Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History of Science/Archive 3

Warburg's Tincture
Hi. I recently created and originated an article on Wikipedia about Warburg's Tincture. I'm writing here to enquire if the article should added to the Medicine WikiProject? I feel Warburg's Tincture is important in the history of medicine.--Roland Sparkes (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I meant WikiProject History of Science. Can the article the Warburg's Tincture be added please? And also the Carl Warburg article? --Roland Sparkes (talk) 00:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Ancient Arabic units of measurement
An article that you have been involved in editing, Ancient Arabic units of measurement, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/. Thank you.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Jeepday (talk) 15:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Iron group
I noticed that the Sun article contained some discussion of the iron group and contained a redlink to that article, so I created it. Since this group is considered obsolete by chemists, I feel that its purview belongs to the History of Science project and thought I ought to bring it the attention of the History-of-Science wikipedians. --arkuat (talk) 04:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot
Okip  00:51, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Soliciting Help from History of Science Project to Encourage New Editor
I am soliciting the History of Science Project to lend a hand to a new editor User talk:Kdksobiech and his first article: Correspondence of the 18th Century Naturalists. I removed a PROD that was I believe inappropriately placed on the article within seconds after its creation. The article needs clean up and may need to be broken up into sections related to each naturalist, but it doesn't warrant deletion. Even though it isn't in great WP style, it appears well sourced and has potential for a very interesting list. Any support and encouragement you can give: User:Kdksobiech would be appreaciated.--Mike Cline (talk) 14:36, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Missing science-related topics
I've updated my list of Missing science-related topics - Skysmith (talk) 12:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Carl Linnaeus assistance
Hello,

I am currently working on the Carl Linnaeus article to bring it to FA status (although GA will be the first goal). Many improvements have been made already but there is a lot to do still. Basically everything except the Biography section needs an overhaul.

Linnaeus is an important part of this wikiproject and I am wondering if there are anybody here who would like to assist me in bringing it to FA status with me (or just do some editing)? If you are, you're more than welcome to contact me on my talk page or Carl Linnaeus talk page.

Thanks, Esuzu  ( talk  •  contribs ) 12:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Science in the Middle Ages
Hello. You are invited to take part in the discussion on Science in the Middle Ages. The question is should we keep or remove the section on the Islamic world. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 08:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Johannes Hevelius
FYI, there's a dispute going on at article and talk page for 7 years now, about whether this guy is German or Polish. This guy apparently invented some constellations that are still used today. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 20:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

History of science articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the History of science articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Sunday, November 14th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of November, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

If you have already provided feedback, we deeply appreciate it. For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 16:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!
Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. &rArr;  Dan Rosenthal    Wikipedia Contribution Team  18:19, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Early motorcycles synchronization
Please see discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Motorcycling.--Dbratland (talk) 02:50, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

G. J. Toomer
I just created a new article titled G. J. Toomer. Quite a large number of articles link to it, but it's very stubby. Do what you can to improve it. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Ptolemy's table of chords
I've created an article titled Ptolemy's table of chords. It is imperfect. Work on it. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At Talk:Ptolemy's table of chords, I've created a "to do" list of work that should get done on this article. I'll probably get to most or all of it eventually unless others get there first. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:09, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

.....and here's the to-do list:

Work that needs to be done on this article:
 * Further inline citations, including:
 * It was the earliest trigonometric table extensive enough for many practical purposes, including those of astronomy
 * (an earlier table of chords by Hipparchus gave chords only for arcs that were multiples of 7½°).
 * Several centuries passed before more extensive trigonometric tables were created.
 * Page numbers in Glowatzki and Göttsche?
 * The parts about the three distinct methods of computing chords.


 * More on the geometric theorems: Their precise statements, how they are proved, how they are used in deriving trigonometric identities, how those identities are used in computing chords.
 * History of editions of the book including those in Arabic.
 * When did more extensive tables supersede this one? Which century?
 * How did the table influence later work?


 * And probably other things.........

Michael Hardy (talk) 15:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Please review seriousness v. proposed deletion as parody of new article Names of small numbers at Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers
History of Science WikiProject members, please, this is being discussed at:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of small numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Names_of_small_numbers#Names_of_small_numbers

Please also consider what additions from binary and other numbering systems and from historically and epistemologically significant concepts and works should be made to this topic as a kept article, especially subtopics which may not be known by Wikipedian editors in other fields.

Thank you. Pandelver (talk) 00:27, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Generality of algebra
Help at generality of algebra would be appreciated. Tkuvho (talk) 20:05, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Renaming discussion
Talk:List of Indian inventions and discoveries. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

RFC on identifiers
There is an RFC on the addition of identifier links to citations by bots. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Lists of publications considered for deletion
Articles for deletion (four previous, six current):  Several lists of scientific publications are being considered for deletion (see the infobox). Some, like List of important publications in biology, already have been deleted. These are primarily historical lists. RockMagnetist (talk) 04:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Carl Linnaeus – almost GA
The article on Carl Linnaeus is very close to being recognised as a Good Article. Unfortunately, the person who nominated it appears to be absent. The only outstanding issue is that the short section on "Linnean taxonomy" needs to be referenced. This is basically a summary of Linnean taxonomy, but that, too, is unreferenced. If anyone here can help with referencing that section – or even re-writing it – it would be much appreciated, and would be a huge step towards getting this very important article raised to GA level. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:23, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

New section in Ptolemy's table of chords
I have just written this new section of Ptolemy's table of chords, which I could not write until we recently acquired the ability to include some archaic Greek letters in TeX.

