User talk:WereSpielChequers/Archive 14

This is where I archive threads from 2011 that don't fit in my themed archives.

Hint from New Scientist
Belated thanks for taking care of this; I saw the same item you did and went to look only to see you had cleared it up weeks ago. Nice work. --John (talk) 05:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, apparently this chap has been named as the successor and is due to take office in April, so it wasn't vandalism, just premature.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  07:38, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy New year / changing login
Hello, and thank for your message. As you can see, I don't come very often here : most of the time I work on the french wikipedia. I just asked for changing my login : do I need to write more details ? (Changing username/Simple) Best regards. LogophileGB (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Bonjour, I think you did that just fine.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Userpage Semiprotection
That would be very nice if you semi-protected my userpage! I've had some trouble with IP vandals. ► Wireless Keyboard ◄ 19:54, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks (and for signing my really small guestbook)! ► Wireless Keyboard ◄ 02:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Dawn Gibbons Article
I noticed that you are an administrator who has recently edited the Dawn Gibbons article, and I would like to express concerns regarding a recent pattern of edits to that article by User:Tdawngibbons whose Username seems to imply a connection to the subject of that article. Any assistance you can provide in reviewing the edits, and possibly contacting the user in order to ensure compliance with applicable Wikipedia policies and guidelines would be most appreciated. --TommyBoy (talk) 05:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Good spot, I've left her a note about COI.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

ITL Thanks!
Hi, just wanted to say thanks for your help on Thursday, and I'm really glad it was a good experience for you. Of course, I hope that there are many such events in the future; I will be e-mailing the London meetup "crew" in the near future to let everyone know what's happening at Imperial. Thanks again!Vinnypatel (talk) 18:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Flying penguins
Hi WereSpielChequers. Thanks for copy editing you've done on Flying penguins. Because this article is about April Fools' Day joke, I tried to make it as funnier as possible, and that why I provided Argentinian name for Falkland Islands, but of course you as Englishman did not like it :-) Jokes aside I went to Falkland Islands a few years ago. Wildlife was amazing, but I was surprised there are still mine fields there, and border-men did not allow us to take any pictures at the airport. Anyway... Thanks again for copy editing the article. Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 22:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Mbz1, I've made a few tweaks. Antarctica is bigger closer and in my view more relevant.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  21:04, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi
Could you review in my editor review? Thanks. -Porchcrop (talk 01:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Hey WSC, just letting you know that I replied on my talk page. Cheers,   Tim  1357  talk  17:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I replied again (although I think it's an unrelated thread). Tim  1357  talk  17:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Editor Trends Study
Hey WereSpielChequers. You may have seen this on one of the research lists, but I wanted to make you aware of the Editor Trends Study. This is a study that the Foundation is supporting to get a better understanding of editor patterns and how they've evolved over the past several years. The first set of analysis is very similar to your admin analysis. It would be great to get your thoughts! Howief (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks I've made a point on Meta.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

A village pump thread you may be interested in
About spell checking. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 04:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

:en and academic advantages
Hi, in follow-up to yesterday's chat about why academics should address Wikipedia as part of their public outreach for projects, I have taken a quick peek in the normal academic databases. It is gratifying to see a wealth of recent academic papers on the impact of Wikipedia. As mentioned my experience of having to write a "public impact assessment" was as part of an AHRC project bid, so I dare-say any of those academics in the audience dealing with project funding would be familiar with this aspect of the unavoidable bureaucracy of academic life and makes a useful avenue away from the normal "why do students keep using Wikipedia?" line.

Here's a slightly random list of five short papers that popped out as possible references:
 * 1) Wikipedia as Public Scholarship: Communicating Our Impact Online (2010)
 * 2) Wikipedia as participatory journalism: Reliable sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a news resource. (2004) http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih/publications/utaustin-2004-wikipedia-rc2.pdf
 * 3) The perspectives of higher education faculty on Wikipedia (2010)
 * 4) Wiki and the Agora: 'It's Organising, Jim, but Not as We Know It' (2006) http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029912
 * 5) A Tale of Two Tasks: Editing in the Era of Digital Literacies (2009) http://www.jstor.org/stable/40344342

If one of these is not publicly available and you don't have JSTOR access, you can email me using internal email and I'll be happy to send you the pdf for research. Thanks, Fæ (talk) 09:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Fae that's really helpful.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Ohio House of Representatives
We seem to have a problem. See Les Brown (motivational speaker) and Les Brown (motivational speaker) in context of Sockpuppet investigations/OSUHEY/Archive; I think every one of these articles will need checking. I do not want to delete them immediately, in the hope that I can find some actual documentation-- I'm looking for an official source on just who were the members of the house from this district. If I do not find something by tomorrow, I'll take it to ANI for wider attention. -- Please give me a chance to see what if anything can be verified first.  DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi DGG, I think both those articles are the same and Les Brown (motivational speaker) has a long history with many authors none of whom are blocked. But I don't really do sockpuppetry investigations - are you sure it was me you meant that message for?  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  10:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * just that you are one of the people who have worked on some aspect of it, and I wanted your opinion as another person dealing with this sort of problem. I'm going to AfD the article on (Motivational speaker) as I can find nothing that verifies any of the notability claims there,  and some evidence that contradicts them. As for the representatives, I'm going to wait until I have a chance to find some reliable list.   DGG ( talk ) 16:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry DGG anything I've done on that one is long forgotten, I might categorise an article like that but it isn't really related to any of the topics that I care about.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Systemic bias
Hi WSC,

Discussions on WMUK may not be following up on this area raised at GLAM-WIKI and may not be the right place for resolution anyway (as it is not a GLAM specific issue). There were some impassioned views raised during that far to brief session (I would have liked to have got around to discussing solutions) and I have wondered if something like an RFC to test the consensus for an anonymous but controlled mailshot to all active Wikipedians on all Wikipedias might be the right way to see if we can at least run a scientific survey of opinions, perceived systemic bias issues and assess the self-identification of editors for their cultural background, sex, sexuality, primary language etc. I wouldn't want to go off half cocked and would appreciate some advice on whether this has been covered before or in a particular forum. As someone who does not declare even their sex in the Wikipedia preferences, I am acutely aware that statistics regularly bandied about such as "80% of active Wikipedians are men" may not be as clear-cut as they sound. Thanks, Fæ (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Fae, I think that we have too many different mutually confirming indicators to hope that the gender skew is incorrect. I agree that the best place to discuss it is not at UK level, the Strategy wiki is almost moribund but it is the right place, there was also a survey done there that you might want to look at.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  02:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pointers. I'll ponder the history here and then decide if any action is realistic. Fæ (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The most recent data appears to be the April 2009 survey with a sample of 130,000 people (respectable). If this topic gets discussed again, I think this is the source data to reference and contradicts some of the figures quoted at the GLAM-WIKI conference. Key points:
 * 200 countries in sample
 * 10 to 85 years old respondents
 * Average age is 26 (25% of the respondents are younger than 18) readers and contributors are on average in their mid-twenties, and predominantly male (75%)
 * Women, with a share of 25% in all respondents, are 32% of all readers and 13% of all contributors
 * It seems slightly odd that the survey is not now on a firm annual basis considering how much interest there would be in such data supporting internet usage research. I shall tuck this in my "keep pondering" pile and mentally separate out the complaint raised about the bias against non-English sources (and articles which entirely rely on non-English sources) as the issue only weakly relates to the survey and in my opinion such cases have probably resulted from misunderstanding (or not reading) the existing guidelines. Fæ (talk) 11:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We've had a number of discussions about potential surveys, but I think more focus was on lapsed editors than on understanding our bias. I read this as a two stage failure - for some reason men are twice as likely to read Wikipedia and among our readers men are more than twice as likely to edit. My belief based on my RFA experience among other things is that we don't have a significant gender bias within the community beyond those two failure points - at RFA for example I believe that women do better than men. I haven't a clue why male readers are so much more likely to edit than female readers, but I suspect part of the reason why we have more male readers than female is that we have better coverage of some of the classic boyish subjects like milhist. Perhaps we need to get better coverage of topics like Chelsea Flower Show? Alternatively this might be a suitable opportunity to use that much maligned research method the focus group, the best people to tell us why women don't read Wikipedia would be a group of female Internet users who don't use Wikipedia and the best people to tell us why women don't edit would be a group of women readers who don't edit; That wouldn't give us a statistical picture, but it would give us the questions to ask to run a survey to derive that statistical picture.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  14:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Martine Clémenceau
Hello. About the Martine Clémenceau article, I made it as a translation of the article in French. Joined the translate there are two references to links. Now I wrote another three links with more information. There is not too much information in English. Greetings. Xarucoponce (talk) 01:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC) (PS: I don't speak English, sorry if you don't understand)
 * Bonjour Xarucoponce and welcome to the English Wikipedia.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The Contribution Team cordially invites you to Imperial College London All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 13:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

