/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:WereSpielChequers&action=edit&section=new Or click here] to start a new topic.

not curly
Saw that on my watchlist and wondered what the tarnation does that mean? Looked at the diff and laughed. Well done. It is nice to laugh for a change amongst all the vandalism entries on the watchlist. Bgwhite (talk) 07:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it took a while to get that one under control, and there are still a few music lyrics where I'm really not sure whether to put them on my safe page list or not. But I reckon to make two or three typo fixing not curly edits per week. Curiously I'm seeing less vandalism nowadays, especially with that particular search, I suspect someone has set an edit filter to stop edits that include removing the first l from "public schools" as I used to get one or two of that sort of vandalism every week. I also stopped patrolling for "poop", lots of vandalism when I first went through all the articles that contained that word, but nowadays not enough to be worth manually checking for.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  11:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * And in the case of Empire Air Day, does show I wasn't copy+pasting form the sources !--Shirt58 (talk) 10:48, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

List
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rich_Farmbrough/British_places_with_coord_and_no_pic

Note: that this may include non-place entities, e.g. people in the category tree that have burial coordinates. But then there may well be a nice photo of their tomb/grave/crypt.

If you let me know any items without coords or with images, improvement may be possible.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC).


 * Thanks, that's brilliant. I spotted that where the infobox and image are being delivered by a template your program doesn't realise there is an image see Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway. Also Zeta Island, Bermuda a Dutch volcano Zuidwal volcano a pass in South Georgia Zigzag Pass and a museum in Abu Dhabi Zayed National Museum  are not quite in the UK, though the volcano is close.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  22:39, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * There's not a lot I can easily do about abuses like Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway - content is not supposed to be abstracted away like that, though I understand the reasoning if there are many uses of the template - in this case there is only one. Conversely, of course, if the template was used on many station pages, then a generic image would not suffice.
 * Zayed National Museum was in the category "British Museum"
 * Zeta Island was included because Category:Islands of British Overseas Territories was a sub-cat of "Islands of the United Kingdom"
 * Zuidwal volcano was included because Category:North Sea is a sub-cat of "Bodies of water of the United Kingdom" (among others) (not changed yet...)
 * Zig-Zag Pass was probably included because of a similar British Overseas Territories miscat, possibly Category:British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies being a sub-cat of "Government of the United Kingdom"
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:02, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

Nominating for Autopatrolled user rights
Hello WereSpielChequers! At our earlier discussion at WT:Autopatrolled you said "Many people get nominated or are nominated for this user right, and occasionally when we have a list I and others trawl through the list of prolific article creators and appoint suitable ones as autopatrollers." Well, I'm starting to parse through the data to try to figure out how many editors there are with 20-50 (non-redirect) articles created (which I'm having to do manually via List of Wikipedians by article count!) But what I'm finding alarming is the number of (still active) editors that have 50-100 (non-redirect) articles created and who don't have "Autopatrolled" rights! So, I'm thinking that I'd like to nominate some of these for Autopatrolled rights – How do I do that? Thanks in advance! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi IJBall, the simple answer is that you can nominate them at Requests_for_permissions/Autopatrolled - though you might want to check a bit more than just the raw number of articles created. However I'm hoping to get one of my contacts to start producing the list of prospects again, 14 months after it last ran there should be a good crop of editors ready for this userright. Extracting it manually from the List of Wikipedians by article count sounds like a much more time consuming thing as a lot of those editors will already have the right directly or as admins, and those that don't need to be checked out, some will have already lost the userright due to copyvio or creating unreferenced BLPs, and some will still be creating articles that get deleted for notability reasons, doing some of those checks is a lot quicker if you have admin rights and can look at deleted revisions. So I don't want to sound discouraging, but I wouldn't want you to waste hours of time doing something that a computer may be about to resume doing.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  21:01, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's exactly what I'm having to do: weed out Admins (and the occasional Bureaucrat), and exclude anyone who hasn't edited in a year or more. I'm also checking to see if they're already "Autopatrolled" at less than 50 articles created (I'd say about 20% are...). I'm not sure I have the stomach to do this for the Top 10,000 Article Creators, but I will definitely finish this out for the Top 5,000 (I'm already up to about #2,200 right now...) So, progress!! I figure some numbers here for my proposal are better than none! (I'll hope the people that lost Autopatrolled due to Copyvios, etc. is a very small number here – hopefully ~0.) P.S. Thanks for the answer on nominating – I won't be nominating any of those editors today (with maybe just a few exceptions! – I've already seen 2–3 editors that I know should be Autopatrolled!), but I may come back later, on a day I'm bored, and check the 50–100 article editors, and think about nominating some of them for Autopatrolled... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:02, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