Doubtless further work on that section could get done, and for the rest of the article, there is a "to do" list at talk:Ptolemy's table of chords. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

physicsworld.com online lecture
physicsworld.com online lecture

On the Shoulders of Eastern Giants: the Forgotten Contributions of Medieval Physicists

presented by Jim Al-Khalili

Date: Thursday 20 October 2011 Time: 4.00 p.m. BST

Free online registration http://www.myecos.co.uk/DC/ctr.aspx?6C6164=31333236363035&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&747970=7478&66=30

We learn at school that Newton is the father of modern optics, Copernicus heralded the birth of astronomy and Snell deduced the law of refraction. But what debt do these men owe to the physicists and astronomers of the medieval Islamic Empire? What about Ibn al-Haytham, the greatest physicist in the 2000-year span between Archimedes and Newton, whose Book of Optics was just as influential as Newton's seven centuries later? Or Ibn Sahl, who came up with the correct law of refraction many centuries before Snell? What of the astronomers al-Tusi and Ibn al-Shatir, without whom Copernicus would not have been able to formulate his heliocentric model of the solar system? In this lecture, Jim Al-Khalili recounts the stories of these characters and more from his new book Pathfinders: the Golden Age of Arabic Science.

Register today http://www.myecos.co.uk/DC/ctr.aspx?6C6164=31333236363035&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&747970=7478&66=30

>> Speaker: Jim Al-Khalili Jim Al-Khalili is a physicist, author and broadcaster. He is professor of physics and also professor of public engagement in science at the University of Surrey, UK. As well as his work on radio and television, he has written a number of popular-science books, the most recent of which is Pathfinders: the Golden Age of Arabic Science. His awards include the Royal Society Faraday Prize (2008), the IOP Kelvin Medal (2011), an OBE in 2008 and a Bafta nomination.

>> Moderator: Dr Margaret Harris Reviews and careers editor, Physics World

Forward this e-mail to friends and colleagues. http://www.myecos.co.uk/DC/fwd.aspx?646C76=313332393832&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&66=30

Or why not share on Facebook or Twitter? Facebook: http://www.myecos.co.uk/SocialMedia/FBShare.aspx?646C76=cdpg8t4vTYQ=&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&737263=1&747970=31 Twitter: http://www.myecos.co.uk/SocialMedia/retweet.aspx?646C76=cdpg8t4vTYQ=&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&737263=2&747970=31

=
==========================================

the Forgotten Contributions of Medieval Physicists**
 * On the Shoulders of Eastern Giants:

Thursday 20 October 2011 4.00 p.m. BST

Free online registration http://www.myecos.co.uk/DC/ctr.aspx?6C6164=31333236363035&736272=$$E48E9XmQ16LgEEE&747970=7478&66=30

=
==========================================

Count Iblis (talk) 00:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

List of important publications in chemistry at AfD
List of important publications in chemistry has been nominated for deletion. Discussion is at Articles for deletion/List of important publications in chemistry. --Lambiam 22:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The result was keep. RockMagnetist (talk) 14:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

History of scholarship
Hi! I'm a new page patroller and ran across this new page. It's in fairly bad shape right now and could use some TLC from experienced editors who also know something of the field. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the information currently contained in the a article could fit into other articles more appropriately. I can see how this could possibly warrant its own article but this is admittedly far from my area of expertise. I could use some more eyes on the article if any of you have time. If you have any advice for me, I'd appreciate it if you could leave it on my talk page or leave me a TB if you want to continue talking here as I'm not going to put this page on my watchlist.  Ol Yeller21 Talktome  14:15, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

List of important publications in law and List of important publications in sociology
At the time were nominated, I believe this wikiproject was not notified. They currently are at as User:RHaworth deleted them when I created it.Curb Chain (talk) 23:47, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/List of publications in law
 * Articles for deletion/List of important publications in sociology
 * User:Curb Chain/List of important publications in law
 * User:Curb Chain/List of important publications in sociology

A Proposal
Below are some ideas on restructuring and revitalizing WikiProject History. It may be easier to keep discussion in one place, perhaps here.

General Points

 * Restructure the front page so that it more closely resembles that of WikiProject Military History. This design is easy to navigate, and getting to specific areas of the WikiProject is made quicker and less difficult.


 * Forge closer ties with some of its "daughter" projects. WikiProject History should serve as a focal point for history-related article improvement drives and discussions, and should be a community of editors supportive of smaller, fairly inactive region-specific history projects.


 * Expand the A-Class review process. This should be a major function of WikiProject History (conducting A-Class reviews for smaller, "daughter" projects).
 * Work on expanding the number of History Good and Featured articles.


 * Host task forces devoted to improving recently-created articles. Some editors should work with WikiProject Deletion Sorting to save as many quality history-related AfDs as reasonably possible.


 * WikiProject History should be less of a "front-lines" WikiProject, like the Military History one, but more of a coordinating effort. An enhanced A-Class review process and forging relations with "daughter" projects would help to achieve this goal.

Membership and Leadership

 * All current WikiProject History members would be members of the new, revitalized project. WikiProject Military History members, as well as members of all region-specific history projects, would be automatically inducted into the project, although these users could opt out at any time.


 * All members of the WikiProject should have an equal say in WikiProject affairs.
 * However, a group of five coordinators should be elected by all editors that are part of the abovementioned categories to make the WikiProject "flow" smoothly. These coordinators would serve for twelve months each, and would be elected in February of each year.
 * Each coordinator would have a specific task, or "department".
 * Chief Coordinator. This coordinator would serve as a guide to other coordinators and members of the project.
 * Assessment and Review Coordinator. This coordinator would sort reviews, with the help of two delegates that s/he could appoint.
 * Membership Coordinator. This coordinator would deal with membership issues, and would direct and judge "contests" on the project.
 * Resources Coordinator. This coordinator would assist members in need.
 * Content Coordinator. This coordinator would work on improving articles in need, and would direct efforts and drives related to this.