You Got Mail!
✅

Cheers! ► Wireless Keyboard ◄ 01:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Ping
Hi, I emailed you. Tony  (talk)  12:08, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Trout
You forgot to sign your post here. -- Perseus  8235  16:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Notice of request for deletion of editor WereSpielChequers :)
WereSpielChequers, the editor you are, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that you satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space. Your opinions on yourself are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at User:GlassCobra/Editor for deletion and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit during the discussion but should not remove the nomination (unless you wish not to participate); such removal will not end the deletion discussion (actually it will). Thank you, and have a good sense of humor :). -- Perseus  8235  16:17, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the trout, just in time for supper and the right size for my frying pan. I wonder if my impending possible deletion will be mentioned at this Sunday's London meetup?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:50, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Editbox toolbar
When, and why, was this change made to this new toolbar? To be frank, it sucks, and I'd like the old one back. Is there some centralized discussion on this issue? Thanks, in advance, for your time. --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive' 14:46, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi, I suspect this depends on the skin you use. The default recently changed to vector which is allegedly newbie friendly, but serious editors can revert to monobook in their user preferences  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Let me check on that... Thanks. --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  15:03, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I am in monobook. So, I am not sure what the story is here... --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  15:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have the same problem since about an hour ago. I use Monobok and have not changed any settings for a very long time. It's only the edit mode that reverts to the strange skin with a very limited set of editing tools. I thought at first it was a js problem, but it happens in all browsers. Looks very much to me like a server problem. Kudpung (talk) 15:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are a couple of threads regarding the issue at WP:VPT. I was able to solve the problem on my end by going to My Preferences → Editing → Beta Features → unclick "Enable enhanced editing toolbar". Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 15:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes! I found said discussion and came back here to post a notice about it.  I followed the same instructions and everything is back in order.  Cheers! --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  15:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I spent part of today at Imperial college London showing interested people how to edit Wikipedia. A session largely ruined by whatever software change had mucked the site up, I thought it was a problem with the netbook I was editing from but it seems to be broader than that.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You have the second attempt at 1.17 deployment to thank for all the wonderful little surprises on en.wiki today. --Jezebel's</b> Ponyo <sup style="color:Navy;">bons mots 19:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Editcountis
Hi WereSpielChequers. With respect to File:Top Wikipedians edit distribution.svg (spotted via Wikipedia Signpost/2011-03-14/Editcountitis), I'd suggest adding a scale on the x-axis (otherwise, the axis is meaningless), and changing the y-axis to a log scale - my bet is that you would find a power law distribution. 21:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * On my  computers (Mac, Safari & F/fox) I can't  read the captions or axis names on  the graphics. --Kudpung (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to swerve those queries in Kevin's direction as he did the charts. I agree that the scale is missing. The captions were fine in Firefox on Ubuntu, they are no longer in a gallery and I'm now on windows and chrome as I'm travelling with a netbook.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I actually tried to add an x-axis graph but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I do agree that it should be added soon. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Question - re Gnomish
I gnome unreferenced BLPs and provide a minimum of 2 sources before deleting the Unreferenced tag. In some cases I can provide 1 good ref - is one sound ref enuf to delete an article from the Unsourced category? Are 2 refs strictly necessary - or am I just being lazy? Mark Dask 14:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it depends on the amount of information you are referencing, or rather how much you are leaving unreferenced. RefimproveBLP is always an option here. I take the view that if the subject doesn't interest me and I've verified enough to reclassify the article from unreferencedBLP to refimproveBLP then I've done a worthwhile improvement to the article. If the article came from one author then in my view if part of what they wrote stacks up it is rather less likely that the rest is a malicious hoax. Remember there is a big difference between improving a faulty article that someone else has contributed and creating an article yourself.     Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  15:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Mark  Dask 04:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Radiation levels
In my edit I challenged the source of the radiation level data, as I was not able to find the pages that would confirm it. The only reference does not specify any pages at all. Should one read the whole book just to discover that the data aren't there?

Can you explain why my edit was not accepted? C1010 (talk) 07:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Odd block
Hi, would you mind taking a look at User talk:Minho Kim for the details of their recent block? Unless I have misunderstood something about their history and contribution, they appear to have been blocked on the basis of being an SPA and a suspected COI/advertiser. There is a history of a prior SPI which was closed without any action 9 months ago and they did recreate the same article several times under different names but I am puzzled as to why this might be a rationale for permanent block without prior discussion in the light of the fact that I added sources to the recently re-deleted article myself which made the BLP unambiguously notable in my opinion. I'll be happy to let it go based on your opinion though I have already asked the blocking admin if they would be prepared to undelete the article or userfy a copy to my userspace. Cheers Fæ (talk) 23:13, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Fae, I don't see anything there that would merit a block without warning.  I've done a few blocks without warnings myself, but they have mostly been softblocks for promotional names.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  12:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Re:isp editors
Left a reply on the isp rfc talk page. For what its worth. I know the idea will not succeed now, it was foolish of me to think others here would actually be interested in returning to thing to their old status quo. Thanks for at least asking before penning an opinion, its nice to know people still care enough to seek enlightenment before choosing a side. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sometimes it takes a few ranging shots before one hits the target:) I think if we can reduce the amount of crap at newpage patrol we might be able to get something better for IPs. Though my big worry with newpages is that we have huge gaps in the developing world and I'm not sure that the mobile phone users who dominate Internet use there can create content as easily as us PC users. Nice to see you again anyway, remember me next time you have a battleship article ready for a copy edit.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  22:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Blocking on a level 4 UW rather than after it
Hi, I raised this question with regard to the design of IGLOO but if common practice is for admins to block an IP with a disruptive pattern of edits after giving a level 4 warning but not waiting for them to fail to comply with that warning, then it may be that IGLOO just reflects common practice (though it makes me wonder why the blocking admin would bother giving the level 4 if it is in practice not a warning but part of the block notice). I appreciate that the convention of going through the levels is not a strict policy and I wondered if you had any pointers on interpretation. Cheers Fæ (talk) 16:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, after following up on the detailed records there may be no bug in IGLOO but the first reply I had implied that there was no problem in blocking a user of other uw-4's were recent. Fæ (talk) 17:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Fæ, I think this has been answered on the Igloo page. I suspect some admins get a feel as to whether a particular IP is only actually used to edit by one individual and treat such IPs differently. Because most of the blocks I dish out are for inappropriate page creation or usernames or longterm vandalism I rarely block IPs.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  12:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Setting account to allow moving over redirects
Hey, do you know if there's a way to set my account to allow me to move a page over a redirect? That is basically the only other tool I would need in my day to day editing. I haven't found a case where this has caused a difficulty, but it would be nice to be able to do this. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not a tool as such, that  can be unbundled as far as I  know, because it  involves deleting  pages which  is an exclusive admin right, even if the actual 'move over redirect'  is an uncontentious housekeeping  task. You can always ask  an admin to  do  it  for you - but  not  me, 'cause I've never done it myself yet ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry Nick, I thought the File Mover right might have been related to this, but it is only for File work.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