WMF / Auto sign on talkpages
The WMF put out some extremely misleading statements. Some of your comments in the Village Pump discussion were incorrect (not your fault). I spoke with the Flow project manager. They have not diminished work on Flow, they are working full speed ahead on specific features for Flow. When the WMF says that their new work is going to be driven by the needs of the Community, they mean they decided what they wanted to give us, then they did research interviews with a couple of editors, then they shoehorned those responses to fit what they wanted to build. I spoke to one of the people they interviewed - the WMF staff interviewing him didn't even know the Community had already built the functionality they are working on. Specifically they are building a replacement for scripts like Twinkle, except their version won't work on existing pages. The Flow team is going full speed ahead, building a project that largely duplicates functionality we already built, and they are deliberately designing it so it won't work unless we convert every goddamn page on Wikipedia into Flow chatboards. Oh.... and it doesn't work unless you switch to Visual Editor too.
 * Now that Flow is deprioritised - Nope.
 * The WMF is asking for community input into things they could do instead of FLOW - Nope.

In the last election for WMF board of directors, all three elected candidates ran on a platform that Flow could not be deployed if the community didn't want it. So.... the WMF is restricting new development and support to Flow. If we want any new features, if we want any continuing support, we have to take Flow first. There's not much chance of the WMF willingly picking up the autosign project. They want our editor *gone*. Alsee (talk) 19:40, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, interesting. Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-09-02/News_and_notes "Flow on Ice" did seem to me a pretty clear sign that Flow was no longer in fashion at the WMF. The dinosaur takes time to change, but in my view that sort of comment is usually code for "this project is dead", due to the obfuscation the message may get out more slowly, and due to its sauropod like nature the WMF's hind legs might still be moving for a while after the brain has squawked end. But I had stopped worrying about Flow. Though this implies that you may be right, staffers may still try to get it deployed wherever they can get consensus.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:55, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello again
It's possible you may vaguely remember me. We had a fair bit of contact several years ago, but I became pretty disillusioned by certain aspects of the whole project (specifically with regard to fair use images) and I have been on pretty substantial wiki-break. Now I'm willingly getting pulled back in to things and I'm once again finding everything for the most part interesting, challenging and enjoyable.

Anyway, I was wondering if you might have any observations you might share about how editing culture has changed since 2011. There are a few things I have noticed that are at least as bad, and in some ways worse, than they were before:


 * I still see speedy deletion being horribly misapplied, in ways which can only discourage new editors. I'm looking at an article which was tagged as A1 and G2, neither of which was valid, eight minutes after it was created. I doubt that user will be back.


 * The new (to me!) Articles for Creation process doesn't seem to have significantly changed things. I regularly see drafts that are really in pretty good state being declined by editors who want to hold them to punitively high standards of referencing. I'm looking at a draft that has three quality references to reliable sources which specifically discuss the topic in depth, which has been declined now by the same editor three times in a row, with the same reason given - "needs more references". The same editor declines drafts for hours on end at a rate of roughly two per minute. Unsurprisingly, the same editor is also an offender for inappropriate speedy deletion tagging.


 * Free-content idealists are still chipping away at fair use images, unnecessarily making the encyclopedia progressively less useful as they work in pursuit of a goal that I do not share (an encyclopedia entirely built from free content, even if it means removing screenshots from articles about historically-significant GUIs). I'm staying away from this topic area because it's what led to my quitting in frustration last time. I do feel it's unfortunate that those policy and deletion debates are so dominated by editors with a stridently anti-fair-use point of view, and I'm not sure that they reflect the true consensus of the community.


 * I keep seeing what appear to be deletion campaigns based on racial or religious grounds. For example there is an editor who is a significant contributor to articles on Sunni Islam, who also seems very keen on getting articles about Shia Islam-related topics, and Shia-believing individuals, deleted. I recently rescued an article about a significant topic in Sikhism (to be fair, the article was a pig's breakfast, and the "rescued" version is basically a stub). We have well-written, well-sourced, multiply-linked articles about "XXX in Catholicism", "XXX in Islam", "XXX in Buddhism" etc, but there was a serious argument from the nominator and an AfD participant that "XXX in Sikhism" was "not notable", a position that is so removed from reality (even reality as revealed by ten seconds of Googling) that I struggle to assume good faith.


 * There seems to be an increase in the number of new articles from India, the Philippines, etc, and other places where English is not the primary or only language. I think this is a good thing - it reflects the global reach of the project, and increasing global participation is something to be proud of, not a problem to be solved. But new page patrollers in particular seem to disregard non-English sources. They don't seem to know how to Google non-latin-alphabet names. I don't think this is deliberate racism, but the behavior is racist in effect.

I suppose a lot of these things could have been written in 2011. Maybe not much has changed. Certainly the ongoing trend away from the "optimistic content creators" of 2006 towards the "pessimistic gatekeepers" who will eventually control everything is very noticeable when you take a few years away.