Role on the Encyclopedia
WikiProject History should be a visible, important part of the encyclopedia, as it should work to coordinate other projects and direct various task forces and drives on the website. Newcomers interested in history should be assisted and guided by the Resources Coordinator and other helpful editors.

WikiProject History should work together with other projects to achieve some of the goals of the encyclopedia as a whole.

Thank you for reading this, and for commenting, if you are interested.  DCI  talk 23:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Alchemy
Alchemy has been nominated for deletion. 76.65.128.132 (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Portal:History
Is up for FPOC. This is one of the highest (if not the highest) visibility portal on Wikipedia, I recommend commenting on it! Cheers, Res Mar 23:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Major Depressive Disorder (Vincent van Gogh: "At Eternity's Gate")
I refer the group to this thread on the Talk page at Major Depressive Disorder concerning the use of Vincent van Gogh's  painting "At Eternity's Gate" in that article and to  this comment of mine pointing out it has no place in the article and should be removed.

The essence of the complaint is that is fully documented that van Gogh's painting is not at all, nor was ever meant to be, a portrayal of depressive disorder but is rather merely a study of an old man. For that reason alone it should be removed for reasons of encyclopaedic accuracy.

As it stands it necessarily makes a judgement about the nature of depressive disorder, that it necessarily implies despair, even that it necessarily implies suicidal ideation (because of its title and van Gogh's own well known suicide). It is very much to be regretted indeed in my opinion that a Wikipedia administrator, Casliber, a practicising psychiatrist it seems but a poor historian of art, appears to be the prime mover behind perpetuating these poor judgements.

It also mythologises Vincent van Gogh himself who took the greatest care to separate his difficulties in life from his work; the nature of whose illness is not settled but which is not certainly typical of a depressive disorder; who is not documented as suffering from suicidal depressive moods in the last months of his life when this painting was completed and whose suicide itself has in the past year been plausibly questioned by a respected source as rather a manslaughter.

I ask that the image be removed. If it is felt necessary, and I cannot imagine why it should be, that the article be illustrated by a fine art image, then I suggest the original image, Durer's Melancholia, be reinserted. Skirtopodes (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment
I am involved in a content discussion on Talk:Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with a gentleman identifying himself as the senior science writer for that facility, regarding the nature of relationship of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to the Eugenics Record Office. I invite any disinterested by knowledgeable editors to review the discussion and weigh in. WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 20:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Help with edit request
Would someone please take a look at the edit request here? Rivertorch (talk) 08:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

FAR
I have nominated Barbara McClintock for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC Input needed
Input would be appreciated at an RfC regarding the Nobel prize. --Noleander (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for Comment
Would someone with expertise in complex Fourier series comment on the points I make in the Deferent and Epicycle article talk page  -  Is the Mathematical Formalism subsection correct?. Thanks. Dnessett (talk) 17:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

File:Sidereus Nuncius Medicean Stars.jpg
File:Sidereus Nuncius Medicean Stars.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin
There is a debate over a deletion proposal. All comments are welcome. Fakirbakir (talk) 18:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Portal:Technology for featured candidacy
I've nominated Portal:Technology for featured candidacy. Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Technology. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Portal:Technology

Portal technology for featured candidacy
I've nominated Portal:Technology for featured candidacy. Comments would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Technology. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:36, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Portal:Technology

Teylers Challenge: history of science
Allow me to draw your attention to the Wiki Project Teylers: a collaboration between Wikipedia and Teylers Museum (Haarlem, the Netherlands) to improve the content of articles related to Teylers Museum and its collections: GLAM/Teylers/Multilingual_Challenge. Established in 1778, Teylers Museum was originally founded as a centre for contemporary art and science. Martinus van Marum, the museum's first director, corresponded with Herschel, Volta, Goethe and other leading scientist of the Enlightenment period. Van Marum was the first to introduce Lavoisier's oxygen theory in the Netherlands. He also commissioned the largest electrostatic generator in the world for Teylers Museum (still on view in the museum). The entire collection of Teylers Physical Cabinet is available online: | museum website You can find more information on Teylers Museum, its history and its scientific activities in the past on a special website:| Teylers Universe 1778-1826. For the Teylers Challenge we are still looking for people who'd be interested in writing / expanding articles on the history of science! The museum can supply pictures and sources.Gjjanse (talk) 12:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

History of medicine
Hello all. We at Wikiproject medicine are working on a project to improve and translate 80 or so key medical articles into as many other languages as possible. This is being done with the help of an NGO called Translators Without Borders. The project is discussed in detail here with the list of articles being worked on here Book:Health care. Help improving the "history of medicine" sections before translation would be appreciated. -- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Help needed with adding correct categories
Stumbled on Tycho Brahe's (alleged) Calendarium Naturale Magicum Perpetuum and ended up pulling together a stub on the calendar and its "author" Johann Baptist Grossschedel. Outside my normal interests, so stuck at what cats to add. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Soviet science articles
I've left some notes Talk:Suppressed research in the Soviet Union and Talk:Science and technology in the Soviet Union on the need for better coverage of the history of Soviet science. If anybody else wants to help with expansion, I'm certainly up for it. Peter G Werner (talk) 01:54, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedian in Residence
I'm organizing a GLAM residence at Brown University's Ladd Observatory in Providence, Rhode Island. The project involves adding images and article improvement for history of science topics relating to astronomy and timekeeping. A draft of the project description is at Wikipedian in Residence/Ladd Observatory. Any feedback, suggestions or help spreading the word would be greatly appreciated. --mikeu talk 14:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Germ theory of disease

 * Germ theory of disease

The article is incredibly small. It needs expansion. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 17:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll be expanding on the article. Anyone else is free to join in or look at it. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 12:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence: Natural History Museum, London
Hi all,

Just to let you know that the Natural History Museum in London is advertising for a Wikipedian in Residence, working jointly there and at the Science Museum next door; it's a paid post for four months, and applications are open until 10th February. I've worked with Ed Baker at the NHM to define the scope of the program, and it looks really promising - there's some real opportunities for interesting projects here. Details are available on the National Museums site, and there's some details about other upcoming UK residency programs here.

Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to get in touch with me if you've any questions. Thanks, Andrew Gray (talk) 11:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence: Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
Hi all,

Just to let you know that the Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums are advertising for a Wikipedian in Residence (announcement). It's a funded post, part-time through spring and early summer, based in Newcastle (so may well suit a student). Applications are open until 4th March. They're particularly interested in the prospect of someone wanting to work with the shipbuilding & industrial history collections, and digitising some of the material they have in their archives.

Details are available on their website, and there's some details about other upcoming UK residency programs here.

Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to get in touch with me if you've any questions! Andrew Gray (talk) 15:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Mahoney biography
I created a page for Michael Sean Mahoney, historian of science and mathematics. The page could use further input. Tkuvho (talk) 14:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Parable of the Sunfish at peer review
I'd like to invite editors interested in the history of biology to comment at the peer review for Parable of the Sunfish: Ezra Pound ponders literary and scientific epistemology by way of 19th C. pre-Darwinist biology. Many thanks, Garamond Lethe t c  18:09, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll give it a look. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:13, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

50 images from the Science Museum collection
Hi

I'm the Wikimedian in Residence for the Natural History Museum and Science Museum in London. The Science Museum have agreed to release 50 of it's images (at a medium resolution) under a Wikimedia compatible license. The 2 websites that the images would be available from are:


 * http://collectionsonline.nmsi.ac.uk/
 * http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/ (has to say copyright Science Museum)

I'm hoping this is the start of something larger but could just be a one off so am trying to come up with a most wanted list.

I've started a list of images to release on my talk page, please feel free to add to it, I'd like to get over 50 so if there are any problems we still have a good list.

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 10:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Catholic / Eastern Orthodox Division Before 1054?
I think it's a little misleading to separate the "East" and the "West" churches before the Great East-West Schism in A.D. 1054. It suggests that before this date the divide existed, when in fact many if not all of the thinkers before 1054 on both "sides" listed in this article would be "claimed" by both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. Is it possible to use two colors (red & yellow) for thinkers before the Schism? I know this list has the potential to get more convoluted and I don't mean to nitpick, but it is slightly important.

Just to give an example of one of these guys, Pope Sylvester II is listed as Catholic. That's fine, he was a Bishop of Rome in the West so it's fair to call him "Catholic". However, because he reigned before the Great Schism, Eastern Orthodox Christians also acknowledge him as a valid bishop of Rome who was very much in communion with the East and considered part of their Church (since the East and West were united at that time). So he can really be "claimed" by them as well.

97.65.51.2 (talk) 07:30, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Come and join The Wikipedia Library
The Wikipedia Library is an open research hub, a place for organizing our amazing community of research and reference experts to collaborate and help improve the encyclopedia. We are working together towards 5 big goals:
 * Connect editors with their local library and freely accessible resources
 * Partner to provide free access to paywalled publications, databases, universities, and libraries
 * Build relationships among our community of editors, libraries, and librarians
 * Facilitate research for Wikipedians, helping editors to find and use sources
 * Promote broader open access in publishing and research

Sign up to receive announcements and news about resource donations and partnerships: Sign up Come and create your profile, and see how we can leverage your talent, expertise, and dedication: Join in  Introduce yourself   :-)

-Hope to see you there, Ocaasit &#124; c 14:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Input welcome regarding Pseudoscience
There is an ongoing ArbCom request for clarification and amendment concerning the ArbCom's earlier decisions on Pseudoscience. One element of the resulting discussion concerns the recent insertion of a lengthy, critical template on the talk pages of a large number of articles that are categorized as Pseudoscience. Most of these talk pages concern articles providing historical discussions of, but not advocacy of, specific pseudosciences (see e.g., Talk:Flat Earth; Talk:Astrology). Input is welcome from editors who can provide brief reasoned comments on the significance of this template to historical articles. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 21:06, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedian-in-Residence at the Royal Society
The Royal Society, the UK's science academy, is recruiting a Wikimedian-in-Residence to help them work more closely with Wikipedia. The position is part-time (one day per week) for a fixed term of 6 months. See here for more information and details of how to apply. For additional information please contact me at francis.bacon [AT] royalsociety.org Andeggs (talk) 14:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Ernst Mayr - this article needs help
Ernst Mayr has citation tags and suggestions on the talk page from 2011. Please help. Thanks! Soranoch (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Citation Wrong
Reference (p19-20) has NOTHING to do with the quotation. I do not know how to edit...

Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo's_Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa_experiment "According to a biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani, in 1589 the Italian scientist Galileo had dropped two balls of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass.[1] " [1] ^ Drake, S. (1978). Galileo At Work. University of Chicago Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0-226-16226-5.