PC
FYI, good point. History2007 (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Lt. Governor of the Isle of Man
Adam Wood has already been officially appointed as the next Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man: here a reliable source. This is a piece of news Wikipedia should follow: even if his term has not started yet, the appointment is official, so the Wikipedia article should mention this fact, just as it is. There is no "anticipating news" in recording the name of an official-elect (but enlisting him among people who actually served in that position is not the better way to do it, I agree). 82.48.233.114 (talk) 12:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, yes that would be a good addition to the article. We just need to avoid updating succession boxes until he is in post, otherwise New Scientist will be making snide comments again.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi, I tried to add that information to the article, just after the list. By the way, I'm not a native English-speaking person, so I'd like to have my edit checked by any expert user... :) 82.48.233.114 (talk) 15:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Big Red Button
May I suggest: per the IRC discussion re: A button to help new editors get help. In green, tho. Red=STOP! Green=GO! <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  19:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's cool, but maybe a tad disproportionate. I'd suggest a modified version of the vector script that newbies default to for their first 100 edits and which makes help prominent, but not a first or only resort. BTW if you fancy designing something, there was discussion on the Foundation mailing list that we don't currently celebrate people's 100,000th edit. A special Service Award thingy would be useful, especially if maybe someone on IRC would volunteer to dish them out? I could show you how to find the editors involved.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the offer but my computer capacity/ability to design an award of the caliber required is very limited. Having said that, please DO show me how to find the editors involved and I can let my creative mind flow. Maybe something will evolve. <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  12:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. There are a couple of editors a month breaking the 100k barrier, and a list updated every Wednesday here. I would have thought would be a good one to use.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  23:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

✅...Viriditas, Beetstra, and Sardanaphalus. Will wait for User:Will Beback who is at 99657. I'll look again on Wednesday to check status. Should I check UPwards on the list to see if the editors were acknowledged when they reached 100K?? <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  00:29, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Did I just volunteer to distribute these every week or so????<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  00:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I hope so. It would be really cool if you did. As for the ones who made the list some time ago, I know I popped a note on TonytheTiger's page, about half of the 11 passed the 100k barrier in the last twelve months, so if you fancy working backwards I'd suggest going chronologically and using earlier versions of that list to see when they joined it. Going backwards you could watchlist the talkpages and see what sort of reaction you get, if you find that months or years late gets a "meh" response then I'd stop, but if you get a positive reaction then you could go back further, But I woulld expect that "I know it is a few months late, but you never got this for passing the 100,000 barrier" would probably go down well.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  05:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

100K Awards
I've given about 8 of the Tireless Contributor Awards which we agree are rather mundane, to say the least. I was just about to begin backtracking previous 100Kers when I found this---

on User:Cant sleep, clown will eat me's talk page. What a stunningly appropriate award. I have left the editor User:Bugboy52.40 a message asking that I could use his award for future recipiants. Maybe you could visit and increase the salepitch.216.80.88.177 (talk) 21:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC) AKA<em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  22:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

New Version
FYI, just so you know.... <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black">Buster Seven  <em style="font-family:Bradley Hand ITC;color:black"> Talk  06:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC) This award design created by User:Bugboy52.40 ________________________________________________________________

RE: signature colors
I suppose, though I'm at a loss as to what kind of colors would make a better contrast. Could you suggest a few hex codes you think would work better? And, just courious, does this relate to color blindness (I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to see a limited range).  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 12:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I remember when I was designing websites (a little while ago) I used this tool to help me ensure there was a sufficient contrast. For your sig, you've got a brightness difference which is supposedly sufficient, but not a colour difference. <font color="#000">WormTT  &middot; &#32;(talk) 12:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks SW yes colour blindness is the thing I was worried about, I suspect my eyesight isn't perfect there and those colours struck me as overly close. I've been doing some work on this at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month my aim is to get a set of colours for a hotcold matrix that work regardless of the various forms of colour blindness (and to document/fix RFA).  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Howzat?  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 17:03, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Perfect, thanks.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If we're on the subject of colors, I've always found the chequers part of WSC's name hard to read... but I too am no longer a spring chicken. (And it really doesn't matter here, because I can still tell who it is.)--- Balloonman  NO! I'm Spartacus! 20:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This better?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit count script
Mostly rewrote the edit count script. Finished now, as far as I'm aware. (This means User:MZMcBride/Sandbox 3 will no longer update.) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Great thanks MZM, that looks perfect.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Re: Typo fixing
I would indeed be interested in taking a look, thanks! I'll take a look once I've finished studying for my midterm tomorrow.  Sophus Bie  (talk) 04:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * OK I've almost finished this week's report but I'll leave User:DeltaQuadBot/Page_Patrol/Results for you. PS good luck with your midterm.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  07:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
Cheers for catching this typo, how embarrassing! doom gaze  (talk)  14:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, and in good company - I patrol solider every week or two and usually find a handful;)  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Bremke (disambiguation)
Hello. I don't mean to sound a pest but some of the edits you made to the Bremke (disambiguation) page do not conform to WP:MOSDAB. Although you have added blue links, none of these items are mentioned in the article you have linked (apart from Bremke (Eslohe) and Oettern-Bremke which were just created). This rather defeats the point of the dab page which is to provide additional information about the item. Since additional articles have now been created the page no longer warrants deletion, however some cleanup is still required. I tend to find that many dab entries look valid, but in reality are not, careful checking is often required which is why I ran dabfix and removed entries where no associated links could be found. Thank you, France 3470   ( talk ) 20:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi France370, as inhabited places are defacto notable and the creator of the dabpage seems to be working on them, I would be inclined to cut him some slack and give him a few days to finish what he started. Cheers  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  21:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a problem, I have no immediate intentions on removing them, as they are clearly, quickly, being created by a dedicated editor from pages that already exist on the German Wikipedia. I only wanted point attention to blue link requirement, on a whole is often abused. I have come across so many new, recently created, dab pages which on a quick look seem completely okay but turn out to actually contain no valid items. Much to my annoyance, quite a few of these new pages seems to end up being marked as 'patrolled' and slipping through the NPP radar. My only guess is that this is because format-wise they look right, ie contain an associated blue link, and most people assume that this automatically makes then valid for inclusion. Sorry for the semi-rant, France 3470   ( talk ) 22:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the problems of NPP is that patrolled means different things to different people. Some are just trying to use it to screen the really bad stuff out, and others are trying to use it to ensure that any new articles are fully up to MOS. I think that needs a more complex and nuanced system than simply a patrolled/unpatrolled switch, but with Pending changes rejected I'm not hopeful of getting consensus for such a significant change to our systems.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  06:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Bring back the soapdish!
I've started a petition here: User talk:Catfish Jim/Petition, it's intended for humour, though I would definitely like to see the soapdish back. Who knows if we get 20 signatures he might consider it! — James (Talk • Contribs) • 5:48pm • 07:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to the Bacon Challenge 2012
Hello! You have been invited to take part in the Bacon Challenge 2012. In case you don't know or need a refresher, the Bacon Challenge is an annual celebration of bacon on Wikipedia in which editors come together to help create, expand, and improve Wikipedia's coverage of bacon. The event lasts all the way through National Pig Day 2012, giving participants plenty of time to work at their pleasure. In addition to the Bacon Challenge is the Bacon WikiCup 2012, a side event to the Challenge in which all bacon-related contributions done by those participating in the Challenge are submitted and scored by the scorekeeper (me) based on the scoring chart. At the end of the Challenge, the user with the most points in the Bacon WikiCup will win a shiny trophy for their userpage. In addition, the users who score the highest in specific categories (not yet finalized, but the categories include most image uploads, most article creations, most DYK submissions, and more) will win barnstars. Finally, all participants will receive a medal. While the awards are nice, in the end, the important thing is to have fun and enjoy what we're all here for, which is improving Wikipedia.