Cheers,

Thparkth (talk) 15:09, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi and welcome back! Yes CSD is an ongoing problem, but as we found with WP:NEWT resolving it one way or the other risks tearing the community apart. I do occasionally decline incorrect speedies and try to educate patrollers, but its a thankless task. There is a new speedy deletion process but it largely missed the point and for example changes such as disabling A1 and A3 as options for the first few minutes were rejected out of hand. I'm more enthusiastic about our chance of protecting more of our established writers from deletionist mistakes, once I get a bot writer to refresh the prospect list we can appoint a load of overlooked ones, the sort of people who create an articles a fortnight and have done so for years.
 * AFC is a failure and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking so. Part of the problem is that it keeps articles out of mainspace so they don't get collaborative editing, and anyone can decline an AFC submission whilst only an admin can delete a new page in mainspace. I would advise against any goodfaith newbie using it.
 * Disregarding non-English sources is a problem, people who !vote delete at AFD with rationales such as "no English sources" should soon get the message when admins close as no valid reason given for deletion. A bigger issue is when people who rescue articles don't know how to use non English articles. Is there an essay explaining how to do so? If not would you consider writing one?
 * Yes there has been greater growth in areas such as India, I assume this reflects growing internet use in such places. My view is that editing Wikipedia is not usually an entry level Internet task, I don't know if the rule of thumb still holds that it takes two years from getting internet access to using it for shopping. But I'm expecting there to be a lag between growth in internet use in an area and growth of the Wikipedia community in that area. This is greatly complicated/hindered by the problem that the smartphone is not as good an editing devise as a pc, and in many areas the increase in Internet use is basically a smartphone phenomena. I'm hoping that we have little overt racism here, but we've yet to come to terms with issues such as people in poorer societies having less access to free reference sources, or even the reliable sources in some countries being much more extensive than others. On the plus side there has been a huge growth in Commons, not least because it is much more inclusionist than Wikipedia, and part of that growth has been European museums digitally releasing images from their former colonies.
 * I can't comment as to whether partisan deletion tagging has become more or less common. The biggest such battle I've been involved in was before you left and I don't know whether my experience is indicative of anything.
 * I'd agree we have a problem with gatekeeping, but I'd diagnose it slightly differently. The community is roughly the same size today as it was four years ago, but we have significantly more articles; So we probably have less of a problem with people owning articles and rejecting any change to "their" work. But we have more of a problem with people who treat unsourced changes in the same way we used to treat vandalism. Personally I'm quite moderate on this issue, but I draw the line at an unsourced change to sourced information, and with a growing proportion of the pedia being sourced even with my stance there is much less room for editors who contribute uncited content.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  17:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Lots to digest there. For now, is there any chance you could share the kind of criteria you're thinking of with regards to protecting established editors? Is there any existing "prospect list"? Thparkth (talk) 14:06, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege is worth looking at and explains why Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege isn't currently fit for purpose.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:24, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * So from what I understand, you're looking for editors who have created articles in the last 30 days, who don't currently have autopatrol, and who meet the general autopatrol eligibility criteria of having created at least 25 articles. At that point presumably you and other administrators would want to manually review the persons article creation history with a view to proactively offering them the autopatrol right. I've written a little bit of MediaWiki::API code that might be helpful in identifying those users. It isn't a bot - it doesn't make any edits, and it's run manually for now.
 * I have put the output from a limited test run in my userspace here (based on editors who created pages in the last day, rather than the last 30 days). Note that I don't bother counting pages created if it goes over fifty, because it takes longer and is unnecessary since the guideline threshold is twenty-five. Even from this limited amount of data it is clear that there are many users who should really have autopatrol.
 * I would be grateful if you would let me know if this going in the right direction. If so I will work further on it.
 * Cheers, Thparkth (talk) 05:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Further to this, I updated the page with my output data with the complete data set, and also upped the maximum creation count to 200. This should pretty much be the complete list of users who meet the criteria of having created 25+ articles, not currently having autopatrol, and having created at least one article in the last month. Thparkth (talk) 12:16, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, that's good, almost there, and you've got rid of the bots. Running it daily means we might miss the person who creates an article every week or two, and they are a key group I'm trying to find an appoint as autopatrollers here; so if it could pick up anyone who has created mainspace article in the last 30 days that would be better. Also I'm not sure whether you are excluding redirects and creations of pages outside mainspace. This editor has over a thousand according to your list, but I could find only twenty mainspace articles they had started.