Google Books Galileo at Work: http://books.google.com/books?id=cHNDo7p7FXQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:0226162265&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0F9IUqCvBsjH2QWboICABA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.201.166.153 (talk) 17:39, 29 September 2013 (UTC)


 * A belated thanks for pointing this out. It turns out that a later edition does contain this information, so I have corrected the citation. RockMagnetist (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Populate: Template:Science commemorative events
Hey All, created Template:Science commemorative events to present some structure and organization about events commemorating scientific achievements. Would greatly appreciate further population to the template or the associated category, Sadads (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

History of rifling
I was reading the History of Science for the year 1500 and found a listing for Rifling requesting citation. I did some checking online and found only one site that provided a possible specific reference. It states that some sources claim that rifling was invented by Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg in 1520. No other source gave as specific possible claim. The source seems fairly solid for the subject: http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/rifling-history.html. Should this be updated with this information and moved to the year 1520? JCO11163 (talk) 02:40, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Call for expert attention at "Species" article (evolutionary/organismal biology, microbial evolution, history of science)
Please see:

[Section] Request: Subject matter experts with broad understanding of species meaning across Eucarya, Archaea, and Bacteria, a/o expertise in historical development of concept

at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Species

I believe the structure of the article needs to be redesigned so that it reflects current understandings and priorities in the field, and that the quality of the article needs to be addressed to remove systemic issues (redundancy, substandard sourcing/idea appropriation/plagiarism, etc.). I will try to interest John Wilkins in providing some high level guidance [ see http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271395 ]. In the mean time, thank you for any kind attention by true subject matter experts that might be brought to bear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.179.92.36 (talk) 06:08, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Public edit-a-thon at the Wellcome Library in London, UK
On 26th February, the Wellcome Library in London is hosting an edit-a-thon event themed around medical history, contemporary medicine and biomedical science in society. This is a free public event, with catering included, supported by Wikimedia UK and Jisc. The editing will take place 11:00 to 16:00 UTC. Follow the link for more information and online sign-up or to suggest pages for us to improve. Apologies if you see this announcement multiple times. MartinPoulter Jisc (talk) 13:48, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Archived a few threads
I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 03:11, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Total free access to Royal Society History of Science journals for 2 days on March 4th and 5th
As Wikipedian in Residence at the Royal Society, the National Academy for the sciences of the UK, I am pleased to say that the two Royal Society History of Science journals will be fully accessible for free for 2 days on March 4th and 5th. This is in conjunction with the Women in Science Edit-a-thon on 4 March, slightly in advance of International Women's Day, on Saturday March 8th. The event is fully booked, but online participation is very welcome, and suggestions for articles relevant to the theme of "Women in Science" that need work, and topics that need coverage.

The journals will have full and free online access to all from 1am (GMT/UTC) on 4th March 2014 until 11pm (GMT/UTC) on 5th March 2014. Normally they are only free online for issues between 1 and 10 years old. They are:
 * Notes and Records: the Royal Society journal of the history of science
 * Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society

The RS position is a "pilot" excercise, running between January and early July 2014. Please let me know on my talk page or the project page if you want to get involved or have suggestions. There will be further public events, as well as many for the RS's diverse audiences in the scientific community; these will be advertised first to the RS's emailing lists and Twitter feeds.

I am keen to get feedback on my personal Conflict of Interest statement for the position, and want to work out a general one for Royal Society staff in consultation with the community. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 12:17, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The Royal Society Library are interested in doing something
The library at the Royal Society in London are interested in doing something related to any item in their library, in particular something to do with items in their unique collections of manuscripts, personal papers, and other material. They are thinking of items that might be good targets, but any suggestions anyone else has would be very welcome. This might be in conjunction with Wikisource, or not. Please let me know on my talk page. Thanks! Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 18:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Total free access to Royal Society History of Science journals for 2 days on March 25th and 26th !!!
As Wikipedian in Residence at the Royal Society, the National Academy for the sciences of the UK, I am again pleased to say that the two Royal Society History of Science journals will be fully accessible for free for 2 days on March 25th and 26th. This is in conjunction with the Diversity in Science Edit-a-thon on 25 March. The event is held by the Royal Society and there are currently a couple of places available, as well as online participation which is very welcome, as are suggestions for articles relevant to the theme of "Diversity in Science" that need work, and topics that need coverage.

The journals will have full and free online access to all from 1am (GMT/UTC) on 25th March 2014 until 11pm (GMT/UTC) on 26th March 2014. Normally they are only free online for issues between 1 and 10 years old. They are:
 * Notes and Records: the Royal Society journal of the history of science
 * Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society

The RS position is a "pilot" excercise, running between January and early July 2014. Please let me know on my talk page or the project page if you want to get involved or have suggestions. There will be further public events in May, as well as many for the RS's diverse audiences in the scientific community; these will be advertised first to the RS's emailing lists and Twitter feeds. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Silent Spring peer review

 * Peer_review/Silent_Spring/archive1

Important book in the history of environmental regulations, history of pesticide usage, and environmentalism. Please offer your assessment of the article. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 13:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Royal Society journals - subscription offer for one year
I'm delighted to say that the Royal Society, the UK’s National Academy for science, is offering 24 Wikipedians free access for one year to its prestigious range of scientific journals. Please note that much of the content of these journals is already freely available online, the details varying slightly between the journals – see the Royal Society Publishing webpages. For the purposes of this offer the Royal Society's journals are divided into 3 groups: Biological sciences, Physical sciences and history of science. For full details and signing-up, please see the applications page. Initial applications will close on 25 May 2014, but later applications will go on the waiting list. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Still worth applying here! Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 10:16, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Another Royal Society offer
As Wikimedian in residence at the Royal Society, the UK's National Academy for the Sciences, I'm trying to organize a release of some images in various categories from their Picture Library. One of the categories is historic (out of copyright) natural history books, mainly for the illustrations. Are there particular books or other holdings that people would like to see images from, or particular images? Unfortunately much of what they have is not digitized and much of what is digitized is not presently online at the last link. The main library catalogue search page is here. Before asking, please try to see if decent quality images are not available elsewhere, as they often are, from the Library of Congress etc. This category is different from the obvious 17th-century stuff from the founding generation, and portraits, where I am clearer what to ask for, though please let me know of anything not so obvious that would be useful. Thanks, Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 09:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Move request of Melancholia
A discussion is taking place on the title of this article at Talk:Melancholia. All input welcome. Thank you. walk victor falktalk 11:15, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Should Nikola Tesla's birthplace be changed?
An RfC Should Tesla's birthplace be changed? has been created. Comments are welcome.- MrX 15:48, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