If you decide to participate, great! You may add your name to the participants list at the main page of the Bacon Challenge 2012, and pick up the userbox for your userpage if you desire. Signing up for the Challenge will also automatically enter you into the Bacon WikiCup. If you don't wish to participate, that's fine too - maybe next year! In the meantime, if you know anyone who might also be interested in participating, feel free to invite them! The Challenge is open to anyone and accepts participants at any time, so feel free to let anyone who might be interested know.

Note that I, the scorekeeper of the Bacon WikiCup, will be on vacation starting on the 18th of June all the way up until the 5th of July. I will have limited access to the internet, so I may or may not be able to score users' contributions during this time. Sorry for any delay in scoring (but since the Challenge lasts for more than half a year, there's no rush, right? (= ).

I'm looking forward to another fun, successful year. Thanks! ~<i style="color:#07517C;">Super</i> Hamster  Talk Contribs 22:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Delyth Morgan
Hi Man I thought you would bring your experience to bear on the Delyth Morgan page because I cant - I'm her ex-brother in law. It reads like crap and has been drafted by SAdrienneM who is Delyth's elder sister. I have tagged the page but it needs an independant perspective. I hope you can spare the time. Mark  Dask  22:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Were the job's been done by no less than Jimbo himself.. Mark   Dask  11:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear that, doubt Jimbo watchlists here but much thanks if he does, and sorry I wasn't on EN wiki at the time.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Help templates
Hi,

WRT our chat yesterday, you can find related helpful templates (the the privacy one for younger editors in particular) at User:Fæ/help. Cheers Fæ (talk) 08:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanka Fae.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks Marek, much appreciated  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:59, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The spell-checker song
Re: "I also look at easily confused words like Doe snot/Does not that cause errors that spellcheckers cannot pick up", I thought you might enjoy this song:

Owed to a Spell Chequer

I have a spelling chequer.

It came with my pea sea.

It plane lee marks four my Rhea view

Miss steaks aye Ken knot see.

Iran this Poe em threw it.

Your sure lee glad two no.

It is core wrecked in every weigh,

My chequer tolled me sew.

A check her is a bless sing.

It freeze yew lodes of thyme.

It helps me right stiles ewe can reed,

And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen

Is trussed two bee a Joule.

The check Ur pours o'er every word

To Czech sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling cheque curs

Hour spelling mite decline,

If wee R. lacks oar have a laps,

We wood bee maid two wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling

Is checked with such grate flare,

There are know faults with in my cite,

Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,

It does knot bring a tier.

My pay purrs awl due glad den

With words sew fare too here.

To rite with care is quite a feet

Of witch won should bee proud,

And wee mussed dew the best wee can,

Sew flaws R knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays

Such soft wear four pea seas,

And why eye brake in 2 averse

With righting sure too please.

--Guy Macon (talk) 15:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Guy, much appreciated.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

User:WereSpielChequers/Userboxes/Liverpool
User:Arparag created this userbox, and placed non-free image File:Liverpool City Council logo.gif on it in violation of NFCC #9. I've removed the image, and left a note on his talk page asking him why he created a user subpage in your userspace. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar!

 * Thanks reaper, much appreciated.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

FYI
FYI Agathoclea (talk) 17:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Agathoclea, much obliged.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The Teamwork Barnstar

 * Thanks Sarah, it was a pleasure. Happy to look at more like that, just drop me a note when they are ready. PS see you in Haifa!  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

 * Thanks Steven.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!
Hi WSC, I wanted to thank you for all the clarifications and helpful information you gave me for my research sprint. Feel free to drop me a line in case you have any other comment on it! Junkie.dolphin (talk) 06:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it was a pleasure. If you keep an eye on the meta talkpage I may get back there. Hope you enjoy the rest of the Summer of Research.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Mobile survey
We are in the process of launching our mobile survey. I have set up a wiki for the survey http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Mobile_Readers_Survey_2011 I would appreciate if you could provide feedback on the questionnaire. Manipande (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that sounds like a worthwhile and important project. I've commented on meta.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  13:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

You are famous in Israel
A few hours ago, an article which includes a short interview you gave, has been published on one of Israel's prominent news sites (Walla!). It's in Hebrew, but you can see your user name there. Well done! Dolev (talk) 15:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks Dolev, I think I get the gist of it via Google translate.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  05:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Get some more coverage and we'll be able to write an article about you. Heh. -- <font color="#BA0000">Σ talk <sub style="margin-left:-3.2ex"> contribs  05:25, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the more perverse side-effects of our recentism and the lack of old material on the Internet is that someone like me who gets a little bit of contemporary publicity could be argued to pass the General notability guideline more easily than millions of more noteable people who are long dead. A friend at the London meetup who knows my real life identity has already told me I pass the GNG. Personally I don't consider myself amongst the 5 million most notable people alive today let alone qualified to join the 500,000 who have Wikipedia articles about them. But it was nice to be interviewed and I was impressed that the chap listened and reported accurately, he genuinely seemed to be finding out was going on and reporting on that rather than pushing a theory and trying to twist quotes to support it.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  07:24, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