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  23:20, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello, apologies for the confusion from the contradictory information as I worked on the code. The current version of the report does indeed consider all of the users who have created articles in the last 30 days, not just those from the last few days. It also does exclude redirects. However it appears that the "count how many articles the user created" method I am using inadvertently includes the File: namespace, which is why the numbers are anomalous for the user you referenced. I'll go work on that now :) Thparkth (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Update - I have fixed the issue with the inclusion of non-mainspace contributions in the count. Updated data (for all users who have created articles in the last thirty days) is in the same place, User:Thparkth/autopatroltest. Thparkth (talk) 02:45, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Nicely done, I've started appoint autopatrollers from that list. Do you want to start refreshing Database reports/Editors eligible for Autopatrol privilege, that's where people look for it, and we can mark the request as fixed once you refresh it there.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:13, 16 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with much of what Thparkth says but he's perhaps getting too black a view by looking at speedy deletions and AFC which, by their nature, tend to be negative in nature. The number of articles is still going up steadily – see WP:5MILLION – and the rate seems to have increased in the last year or so.  So, overall, the content creators are still gaining ground.  Where they have got the hang of this, this seems to happen without much fuss and so is perhaps just hard to discern.  Anyway, welcome back and feel free to ping me if you need help with something. Andrew D. (talk) 09:49, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello :) What is perhaps not obvious from what I wrote is that speedy deletion was something I was heavily involved with in 2011 as well. I really do notice a less patient, less forgiving, less encouraging mood in the project today versus then. It was already pretty WP:BITEy back then, but it is worse now.
 * That is the continuation of a long-term trend that I have observed from my earliest days as a Wikipedian when as a brand new editor I created a number of shitty unreferenced articles (in mainspace directly, no less!) and was immediately welcomed by a real person and constructively engaged in cooperative editing. Today I wonder how many templated warnings I would have earned instead.
 * In my mind, the early days of the project were dominated by optimistic, imaginative, open-minded content-creators who loved the idea that they could significantly contribute to an encyclopedia article on a major topic. "Geology", "James Watt", "Scotland", "Christianity" - they were all missing or stubs. How exciting is that? But over time the trailblazers got burned out, or bored, or just weren't interested in writing about minor topics. On the other hand, there was a need for a new kind of editor - one who would make incremental improvements, and create new articles on minor topics, but who would also defend the encyclopedia from the growing menaces of vandalism, POV-pushing, and commercial interests. This time also corresponded with the explosion of policies, guidelines and the zoo of acronyms that we cheerfully throw at each other nowadays, and it was also the time when newcomers began to be treated with suspicion and distrust.
 * A few years later and we have a situation where new article creation is becoming an eccentric minority interest (and we more or less have a default assumption that any article a new user wants to create is probably a bad idea), where WP:NPP is played like it's a MMPORG where score is kept by counting the number of pages deleted and new editors banned (the goal being to level-up to admin, at which point you have completed Wikipedia and presumably will stop playing it), and where a huge amount of human effort is spent discussing, criticizing, documenting, and ultimately supporting an ever-more-self-referential quasi-judicial bureaucracy that is so many steps removed from the stated goal of building an encyclopedia that it is sometimes alarming. (Why are we arguing about the fairness of the process for establishing a consensus as to how to run an election for membership of an arbitration panel? Don't these people realize that Semiconductor is still a WP:SHITTYARTICLE?
 * Now you may take issue with the factual accuracy of some or all of the above, and you may be right - it is largely bullshit. I am looking at the past through rose-tinted eyeglasses, and I am being more cynical then necessary about the present. But I do genuinely believe that somewhere along the line we have stopped assuming good faith about new editors, and the foundational principle of being the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit" (and which anyone else may fix afterwards if necessary) may no longer be the consensus position of the community.
 * I guess this is where I see myself fitting in, in a small way. I am motivated to look out for new users, particularly those who have created new articles. There are some new users whose contributions we would not miss, it's true, but it breaks my heart to see someone's genuine, well-intended best work be slapped with an A7 and their talk page pasted with warning banners all because some wikipedian with a hundred thousand twinkle edits and a complete lack of empathy is ignorant of its importance. I know this is a concern WSC and others share. I'm not proposing any major changes to the processes - they are mostly quite well designed. I'm just advocating for a kinder, more empathetic, and perhaps less-rushed approach in dealing with newbies. Much as we need new pages patrollers, we can't ever get into the situation where we are significantly more welcoming to new patrollers than to new good-faith content contributors.
 * Thparkth (talk) 17:02, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 2011 wasn't perfect either- have a look at some of the problems we battled over in WP:NEWT. My theory is that the drift from the wp:soFixIt society of the pre 2007 era to the subsequent WP:SoTagitForSomeHypotheticalOthertoFix era is an ongoing process. the article rescue squadron is one of the responses. My hope is that we can get the WMF to do some technical changes, in particular reducing the edit conflicts caused by people categorising and templating new articles. The difficulty is in getting WMF support for change.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:22, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I know and have been following Wikipedia articles for many years though I never knew how to write or edit one until a few months ago. I am from India and yes, people are getting more involved about from where and how all that information is coming. I am new writer and I have made a few edits; making edits is easier now due to visual formatting. It's very helpful. Dishita Bhowmik (talk) 17:49, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Users eligible for Autopatrolled
Thought I would move this discussion into it's own section, hope that's OK.