New photos on Commons from the Royal Society Library
As part of WikiProject Royal Society a special photo session in the Royal Society Library in London has resulted in Commons:Category:Royal Society Library, with over 50 photos of their treasures, mostly 17th century manuscripts, including several of one of Boyle's notebooks. Please add these as appropriate. Thanks! Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 22:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject History of Science at Wikimania 2014
Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014 For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to: Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 09:40, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

History of Science sidebar
The Template:History_of_science_sidebar is too broad for most articles. I think it works great on the History of Science article, because that article is also very broad. But it does not work on articles that are specific. For instance I just removed it from the history of evolutionary thought page. It could be replaced with a more specific sidebar that is more appropriate for that article.

I am proposing the removal of the sidebar from most articles, and possibly the creation of several more which are more specific.

--Harizotoh9 (talk) 01:36, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

A Simple Partnership with the Embryo Project Encyclopedia
I'm the editor in chief of the Embryo Project Encyclopedia, an online open access publication aimed for inclusive audiences. We propose to incorporate our content with Wikipedia pages.

Allow me first to describe the encyclopedia, then why we are posting here, and finally our proposal to partner with Wikipedia.

The Embryo Project Encyclopedia publishes articles about embryology, developmental biology, and reproductive medicine. The intended audience for the articles includes people with between roughly 9 and 16 years of education. The purpose of the encyclopedia is to increase scientific literacy among its readers about the fields of science listed above. To achieve that aim, articles in the encyclopedia use historical methods to situate scientific results in social contexts.

The encyclopedia is funded by the US National Science Foundation, and it is the product of a collaboration between the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University and the Marine Biological Laboratory. All articles receive rigorous peer and editorial review to be factual, non evaluative, and to connect readers to online resources for verification of contents. The publication has an ISSN of 1940-5030, all contents are Creative Commons licensed (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), and the articles are indexed in scholarly databases like Google Scholar.

We'd like to partner our content with Wikipedia. Through various channels, we learned that that this forum provides the most appropriate venue to propose a plan to share our content on Wikipedia, but if we should instead use another means, please let us know.

The following plan describes an initial proposal.

Background We have just under 600 articles in our encyclopedia, but we publish three new articles per week.

Goal We'd like to incorporate into our editing process some steps to link our articles on relevant Wikipedia pages under 'External links' headers. For instance, as we just published an article on Francois Jacob, we'd like to include a link to it under 'External links' on the Francois Jacob Wikipedia page.

Issue In trials runs of that practice, Wikimedians have understandably deleted many of our links. They claim that such links are spam, self-promotional, and thus violate Wikipedia's principles of editing and posting. We appreciate the need for the antispamming principles, and we see how Wikimedians might construe our practices as potentially spam. We think, however, that the spirit of the antispamming principles shouldn't exclude us from linking to articles in the Embryo Project Encyclopedia. We aren't selling anything, we have no grant deliverables related to Wikipedia, nor do we bias our articles except to ensure that they they are accurate about their topics, as free from evaluation as possible, and verifiable.

Proposal

1) We'd like to designate a single Wikipedia account by which we'd post links on Wikipedia articles to articles in our encyclopedia. The one I'm using now works for that function.

2) We'd like that account to have limited immunity to the antispamming principle, in that it can be used to link to articles in the Embryo Project Encyclopedia, but no other website. Furthermore, the account can be used to link to Embryo Project Encyclopedia article only on relevant Wikipedia page. That way me might link to our Jacob article on Wikipedia's Jacob page and on it Pasteur Institute age, but not on the gauge physics page, for example.

3) We'd like other Wikimedians to be able to somehow see that limited immunity status of our account when they check our page edits.

4) We DON'T propose that such a limited-immunity account be indefeasible, and Wikimedians may still delete our links if they judge them inappropriate. We only seek to avoid deletions based on blanket application of the antispamming principle.

5) We propose a standard link syntax of: Example:
 * [url (EPE Article Title)] at the Embryo Project Encyclopedia
 * Francois Jacob (1920-2013) at the Embryo Project Encyclopedia

Final Remarks Please treat our proposal as an initial step. No one on our editorial team has much experience with the policies and practices for Wikipedia, and we're not sure if our proposal maps on to Wikipedia's capabilities and policies. In one sense, we're not quite sure what to ask for, but given our explicit goal and the issue that prevents us from reaching it, we anticipate that you have ideas about how to move forward. Embryoproject (talk) 17:28, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

History of the various branches of natural science
Many of the natural sciences do not have history coverage on Wikipedia. That is, for many of them, there is neither an article on the history of the branch, nor a history section in the main article for the branch.

To see which branches do not have history coverage, look for the redlinks at Outline of natural science. The Transhumanist 02:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

History of medicine list
WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Medics is a new list, around 400 missing biographies of physicians, surgeons and others (emphasis on the UK). Charles Matthews (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Free 'RSC Gold' accounts
I am pleased to announce, as Wikimedian in Residence at the Royal Society of Chemistry, the donation of 100 "RSC Gold" accounts, for use by Wikipedia editors wishing to use RSC journal content to expand articles on chemistry-related topics. Please visit RSC Gold for details, to check your eligibility, and to request an account. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:36, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!


Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking to connect with wikimedians to consult posting external links
I'm an editor for the Embryo Project Encyclopedia and I'm following up on a discussion that you can find here;

I'm looking to connect with the wikimedians who are the main editors of this page, could someone please give me some information on how I could find them? Thank you Page Historian (talk) 21:03, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Board of Longitude has been reviewed
Hi, we have had an expert review at Talk:Board of Longitude.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:29, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 3
Greetings! For this month's issue...

We have demos!

After a lengthy research and design process, we decided for WikiProject X to focus on two things:
 * A WikiProject workflow that focuses on action items: discussions you can participate in and tasks you can perform to improve the encyclopedia; and
 * An automatically updating WikiProject directory that gives you lists of users participating in the WikiProject and editing in that subject area.

We have a live demonstration of the new WikiProject workflow at WikiProject Women in Technology, a brand new WikiProject that was set up as an adjunct to a related edit-a-thon in Washington, DC. The goal is to surface action items for editors, and we intend on doing that through automatically updated working lists. We are looking into using SuggestBot to generate lists of outstanding tasks, and we are looking into additional options for automatic worklist generation. This takes the burden off of WikiProject editors to generate these worklists, though there is also a "requests" section for Wikipedians to make individual requests. (As of writing, these automated lists are not yet live, so you will see a blank space under "edit articles" on the demo WikiProject. Sorry about that!) I invite you to check out the WikiProject and leave feedback on WikiProject X's talk page.

Once the demo is sufficiently developed, we will be working on a limited deployment on our pilot WikiProjects. We have selected five for the first round of testing based on the highest potential for impact and will scale up from there.

While a re-designed WikiProject experience is much needed, that alone isn't enough. A WikiProject isn't any good if people have no way of discovering it. This is why we are also developing an automatically updated WikiProject directory. This directory will surface project-related metrics, including a count of active WikiProject participants and of active editors in that project's subject area. The purpose of these metrics is to highlight how active the WikiProject is at the given point of time, but also to highlight that project's potential for success. The directory is not yet live but there is a demonstration featuring a sampling of WikiProjects.

Each directory entry will link to a WikiProject description page which automatically list the active WikiProject participants and subject-area article editors. This allows Wikipedians to find each other based on the areas they are interested in, and this information can be used to revive a WikiProject, start a new one, or even for some other purpose. These description pages are not online yet, but they will use this template, if you want to get a feel of what they will look like.

We need volunteers!

WikiProject X is a huge undertaking, and we need volunteers to support our efforts, including testers and coders. Check out our volunteer portal and see what you can do to help us!

As an aside...

Wouldn't it be cool if lists of requested articles could not only be integrated directly with WikiProjects, but also shared between WikiProjects? Well, we got the crazy idea of having experimental software feature Flow deployed (on a totally experimental basis) on the new Article Request Workshop, which seeks to be a place where editors can "workshop" article ideas before they get created. It uses Flow because Flow allows, essentially, section-level categorization, and in the future will allow "sections" (known as "topics" within Flow) to be included across different pages. What this means is that you have a recommendation for a new article tagged by multiple WikiProjects, allowing for the recommendation to appear on lists for each WikiProject. This will facilitate inter-WikiProject collaboration and will help to reduce duplicated work. The Article Request Workshop is not entirely ready yet due to some bugs with Flow, but we hope to integrate it into our pilot WikiProjects at some point.

Harej (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Nikola Tesla
An RFC: Should all discussions and proposals about Nikola Tesla's nationality, ethnicity and country of birth (broadly construed) be limited to the sub-page: Talk:Nikola Tesla/Nationality and ethnicity? has been posted here. Interested editors are invited to comment.- MrX 20:56, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 4
Newsletter • May/June 2015

Hello friends! We have been hard at work these past two months. For this report:

The directory is live!

For the first time, we are happy to bring you an exhaustive, comprehensive WikiProject Directory. This directory endeavors to list every single WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, including those that don't participate in article assessment. In constructing the broadest possible definition, we have come up with a list of approximately 2,600 WikiProjects. The directory tracks activity statistics on the WikiProject's pages, and, for where it's available, statistics on the number of articles tracked by the WikiProject and the number of editors active on those articles. Complementing the directory are description pages for each project, listing usernames of people active on the WikiProject pages and the articles in the WikiProject's scope. This will help Wikipedians interested in a subject find each other, whether to seek feedback on an article or to revive an old project. (There is an opt-out option.) We have also come up with listings of related WikiProjects, listing the ten most relevant WikiProjects based on what articles they have in common. We would like to promote WikiProjects as interconnected systems, rather than isolated silos.

A tremendous amount of work went into preparing this directory. WikiProjects do not consistently categorize their pages, meaning we had to develop our own index to match WikiProjects with the articles in their scope. We also had to make some adjustments to how WikiProjects were categorized; indeed, I personally have racked up a few hundred edits re-categorizing WikiProjects. There remains more work to be done to make the WikiProject directory truly useful. In the meantime, take a look and feel free to leave feedback at the WikiProject X talk page.

Stuff in the works!

What have we been working on?