A moment of your time - if I may
I'm currently gnoming through the backlog of articles with bare urls for refs - easy peasy with reflinks - I'm now at November 2010, but reflinks keeps throwing up terms like "blacklisted" (IE Highbeam}, and "skipping (IMDB)" references. How do I read this - should I delete all Highbeam and IMDB refs that fail reflinks? I coud not gnome effectively in this category without reflinks - so who's the Daddy? I say delete all blacklisted and skipped refs by reflinks - what do you say? Much obliged for your time.  Mark   Dask  21:25, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think IMDB is suitable as a reference anymore; see WP:IMDB. That may be part of your problem. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Mark, that sounds like useful work, I won't comment on Highbeam as I'm not familiar with it.WP:IMDB currently says it is generally not acceptable as a reference, but I would hesitate before dropping the word generally. My understanding is that IMDB has long been a debated source because it contains a mix of reliable data such as program listings along with user generated content. If it wasn't for the fact that they are emerging as a significant competitor to Wikipedia I would be suggesting that we open a dialogue with them to discuss how they achieve their quality and then decode which parts of their data we can consider reliable. An alternative approach would be to commission a study on the reliability of IMDB, if the result indicates that they are as accurate as the sources which we currently consider reliable then we could be more confident in them. If it confirmed that their listings were accurate but the biographical section was user generated then perhaps we could be clearer as to when they were and when they were not an acceptable source for us.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  05:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks both of you for the link. I think I will just have to manually format IMDB links where individual cases merit, but Highbeam seems a definite nono Mark   Dask  16:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

"Attack page"
Hi this may seem a strange request, but I was wondering if it's possible to change this deletion summary here: User:Betty_Logan. You identified my userpage as an "attack page" and deleted it. I'm pretty sure I never created a user page, so I have no idea what the deletion entailed. However, I was recently identified in a dispute as an "attack page", so some editors are clearly interpreting this as a warning about me. Is it possible to remove or amend the "attack page" edit summary, because it obviously reflects badly on me? Betty Logan (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, anybody can create your userpage and this idiot did just that back in 2010. It was properly deleted as an attack on "you". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Betty, Hi Ron, I've moved the page and hopefully clarified things. There have been suggestions in the past that userpgages (though not talk or subpages) be made editable only by admins and the editors whose page it is, we could resurrect the idea, but I suspect it is too rare an event to get much priority from the developers.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You are cordially invited to...
The Committee]. Rich Farmbrough, 09:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC).


 * wow thanks, and there was me thinking that all my wp edits would rule me straight out. Great to meet you at Wikimania.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks Sarah, nice to be appreciated. 192.116.106.209 (talk) 10:44, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WP Future
Template:WP Future has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:24, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikimania project domain
Hi, I do not mind your proposal and have a counter proposal (sort of) if you'd like to look. :) -- とある白い猫 chi? 14:03, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Alf.laylah.wa.laylah hey, i'm testing twinkle talkback for the first time, so if it's messy, i apologize in advance... &mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 18:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * oh my, it seems to actually work, how fun... &mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, replied on your talkpage.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:47, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Adding you to my recall list
Hi. It's recently been pointed out to me that there is a slight flaw in my recall criteria. The criteria is fairly simple - if three or more of the people on the list ask me to hand back the tools I will. Sadly a number of memebers of the list are now so inactive as to make my criteria almost un-enforceable - not a good thing. I'd like to add yourself to the list as I trust you to be impartial. Please let me know if you're happy with that or not - or feel free to edit User:Pedro/Recall and either add or remove yourself from the hidden list. Best. Pedro : Chat  09:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Pedro, I've accepted though with quite a large twinge of conscience that I've never got around to completing a recall criteria form myself. Though I kind of assume that if I needed to go the next London wikimeet would tell me. I did look around when I first became an admin and yours was the criteria I chose to base mine on, if I ever get round to it, would you be OK to be on the list?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding your name. I'd be equally honoured to be on yours. I sort of choose the format as it seemed fairly simple and with no wiggle room which keeps it "honest" if you see what I mean. One of these days I am going to force some time away from work and the family and attend a London wiki-meet - promise!! Pedro : Chat  09:36, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be good, it would be great to meet you in person after all these years! As an alternative why not come along to one of the London GLAM events, one of our regulars took his kids to either a V&A or a British Museum event.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * .....a good thought, although I'm not sure my three year old would be quite up for it....and then there's the issue of persuading Mrs Pedro that she needs to come too, to help me out. :) Pedro : Chat  09:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I think my sister was three when her query "what do plataps" got a fulsome response from an expert friend of our Australian relatives. But yes I see the issue, kids come first at that age. I'm sure we'll still be drinking in the Oak when you are wondering what to do with yourself when she has a sleepover with friends.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  21:30, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, please don't start me down that line. I feel old enough already :) Pedro : Chat  21:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * - and when my  10 year old grandson  asked me recently  "So  what's all  this stuff you  do  on  Wikipedia then?"... --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * okay I feel a tad younger again! I was trying to explain to my five year old the other day that when daddy was growing up we had the choice of three TV channels, and that was it. He couldn't quite get the concept! Pedro : Chat  11:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You're lucky - when grand-père was little it  was Muffin  the Mule on  Childrens' Hour, then the only  channel closed down again until  about  7pm! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * And if you tell them how t' telly used to be Black and White they just say theirs is Silver.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Naughty words
Kudpung tells me that you have a bot which crawls articles looking for certain keywords that might indicate vandalism. I'm working on a bot that will decline AfC submissions that satisfy one of the quick-fail criteria, but I want it to skip over submissions that might be attack pages. I've created a rudimentary list of bad words to check for, but I was wondering if I could take a look at your list, as apparently I'm not as imaginative as some of our AfC contributors when it comes to being vulgar. Cheers. <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#5a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#0a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> comment 14:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Snottywong, yes I do, but it focusses on a small subset, and on words where the false positive rate is so high that it needs manual perusing. I'm not sure there are words available that we can guarantee won't be used in legit articles - if there were someone would name a rock group after them and several other groups would include the word in their song titles. But if there are any User:Lupin/badwords would be a good place to look, though I would suggest you think of a high risk prompt attention group rather than a decline AFCs bot. Afterall if we could write a decline AFC bot we could also write a speedy deletion bot, and I'm not aware of many of those that have had sufficient accuracy to be released.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the list you linked to above will be quite adequate. My first priority is to ensure that the bot doesn't decline submissions that might be high-risk, instead leaving them for a human to review.  It may be possible in the future to have the bot flag the submission as "possible high risk" so that human reviewers can prioritize it.  Thanks for the help!  <b style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000 0em 0em 0.4em,#0a0 -0.2em -0.2em 0.4em,#5a0 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em;color:#ddd">&mdash;SW&mdash;</b> gossip 16:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

AOR
I suppose I  ought  to  tell  you  that  you've been on  my  list  ever since I  got the mop. It's a pretty eclectic list and in  fact  I  didn't  tell  any  of them :) --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Heads up
Just a quick note that the templates we're going to test starting this week are up:


 * 1) uw-test1-rand
 * 2) uw-delete1-rand
 * 3) uw-npov1-rand
 * 4) uw-unsor1-rand
 * 5) uw-error1-rand
 * 6) uw-blank1-rand
 * 7) uw-spam1-rand
 * 8) uw-bio1-rand
 * 9) uw-attack1-rand