I could definitely update Database_reports/Editors_eligible_for_Autopatrol_privilege but that page "belongs" to the Database Reports project and Community Tech Bot is updating it with its slightly-less-useful information twice each month. I suspect it is theoretically possible to have my script run through that mechanism, but I haven't worked in that environment before and there would likely be a learning curve involved. Going that way may end up being dependent on the same overworked volunteers who haven't yet been able to action your request to modify the current report.

It would be much, much easier to put my data somewhere else. Any thoughts?

Finally I have updated User:Thparkth/autopatroltest with data from December 18th.

Cheers,

Thparkth (talk) 22:22, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Your list does look useful. I hope you get some help on this, as your list will be much more helpful than the current Database Report version... You might want to contact about your version. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:08, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

New list
I have forgotten how I created the old list, but I found a note on Meta from you asking for a list split by vs everything else.

As I remarked I am still severely restricted in what I am permitted to do, so the list(s) will have to be placed in my user space, from where they can be copied, moved or transcluded.

I have been tussling with a huge (somewhat related) issue of producing accurate region codes for some 100k+ articles, success rate is now about 87-88% (compared with much less than 50% before I started) but of course the last 20% is going to be 80% of the work.

Nonetheless the first list should be uploaded soon. The rest will have to go on my todo list for now.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:46, 12 January 2016 (UTC).


 * Bots/Requests for approval/Femto Bot 7. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC).

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:46, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Four years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:51, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

... and five! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

... and six! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

... and seven! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Users eligible for autopatrol... finally!
It's been a while but the all-singing, all-dancing, new version of the report code is now working and its first results are on the report page. I would be grateful if you would let me know about any problems you identify in the output.

Thanks for setting me along this road by the way - this kind of work is a lot of fun for me, and I now have all the access required to fix, modify, and create new reports without undue delay. Thparkth (talk) 23:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * WSC – I can confirm that this list is now useful again! I'll start looking through it on my end for editors I recognize to let them know about applying for autopatrolled... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:51, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you!
You've fixed a lot of my shoddy reduplicative errors ("the the") etc recently and I appreciate it a lot. › Mortee  talk 21:54, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You're welcome!  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  05:42, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

the [[The → [[The in AWB
Hi - I noticed that you've removed the second the in "the German adaption of the The Best Singers series.", and that you've performed a large number of similar edits with AWB. I don't think this is correct, however, as the final the is part of a proper noun which forms a separate syntactic unit, so the preceding article is still necessary, in my understanding - although a rewording of the sentence would most likely be preferable, as the repetition of the is obviously awkward. If there is an obscure grammatical rule permitting omission of the article, I would be pleased to read it, but otherwise I'd request that you be more careful or stop using AWB for this particular change, and go through the previous such edits again. Thanks. Kranix (talk &#124; contribs) 18:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Kranix, I have edited a number of "the the" instances, but not the one you link to, did you mean to link to something else?. Glad you agree that the repetition of the is obviously awkward. Do you want to give an example where you would have resolved this differently?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:20, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I forgot the link. The sentence I was referring to appears in Silbermond. Kranix (talk &#124; contribs) 18:23, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, so you prefer: of the The Best Singers series over of The Best Singers series. I think that of the The is awkward and my solution an improvement. What alternative do you propose?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think it should be either way, but I also don't think we should change an awkward construction to an incorrect one. I went ahead and changed it to the "the TV series The Best Singers". The best course of action when going through this with AWB (or otherwise) is to perform a minor rewording like this; if that's not obvious, I would just skip the page. Kranix (talk &#124; contribs) 18:46, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Correct typos in one click
I saw the edit you made beenath->beneath. This kind of edits can be easily done using the tool in the title. Let me know if you need any help setting it up.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 15:19, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for helping correcting typos from this list, I would love it if you can use the script and give me some feedback. If you prefer to correct one by one, please remove the ones you checked after you finish. Thanks again, &#32; Uziel302 (talk) 11:27, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi, I already use both AWB and another tool that Edward wrote for me - top thread on this list. I'm finding your list useful, but I'm just using the generic search, that way I get to see the same typo in other projects like Wikivoyage and Wikibooks as well. Plus I have something in Firefox that helps me find other typos around that one. If you are working from the top of your list I could start working from the bottom? What would make it even more interesting is if you could list words by number of occurrences, as using AWB I would start with the most frequent ones.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  20:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand you already use tools, I am also using AWB. As of Edward's tool, I would love to try it out. The point of my script is to make the obvious corrections as easy and fast, without looking for similar typos and typos in the area, in order to manage to fix the 6000 typos my software have found. I would appreciate it a lot if you could just try it out, by adding  to your User:WereSpielChequers/common.js. This tool adds simple buttons to the lis: replace, remove, no much to learn. If after 5 minutes you don't like it, you can revert the edit on you common.js. No need to divide work as every checked typo should be removed from the list. The typos are sorted alphabetically so you can see those who happen couple of time,  these are the top reccurring ones:

unveilled - 9 receving - 9 awll - 8 teching - 7 coveres - 7 appearanced - 7 adiation - 7 sceni - 6 unnotated - 6 predomnantly - 6 featureed - 6

Thanks again, &#32; Uziel302 (talk) 05:56, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I made: Correct typos in one click/list by occurrence. &#32; Uziel302 (talk) 18:03, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Uziel, that's interesting, I have fixed a few and also fed some of those to AWB. Taking aritst as an example. You had it down as 4 examples, I have just fixed 35. Part of that difference is that I think your search is case sensitive, and also misses plurals. Perhaps another involves non-alphanumeric characters, for example ". Another thing I would point out is that sometimes all your examples are very recent, like from the last month or so. That probably means that AWB already picks up that typo, its just that AWB usually has a backlog of typos to fix. That's why it is useful to have people like me do AWB fixes whilst we are using AWB to do other things. If the people who just use AWB in typo fixing mode were on top of the flow of new typos it would be rare for me to find AWB typo fixes when I'm searching for something else. Would it be possible for you to exclude either existing AWB typo fixes, or articles updated in the last three months? If so that would make your tool a really useful way to find additional typos to go into AWB, or if they have lots of false positives or multiple things they could be, to go into Edward's tool.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:56, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the elaborated feedback. I only got to see it now, haven't gotten notification on it. I know my scan is selective and doesn't find all occurrences, I only look for words with space on both sides so that the replacement won't replace part of other word. There are other ways to protect replacements, right now the bottleneck is not finding more typos but actually correcting the current typos. I may run a fuller scan in order to find the most frequent typos to add to AWB. I can also exclude current AWB replacements. I'm less of a fan of AWB since it requires a windows app (even if possible to run on other desktop), my script is easy to use right from browser, both desktop and mobile. Current bottleneck is finding more editors to help with this mission, and after we finish the current list of 6k typos, I will improve the scanning script.
 * Another issue is that the edits aren't recorded anywhere except for the project history page. In Hebrew Wikipedia I created tag for edits of this script and it makes it easier to keep track of the edits (current count over 16k typos fixed). Is there a chance you can create a tag here for "fix-typo-tool" or something like that?&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 09:55, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi, I'm sorry, but I have no idea how to create a tag. Perhaps can help us? I agree that AWB isn't ideal, and I resent having to run a Windows machine in order to use it, but it has an established userbase such that I assume any typo loaded into it is fixed long term whether I'm around or not. Plus I'm really interested in the sort of typos that have so many false positives that they need a human like me to look at them, or they could be typos of more than one word and you need a human to decide which. I'm not really interested in going through thousands of typos in the way that AWB does, especially not if AWB is going to fix most of them I the next few weeks. But if you can tweak your scanning script to screen out current AWB replacements then I would be very interested in going through some of what you then found. As for  other occurrences, if you can treat commas, semicolons, the equals sign and brackets in the same way as spaces then that would be very helpful. If you could also treat "fullstop and space" in the same way that would be good (fullstop without a space would give us a deluge of urls). Once again, thanks for this.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  11:31, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There should be a simple interface to create new tag on Special:Tags, but it only available for sysadmins.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I made a list of odd words that don't appear on scowl biggest wordlist, English Wikipedia titles and wordnet. I looked only for lower case words, capitalized words have so many false positives of names etc. I posted here only words that appeared on latest dump more than 5 times. I then used AWB to see what it does, and excluded all the words it changed. The result is mainly legit variations of words, some foreign language words and some real typos like duringthe. Let me know if this list helps you and if you have any idea how to exclude more correct words without excluding common typos (like, if you exclude all wiktionary words, you get over 5000 common misspelling recorded there, and many many typos that are words in foreign languages. One of the reasons I try to help Lexeme namespace on Wikidata, where words can be querried and filtered by langauge and many other parameters) &#32; Uziel302 (talk) 15:14, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Uziel, I've skimmed through part of that, and used it to fix more than a hundred typos and suggest several new ones for AWB. I'm sure there's more to find as well, though most of those words are either jargon or quoted foreign words.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:12, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Dear, I'm still working through that useful list of yours. I have found a number that I have suggested incorporating into AWB and which have started going into it. I have also found examples such as "startet" where I corrected 36 articles where it was a typo, but hundreds more are a correct use of a non English word. So far too many false positives to load into AWB, but I might put into Edward's tool as I'm sure there will be more such typos in the future. There are also some words where the meaning is clear and which may in time be recognised as new words in English. I suspect there are also some that are either picked up by the Regex function in AWB or because someone else occasionally patrols for them, so if you have the time to rerun it some time it would be interesting to see the difference.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:10, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Dear WereSpielChequers, I ran a new scan, this time focusing on capitalized words. Many of them are names, but I expect every name appearing frequently on Wikipedia to have an article containing it, or at list a disambiguation page. Here is the list I found the most, please note that all of it are words similar to known words, so it won't surprise me if many are typos: User:Uziel302. Thanks a lot, &#32; Uziel302 (talk) 04:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Uziel, I have fixed a couple of them, and gone through a couple more that had some to fix. But a lot will be like "Saachi", occasionally a typo for Saatchi but mostly a rare Indian name. So rare that there aren't enough articles on people with that name to justify a disambiguation page - just passing references such as a minor character in the plot of a Bollywood film. Unfortunately I am a bit pressed for time and or editing away from my home setup for the next few weeks, so I'm not sure when I will have time to go through more of this.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:56, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
 * There is a new list you might want to take a look.This time all the words are variations of actual words so it may contain higher rate of real typos.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 12:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, good to hear from you. Hope all is well with you and yours. "15$$$Deptt" is a duplicate, and gets no hits for me, but Deptt does. Should i ignore the dollar signs?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:00, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the dollars just helped me separating numbers from words. I started grouping words by 15 and went from there down to 3 so words with over 15 occurrences may appear twice. It was easier than doing a full count. Usually I count on excel but this list was too long for excel to process in a timely manner, so I stayed on the text editor and ran regex replacements.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Uziel302/sandbox - new list of lower case words that don't appear on aspell list of words but do appear multiple times here, and are very similar to common words. Some are foreign words and some are names, but you might find some that can be real typos, e.g. appointement that appears in non-french text.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 06:29, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Uziel and thanks for doing that - lots of French words as you surmise, but also plenty of typos. I have just fixed 59 occurrences of qualifed and a few others. pinging and  as they might want to join in this.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  20:48, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you could try using the script for fixing and dismissing typos of Correct typos in one click and give some feedback. Thanks.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 17:19, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Just updated the list on User:Uziel302/sandbox to current dump.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Added some 10K capitalize words that appear at least 5 times and very similar to common words. User:Uziel302/sandbox. Some are typos, most are names. Would appreciate any help locating and fixing the typos.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 18:10, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You may want to check insource:/ whats /.&#32; Uziel302 (talk) 07:08, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Strange sequence of edits.
It is not immediately clear whether it's vandalism or good faith editing, but I am required by policy to assume the latter in the absence of evidence to the contrary. What makes it so difficult to assume good faith is that you have edited over 200 articles contributed to by well in excess of that number of editors and yet you assume that you are right and therefore every one else must be wrong. You have been industriously changing "dependant" in all those articles to "dependent". "dependant" is the correct spelling of the word (see [here]). "dependent" seems to be creeping in as a alternate spelling (historically: it is an olde English spelling often still used by the legal profession). There was no reason to change the spelling per WP:NOTBROKEN.