We let Addshore know that we've got another test scheduled, and folks are concurrently working on analyzing the last round of level 1 testing. Based on last time's volume, we'll probably get statistically significant amounts of template application in a week. If you have any questions or comments about the templates, I'm watching their talk pages naturally. :) Thanks, <span style="font-family:Palatino, Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   23:26, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Question
Hi WSC. Have you heard anything  from  Boing! said Zebedee? He hasn't made an edit  in almost  3 months. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, have you emailed him?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  00:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there will  probably  be no  answer. Apparently  he has told another user that  he will  be out  of Internet touch  for quite some time. I  don't  think  now that  there is any  immediate cause for concern -  if he's in  Thailand, he should know how to  contact me if he needs to. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Dawn Gibbons
I wanted let you know that I mentioned our February, 2011 discussion regarding the edits of User:Tdawngibbons to the Dawn Gibbons article in a discussion with User:Edison regarding the recent edits of User:Dawn Gibbons to the same article just in case the two incidents are related. --TommyBoy (talk) 03:40, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello from India
Hi there WereSpielChequers,

It was great meeting you at WikiConference 2011 - an absolute pleasure. Looking forward to more collaborations with WMF UK in GLAM in future. AshLin (talk) 09:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Ashlin, the pleasure was mutual. I'm now back home in a cold, grey and wet London and the delights of Mumbai seem half a world away. But I shall never forget my brief time in India and the many wonderful and inspiring people I met. Absolutely we must get some future GLAM collaborations going, so far we've mostly prioritised the institutions and curators within those institutions who want to collaborate with us and objects that are "interesting" in the UK. But I think now would be a good time to go to our GLAM contacts in London with a request from our colleagues in India that we do a Tipu's Tiger style collaboration on an object of their choice. Would one of these be of particular interest to Indian Wikimedians?  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  08:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Incidentally it would be really nice to get a translation of the inscription on File:Parshvanatha at V&A inscription.jpg. At present I don't even know what script it is - not Hindi I think but not otherwise sure.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

193.150.26.253
Hey WSC. You beat me to blocking User:206.53.186.2 by a few seconds, but I'm just letting you know I extended the block because 31 hours didn't seem long enough given their extensive block log (I don't know if you saw their block log, but they came off a year-long block last week. All the best, HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   13:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Harry, No objections, I rarely block IPs and might be being cautious - its quicker to dish out a 31 hour block than to work out if they are stable and residential or a school.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

RfC closures
Hi WSC. This RfC has been resolved, and needs closing before it continues as an after-debate.I've read the instructions, but  I'm  not  sure if participants can close and archive  it. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Its been closed now. In such circumstances if there's any hurry and you are involved I'd suggest a a quick note at the admin's noticeboard asking for an uninvolved admin to close it.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:30, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I realise that after I posted here, and that's what I did. Thanks. BTW, any news on other stuff? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:37, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Office Hours
Hey ; another Article Feedback Tool office hours session! This is going to be immediately after we start trialing the software publicly, so it's a pretty important one. If any of you want to attend, it will be held in #wikimedia-office on Friday 16th December at 19:00 UTC. As always, if you can't attend, drop me a line and I'm happy to link you to the logs when we're done. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Seasons greetings
Howdy WereSpielChequers, thanks for your message. Happy winter Solstice to you too! Salvio Let's talk about it! 09:45, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to add my greetings also and to say thanks for the time you took to create the "Solstice template". As you may have seen I am using it as my greeting and everyone seems to enjoy it. Cheers and have a superb 2012. MarnetteD | Talk 23:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hehe, thanks! And a Merry Christmas to you, too. I think I'll have the words "for all the work you've been doing on the death anomalies" on my tombstone.  Lugnuts  (talk) 09:44, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea! My will merely specifies that I should arrive late, halfway through the playing of thus Sprach Zarathustra. Incidentally you may notice that ES wiki has been brought back into the match process. Last time we took them out because they were creating false positives by having former football clubs listed as dead, including their currently living players, hopefully they are back in because of a tidy up but your opinion would be welcome.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Sent you an email :)
Merry Christmas too. Kind regards. Wifione  Message 17:41, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * replied.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:41, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Best wishes
I recommend a 1998 CNDP with your pud!
 * Cheers mate. I'm on the Angialis today. BTW I'm drafting an essay on simplifying the wiki, should be up early in the New Year.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:15, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

==

Losing new editors
Hi WSC. I do  hope the outreach initiative to  modernise our instructional  pages expands to  do  something  about  our other walls of text -  looks like we've lost  another editor -  not  that  I'm blaming  anyone on the admin team  at all. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm...I just saw this. It's very disappointing, and all too common. I hope this changes soon. Steven Zhang  <sup style="color:#FFCC00;">The clock is ticking....  07:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Biting newbies is common, but I'm not convinced this particular scenario is all that common. Leaning over backwards I can see how that could have been a goodfaith editor who just made too many mistakes. An edit summary of "removing this photo, will replace it with a better one" would I think have resulted in very different treatment (actually attempting to replace one image with another would of course have been treated quite differently). Much as I regret the decline in the number of editors I wouldn't prioritise those who make repeated and unexplained attempts to remove content then get snarky when they are stopped. I don't see that WYSIWYG editing would prevent this, but perhaps it would be helpful to have an edit filter that spotted newbies who repeat the same edit without an edit summary and prompted them with a phrase like "it seems that another editor disagrees with your actions and is reverting you, please could you give an edit summary explaining why you think your edit would improve Wikipedia"  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  07:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Or someone could have cropped Driscoll out so the WP picture focuses on the article subject (good for WP and I'd assume fine with Dcharris). :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea, still possible to do that and drop a note on the talkpage explaining what you've done.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

To clarify
I was not saying "Nobody listens to DGG"; you either did not read my comment, or did not understand what I was replying to - despite yourself saying that it was perfectly comprehensible. My comment that nobody was listening to DGG was in response to Slowking's comment that "i note DGG, that noone is listening to you". I'm glad that you normally listen to DGG; I'm sure you enjoy doing so. Perhaps if you could try listening to Slowking and I a bit more to avoid incorrectly characterising me as a "hardcore deletionist"? Ironholds (talk) 11:24, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Ironholds, in my comment I was mainly concerned about your opening sentence. I think there is a bit more nuance to "It is in English, if you want an ambiguity in it clarified then I'd suggest a polite note to Slowking on his talkpage rather than such hyperbole." than simply interpreting that as me describing something as "perfectly comprehensible". As for whether in my eyes you are or were a hardcore deletionist, or whether I think in such simplistic terms, please remember that I consider myself a hardcore deletionist when it comes to unsourced articles about alleged pornstars, prostitutes and mafiosi. Assuming we are both going to be at the London meetup on sunday week, perhaps we should discuss these issues there over a beer?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * What do assumptions make one out to be, again? I won't be going to the meetup no, which (from the attendees point of view) will at least make it quieter. There's absolutely no need to discuss it over a beer - you misrepresented what I was saying, presumably through not reading what I was replying to, I have come here to clarify, please either apologise or at least recognise that what you stated was inaccurate. Ironholds (talk) 13:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:AnonymousWelcome
Hi, WSC. I deeply regret opening this can of worms. I find the template very useful and wish someone had left something like it on my talk page back in 2004 or so. If you insist on starting a TfD (your prerogative, of course), I'd be grateful for a link on my talk page if it's not too much trouble. Rivertorch (talk) 09:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Rivertorch, 2004 is impressive, you've been editing way longer than I have. Please remember I'm not trying to delete the templates that welcome IPs and gently encourage them to create accounts. Templates_for_discussion is just an attempt to delete a welcome template that in my view is unwelcoming and that implies that IP editing is somehow deprecated.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2011/Op-ed
Hello

I am not sure that you are intrested, but I make some analisys for pl.wiki here you have data.