On the subject of plurals, an apostrophe is not used when pluralising a word. However: English, as ever, has its exceptions and decades is one of those exceptions. Thus referring to the 1970's as a decade is correctly apostrophised. Another good (topical) example would be, "The United Kingdom will be leaving Europe on the 31st of October, no if's or but's". -86.130.28.61 (talk) 12:31, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your note. Over the years I have corrected tens of thousands of easily confused words and have significantly reduced the occurrence of some words in Wikipedia, especially posses which when I started was mostly a typo of possess. It is because of me that very few actors are now staring in films as opposed to starring in them, and neither pubic schools nor pubic libraries last long without me adding the missing l. So I'm well used to finding that hundreds of editors have made minor typos for me to fix, and as encouraged by Wikipedia I have been bold and corrected many contributions that were made by people who knew that their contributions were liable to be "ruthlessly edited". It is possible that wiktionary or my reading of it are wrong re dependant, and I have paused my dependent corrections to give you time to convince the good people at wiktionary to change their records accordingly. As for your suggestion that "in the 1970s" could be "in the 1970's". I find that an odd use of the grocers' apostrophe, but since that one is embedded in AWB it would probably be better to discuss there, as you presumably want AWB changed.   Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  13:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I would not regard "dependant" as an obsolete spelling. The link that I provided lists "dependent" as the US English spelling so this may be an WP:ENGVAR issue. My own (paper) dictionary gives the spelling as "dependant" and notes no alternative. The fact that over 200 articles (and probably a lot more) used the -ant spelling must be a good indication that it is still very much in use.