Quick and dirty translation:
 * PUA = RfA
 * tak = yes
 * nie = no
 * udane = accepted
 * nieudane = not accepted


 * page 5 = at what try candidate was accepted
 * page 7 = percent of accepted candidates
 * page 9 = how many RfA in one year
 * page 11 = how many votes (average)
 * page 16 = number of edits in moment of get admin (limit "you can start RfA" - 1000 edits)
 * page 18 = number of days from registration account to get a admin
 * page 20 = year of creation of account

Data are from September 2010, but you can just check what are main diffrence between en.wiki and pl.wiki

If you want more information please write to me on pl:USER:PMG.

PMG (talk) 11:34, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Tipu's Tiger
Thank you for sending Tipu's Tiger material to India. Bishdatta handed the material to me when she returned from Haifa. That along with other resources I have are available for Wikipedians to physically access in India. Thanks once again. AshLin (talk) 04:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome. I'm hoping to get a lot more photos on common from the Indian section of the V&A shortly.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Abdul Qadeer Khan
Hi WereSpielChequers,

I think wikipedia is a fantastic project. I spend quite some time reading and writing here. I am running into a new kind of problem at this moment. I found a page that I would like to edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan. The page is incoherent and rife with linguistic errors. I think most people agree that it is a very important page. The cause of the poor quality is twofold: -largely written by people with poor mastery of English. -an editing war over content see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abdul_Qadeer_Khan The page even contains this comment:

Clearly it is a page of fierce controversy and active editing.

Before I start to clean this page up, I want to have some kind of reassurement that the page will not be messed up again after my back. Is that possible? I would find it unsatisfactory if I remove linguistic errors and try to make the page more balanced and the balance is removed by someone else.

Doctor Ruud (talk) 11:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Doctor Ruud, in my experience typos and so forth can be fixed on even the most contentious pages. But on contentious pages sometime uncontentious improvements can get caught up in the wider controversy. So I would suggest proceeding with caution and trying to engage with people on the talkpage and work with them to achieve consensus. Alternatively if you don't want the risk of having your work compromised by subsequent editing then I would suggest picking a less contentious topic. However I do hope you do some cleanup there, I have made a few tweaks - there were a couple of minor errors there such as understating the weight difference between U235 and U238 and even suggesting that all reactors require enriched fuel (though as enrichment becomes more efficient I think that even CANDU's might be taking advantage of it). I accept that my own edits may be lost in subsequent editing, but that I'm afraid is the risk we all take here.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  10:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

feedback request
Hi WSC. If you have a moment  could you  please check this out. More info on  its tp. Cheers. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
User talk:Kudpung/NPP
 * Thanks replied there.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:07, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

James Brown (journalist)
Hello! Where is you take infomation about percon and reliable source?--Many baks (talk) 16:17, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Many Baks, We accept lots of different things as wp:Reliable Sources. Books, Magazine and Newspaper articles about him would be fine. The important thing is that they need to be independent of him and to have a proper fact checking process in place. Hope that helps.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:24, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

re: your message
Hi WereSpielChequers, I've left a reply to your message on my talk page -- Marek. 69  talk  15:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool
Hey WSC; thanks for coming to Office Hours yesterday - Fabrice appreciated your comments :). The full logs can be found here; we're thinking of holding another session quite soon. Would you like me to drop you a note when I have the specifics? In the meantime, you can read about the new ideas here, and if you have any suggestions or comments, drop them on the talkpage. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that, as this talkpage indicates, you're rather busy :). At the moment we're in the early stages - I'm planning on writing a brief newspost of sorts say, once every week or two weeks to explain what we're doing and what's still in discussion, so people can jump in at points that interest them without feeling obligated to do everything else to. Would that sound like something you'd like to receive? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Or not? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi, yes happy to be circulated. What media are you using?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  21:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * For the newsletter? Probably just a talkpage note :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Good. I much prefer it when newsletters and so forth are done on wiki rather than in blogs etc.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:15, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm keeping things on-wiki as much as possible. Discussion will be here, not mediawiki.org, comms will be by talkpages, so on, so forth. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool - Newsletter 1
Hey, guys and girls! You're receiving this because you signed up (or manually requested) the Article Feedback Tool Version 5 Newsletter. This is for people who care about making the AFT a better feature, but don't necessarily want to have to participate in every discussion. Instead, I'll be sending a newsletter around twice a month talking about what's been decided and what's still up for discussion - that way, if you're interested in specific features or ideas, you'll know when to jump in :). If you know anyone who fits into this category (or you're a talkpage watcher who does) please sign up here to receive more updates in the future.

First off, editors have already been picking at the basic design, and I've forwarded their suggestions to the devs. Those ideas which are worthy of further investigation (or being programmed into the software) are listed in the status box at the top of the talkpage. Community suggestions that the devs like include: So already there's been some great ideas - I was in a meeting yesterday in which they confirmed that the developers are actively looking at how to include Utar's suggestion pretty quickly. There are still a lot of open issues, however; most pressing this week is what level of access IPs should have to submitted comments? The Foundation's plan calls for IP addresses to be only allowed to read the comments, but not to vote on or comment on their priority - this is intended to reduce gaming - but editors may have different opinions. If you like this level of access, want something more open, or want something more closed, please drop a note here.
 * Allowing for up and down-voting of comments to indicate priority (suggested by User:Bensin)
 * Having comments link to the version of the article (as well as the article) that they refer to (suggested by User:RJHall)
 * Including the AFT box as a hidden drop-down from a "feedback" button on section headings (suggested by User:Utar)

Hope to see you all on the talkpage soon, with any developments, ideas or suggestions you may have. All the best, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh - and the next Office Hours session will be held on Thursday at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. Give me a poke if you can't make it but want me to send you the logs when they're released - we'll be holding sessions timed for East Coast editors and Australasian/Asian editors next week. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Consider yourself poked. If I could have I would have joined in though I'm not that keen on IRC office hours as in my experience the longer and more thoughtful the comment the more likely it is that the discussion has already moved on (providing its chaired you can have public meetings with scores or even hundreds of people - but on IRC a dozen people can be typing at once). However I'm already double booked that evening.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That's definitely a problem with IRC, yeah; it's one of the reasons I'm trying to hold so much of the discussion on talkpages (that and transparency) where I see you're contributing pretty well. So, no pressure; enjoy your existing commitments :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


 * There's another session at 22:00 UTC this evening, if you can attend; logs from the last session can be found here. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:23, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Signpost opinion piece
Hi there. I noticed that you had a lot to say in response to the opinion piece I wrote and was wondering if you'd be willing to write a rebuttal to my piece, talking about the successes that have been made in uBLP, or on other matters in which you disagreed with my piece. The Signpost has never had a rebuttal before, but I trust that you would be able to pull it off quite nicely if you wanted to, and as the coordinator for the Opinion desk, I am committed to taking the desk in new directions. One of the executive edits has expressed interest in the possibility of this piece as well, so don't worry about it not getting run, if you write it, we'll run it.