 * I often wonder if the exceptions to non-apostrophised plurals is the source of the misused grocer's apostrophe (to give it its correct name). I know not what this Autowiki Browser is and I doubt that I can use it anyway. -86.130.28.61 (talk) 15:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Dependant isn't entirely an obsolete spelling, and it is partly an EngVar issue. Dependant is still valid for (Britain) A person who depends on another for support, particularly financial support (= US dependent). So I was careful not to change all the examples that I encountered, only the ones that according to my reading of Wiktionary were wrong. If Wiktionary needs updating, then, well it is a wiki. As for AWB, you don't need to be a user of it to take part in the discussions there, so I have started a thread at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, now that we have one issue resolved, I have started a thread on Wiktionary. Given the relative frequencies of Dependent and Dependant I would be surprised if the Wiktionary article was wrong, but I'm OK to continue pausing my patrol of dependant for a few days more.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW Do you have any opinion re "publicistic"?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Discussion at wikt:Talk:dependant doesn't seem to be taking off, are you OK if I resume correcting those examples of dependant that don't fit the wiktionary definition?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  17:21, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's what Merriam-Webster has to say on dependent vs. dependant. They note British usage versus American, as well as adjective form vs noun. isaacl (talk) 18:34, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

if you haven't already done so, please fix your script
Yeah, I know, an, but your script broke a citation template by corrupting its url value. If you have not already fixed it, please do so.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Whoops, sorry about that. I don't currently have a working machine that supports AWB. But thanks for spotting and fixing that.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:20, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

secularisation in action
Sorry, what? You'll have to explain that one to me. EchetusXe 13:21, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It helps to give a diff or an article when you query something. But usually I use that edit summary when changing calvary to cavalry, minster to minister or manger to manager. I've probably also used it for incorrect use of the words font and canon, and angels, especially right angels.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:28, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

This gave me a chuckle. Thanks for the help! Cheers! --Engineerchange (talk) 14:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Thou art welcome. That particular typo is one of my favourites, though the depinnipedisation of seal level as an altitude is now my top favourite.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  20:39, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Amaravati Stupa
Hi - this from my talk:
 * You don't appear to be short of pics. Was there anything specifically you wanted?©Geni (talk) 12:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ©Geni, there are actually few good photos of the main types of sculpture; most are taken in gloomy Indian museums, often blurry & at funny angles. I would use good ones of the round medallions with scenes, and of the thin coping stone relief on the BM back wall, also the garland frieze above that. One of their rectangular drum-slabs is carved on both sides - pics of each would be great. We only have 11 photos of the Amaravati Marbles from London (in this commons cat), one a crop of another. Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 17:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

There are still only 11 in the commons cat - I think he had taken some before, but not uploaded them, Best, Johnbod (talk) 05:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I can't go there for a week or two, but I hope to get some pics this month.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Editing news 2023 #1
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This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:


 * 1) The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
 * 2) They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences. Please tell them what you think.



An A/B test for on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF)) 23:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Your planned demised
To note; "it has given me some ideas for my own idealised funerary monument" is one of the funniest and driest comments have seen anywhere in years. I nearly choked laughing :) Ceoil (talk) 18:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, if ever get round to writing my SF novel this may actually appear, though I'm no longer thinking about my own plans, something altogether more grand.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Just to give appreciation for your insightful and though-provoking review of the Tomb of Philippe Pot. A difficult FAC on the prose side, but your content review was most rewarding, esp wgt to material and the colour scheme. Fwiw, going the PR-> GA route next time so not so much glaring grammar errors. Anyway best as usual. Ceoil (talk) 16:04, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks


 * It was a pleasure to be involved in such a fascinating article from a time and place so completely outside my ken. Happy to be involved at an earlier stage in anything as quirky in the future.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Well I might tap you sometime in the early summer during a planned PR on some early Celtic sculpture if that's ok. As I say your comments on the tomb brought the page on quite a lot, and thoughtful feedback is always appreciated. Tks once again. Ceoil (talk) 11:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Just as a note, as with a few times before, am relying on series of pics you took and uploaded to commons - without them would have bothered to expanded Tomb of the Black Prince. Yeah another tomb; a shrink might say I'm also thinking for what would be the most magnificent celebration of my eventual demise. as the kids might say. Ceoil (talk) 22:26, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

HotCat
Hi there! I see we were both adding categories to Lorenzo Aillapán at the same time, and you made five edits using HotCat in a row. In case you're not aware, you can do it all in one edit: see HotCat. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi going Batty, I have had a couple of bad experiences with that option on Hotcat, not sure whether the problem was my understanding or my IT Setup. But I'll give it another look.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).



Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Elli · HouseBlaster · Pickersgill-Cunliffe
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Brianga · De728631 · Georgewilliamherbert · Hyacinth (deceased) · ProveIt · The Night Watch

Technical news
 * Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki.

Miscellaneous
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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Help with an edit warrior?
Howdy - picked you off the top of the recently active admins list because I don't think this requires making a scene at AN/I. Could we have some help with the unceasing addition of unsourced material at Egyptian mongoose by ? Multiple rather clear warnings on talk page have had no effect, and this seems to be the current state of mind. Blocking from that specific page might do the trick, but any other attempt at stopping this would be appreciated. Cheers! -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:27, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've blocked them from one page. Hopefully that will do the trick.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  23:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Belated thanks. We'll see if the associated IP also got the hint. If not, might come to ask you for a top-up. Cheers -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Would you please also protect this page ? Because an anonymous editor ‎41.200.51.185 keeps on adding the same unsourced text as Ilyes toon. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Done.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)