If you were interested in writing on something else instead, I'd also be more than happy to run an opinion piece by you on another topic.

 S ven M anguard  Wha?  14:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Sven, I would love to write an opinion piece on this or on something else. But it won't be this week, it probably won't be this month and it may not be this year.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It never occurred to me that you'd have it ready for this week, I should have made that more explicit. Whenever you're ready, the doors are open. I will say though, that the window on doing a rebuttal is pretty small. Had I contacted you when I first thought of the idea (while my piece was still running) we might have pulled it off. Alas though, I suppose I dodged a bullet.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  15:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thanks Jon Harold. I came up with the idea for the Death anomalies project but needed a programmer to code it. I think the coding needed for your idea would be very similar. If anything it would be simpler in that we don't need to worry about finding the equivalent of en:Category:Deaths by year in each language, or face anomalies due to the different policies that different languages of Wikipedia have as to how old someone needs to be before we assume they are dead. I'll flesh the idea out on meta and talk to Merlissimo about it. In the meantime I was wondering with your language skills do you think you could find us more "deaths by year" categories for meta:Death anomalies table? We currently only have 83 languages where we've found the category, and though I know that Dutch and I think Portuguese don't have a compatible category system that still leaves nearly 200 language versions of Wikipedia that we could add to the table. Also there are only 14 languages currently extracting a report, if you know anyone who might be interested it would be great to see Swahili as our first African language extracting a Death anomaly report.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  10:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! I added some more categories [//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_anomalies_table&action=historysubmit&diff=3111597&oldid=3081740 here]. I'll see what I can do about Swahili; I agree it would be cool to have that as the first African language. As for other languages, I don't really think there are many more languages that have categorisations by year at all, either because they don't think it's necessary, or because they are just not developed enough to have a proper categorisation system at all (proper categorisation is not usually what comes first for new writers...).
 * About a similar coordinates project, I don't know what's better – a table like death anomalies would be handy, but I've thought some more about it, and maybe it would be more suitable as a toolserver tool; that way one can show in a table the values from different projects, and it could generate a template based on that information (since the templates may have different syntax on different projects). Do you have any thoughts on that? Jon Harald Søby (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing those, yes I appreciate that small wikis aren't going to implement categories until they are ready. As for whether it would be better on the Toolserver I don't know, but User:Merlissimo will.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:00, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool newsletter
Hey, all! A quick update on how version 5 of the Article Feedback Tool is developing.

So, we're just wrapping up the first round of user contributions. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed ideas (a full list of which can be found at the top of the page); thanks almost entirely to contributions by editors, the tool looks totally different to how it did two months ago when we were starting out. Big ideas that have made it in include a comment voting system, courtesy of User:Bensin, an idea for a more available way of deploying the feedback box, suggested by User:Utar, and the eventual integration of both oversight and the existing spam filtering tools into the new version, courtesy of..well, everyone, really :).

For now, the devs are building the first prototypes, and all the features specifications have been finalised. That doesn't mean you can't help out, however; we'll have a big pile of shiny prototypes to play around with quite soon. If you're interested in testing those, we'll be unveiling it all at this week's office hours session, which will be held on Friday 2 December at 19:00 UTC. If you can't make it, just sign up here. After that, we have a glorious round of testing to undertake; we'll be finding out what form works the best, what wording works the best, and pretty much everything else under the sun. As part of that, we need editors - people who know just what to look for - to review some sample reader comments, and make calls on which ones are useful, which ones are spam, so on and so forth. If that's something you'd be interested in doing, drop an email to okeyes@wikimedia.org.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions so far. We're making good headway, and moving forward pretty quickly :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Admin functions that should only be done by admins who are legally adults
I wasn't too sure what to make of your essay when I first read it in terms of whether this is something to really be advising editors to believe (and you may very well be a minority, I could be wrong though :-)). Since this essay has been in the project space for some time and has barely been edited, I was thinking this essay belongs in the user space more so than the main project space. I have no preference for it staying in the main project space, but I was thinking this is something you should consider, moving it to your user page. Regards, — Moe  <font color="0000FF">ε  05:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Moe Epsilon, I rather prefer to believe that either I successfully summarised the relevant discussions on WT:RFA or nobody noticed it. Either way if you have specific concerns about it it has a talkpage.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  07:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

CSD testing: experiment?
Isn't this similar to the experiment you took part in a year or two ago? Is it a good idea? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Not that similar, we did a mystery shopping exercise, this is a training exercise where the relevant accounts are publicly declared as created for a training exercise. As to whether it is a good idea, I think it replicates work that Balloonman did, not sure from the two examples I looked at how useful it will be. What do you think of it as a training exercise - I think your expertise is a lot more relevant than mine there. Incidentally you might be interested to read User:WereSpielChequers/typo study, feedback would be welcome.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Like you, I'm not sure if it would contribute much more to the research that has already been done. That said, if the accounts are fully declared, I think it's probably harmless, but I would prefer to see the experiment as a more officially recognised and collaborative exercise. On alt accounts, I personally only have one, (declared to arb), which I never edit from except to remind myself what the Wiki looks like to someone who doesn't have the admin buttons, and what warnings look like when generated on non autoconfirmed users' talk pages.  I've read through your typo study, but it's a bit above my head. I only correct typos when I'm reading the 'pedia for myself or reviewing articles -  or my  own, of which  there are many  due to  my  special keyboard.   I can't use AWB - shame it's not ported for Mac, it seems that a significantly  high proportion of experienced editors (elitists - ::wink::) here use Mac - was there ever any research  done into  the use of platforms by  regular active users?  --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Kudpung, to me that's the beauty of the crowdsourcing model, there are a bunch of us who hunt down typos and there are others who care about colour schemes or punctuation. What I was trying to do with that analysis was to gently point out that if you want to measure the level of typos in Wikipedia then it helps if you are looking at the current version and that what you are measuring are typos. Perhaps I was overly polite.
 * As for operating system, wikipedia is a child of the open source movement so we shouldn't be surprised at there being a disproportionate number of Linux users. I'm not sure what the Mac connection is, maybe it is a geek thing? I think I tried to get some O/S questions into the annual survey but I don't remember if I succeeded.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:08, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about this, but I would assume that anything that works on Linux would probably work on Mac as they both have a Unix core. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to  round this off: I  feel  very  sure that  there is a much  higher use of Mac and Linux among  Wikipedians than the global  average. However, rather than reflect  on  the reasons why (although  one could make some academic guesses), it  would be a good idea to  find out  if this is true, and if it  is, consider properly porting  things  like AWB to  Mac rather than recommending using  unstable, slow, and bulky Windoze emulators such  as Wine to  do  it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the rply
Thanks for the quick response you replied to me on Meta-Wiki and I have signed your guestbook also. Kindly regards. -- Katarighe ( Talk  ·  Contributions  · E-mail) 21:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC) New year wishes == A very happy new year to you ! Shyamal (talk) 04:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks and a Happy New Year to you and yours.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:46, 31 December 2011 (UTC)