 * A new design template—This has been in the works for a while, of course. But our goal is to design something that is useful and cleanly presented on all browsers and at all screen resolutions while working within the confines of what MediaWiki has to offer. Additionally, we are working on designs for the sub-components featured on the main project page.
 * A new WikiProject talk page banner in Lua—Work has begun on implementing the WikiProject banner in Lua. The goal is to create a banner template that can be usable by any WikiProject in lieu of having its own template. Work has slowed down for now to focus on higher priority items, but we are interested in your thoughts on how we could go about creating a more useful project banner. We have a draft module on Test Wikipedia, with a demonstration.
 * New discussion reports—We have over 4.8 million articles on the English Wikipedia, and almost as many talk pages as well. But what happens when someone posts on a talk page? What if no one is watching that talk page? We are currently testing out a system for an automatically-updating new discussions list, like RFC for WikiProjects. We currently have five test pages up for the WikiProjects on cannabis, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and Ghana.
 * SuggestBot for WikiProjects—We have asked the maintainer of SuggestBot to make some minor adjustments to SuggestBot that will allow it to post regular reports to those WikiProjects that ask for them. Stay tuned!
 * Semi-automated article assessment—Using the new revision scoring service and another system currently under development, WikiProjects will be getting a new tool to facilitate the article assessment process by providing article quality/importance predictions for articles yet to be assessed. Aside from helping WikiProjects get through their backlogs, the goal is to help WikiProjects with collecting metrics and triaging their work. Semi-automation of this process will help achieve consistent results and keep the process running smoothly, as automation does on other parts of Wikipedia.

Want us to work on any other tools? Interested in volunteering? Leave a note on our talk page.

The WikiProject watchers report is back!

The database report which lists WikiProjects according to the number of watchers (i.e., people that have the project on their watchlist), is back! The report stopped being updated a year ago, following the deactivation of the Toolserver, but a replacement report has been generated.

Until next time, Harej (talk) 22:20, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

"Latin"
The usage and topic of Latin is under discussion, see talk:Latin -- 67.70.32.20 (talk) 05:03, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Georg Forster
It would be great if folks could comment as to whether this article currently meets FA criteria at Featured article review/Georg Forster/archive1. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:30, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion about whether to deprecate Template:Cite doi
Template:Cite doi allows editors to generate a citation from a digital object identifier. There is a discussion about whether to deprecate this template. Since doi's are used the sciences and this is a science WikiProject, I am inviting anyone here to comment.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  14:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Merging science and technology categories
FYI, there is a suggestion to merge the history of science and history of technology category trees, see WP:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_September_12 -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 5
Newsletter • October 2015

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

We did it!

In July, we launched five pilot WikiProjects: WikiProjects Cannabis, Evolutionary Biology, Ghana, Hampshire, and Women's Health. We also use the new design, named "WPX UI," on WikiProject Women in Technology, Women in Red, WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health. We are currently looking for projects for the next round of testing. If you are interested, please sign up on the Pilots page.

Shortly after our launch we presented at Wikimania 2015. Our slides are on Wikimedia Commons.

Then after all that work, we went through the process of figuring out whether we accomplished our goal. We reached out to participants on the redesigned WikiProjects, and we asked them to complete a survey. (If you filled out your survey—thank you!) While there are still some issues with the WikiProject tools and the new design, there appears to be general satisfaction (at least among those who responded). The results of the survey and more are documented in our grant report filed with the Wikimedia Foundation.

The work continues!

There is more work that needs to be done, so we have applied for a renewal of our grant. Comments on the proposal are welcome. We would like to improve what we have already started on the English Wikipedia and to also expand to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Why those? Because they are multilingual projects and because there needs to be better coordination across Wikimedia projects. More details are available in the renewal proposal.

How can the Wikimedia Foundation support WikiProjects?

The Wikimedia Developer Summit will be held in San Francisco in January 2016. The recently established Community Tech team at the Wikimedia Foundation is interested in investigating what technical support they can provide for WikiProjects, i.e., support beyond just templates and bots. I have plenty of opinions myself, but I want to hear what you think. The session is being planned on Phabricator, the Wikimedia bug tracker. If you are not familiar with Phabricator, you can log in with your Wikipedia username and password through the "Login or Register: MediaWiki" button on the login page. Your feedback can help make editing Wikipedia a better experience.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 09:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

A-Class review for Chicago Pile-1 needs attention
A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Chicago Pile-1; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

A-Class review for Nike-X needs attention
A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Nike-X; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Template:Isaac Newton
I seem to have bitten off a bit more than I can chew in creating Isaac Newton. Are there any experts on the relevant subjects that could help to sensibly organize the template.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I have cobbled together what I can for this template. It would help to have eyes on it. It would likely benefit from rearranging by an expert.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:18, 13 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I would suggest moving the Newtonianism section to the top, as that is what he is "most notable" for. The publications are details supporting the notability, but the articles about the philosophy give a more general introduction and context to his ideas. Articles like Newton's law of universal gravitation are more welcoming to someone unfamiliar with his work than the more difficult Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. I would also be tempted to put Discoveries and Inventions second, with Publications following that. The order of links within each section feels a bit chaotic and I had difficulty finding some topics. It could be alphabetically organized, possibly with the more important subjects highlighted at the start of the list. But there should be some consistency. Is there a style guide for these sorts of templates? As an aside, Newtonianism is prominently linked but is a rather incomplete stub. I tagged it as part of this project and will into improving it. I didn't check to see how complete the template coverage is. --mikeu talk 18:59, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 6
Newsletter • January 2016

Hello there! Happy to be writing this newsletter once more. This month:

What comes next

Some good news: the Wikimedia Foundation has renewed WikiProject X. This means we can continue focusing on making WikiProjects better.

During our first round of work, we created a prototype WikiProject based on two ideas: (1) WikiProjects should clearly present things for people to do, and (2) The content of WikiProjects should be automated as much as possible. We launched pilots, and for the most part it works. But this approach will not work for the long term. While it makes certain aspects of running a WikiProject easier, it makes the maintenance aspects harder.

We are working on a major overhaul that will address these issues. New features will include:
 * Creating WikiProjects by simply filling out a form, choosing which reports you want to generate for your project. This will work with existing bots in addition to the Reports Bot reports. (Of course, you can also have sections curated by humans.)
 * One-click button to join a WikiProject, with optional notifications.
 * Be able to define your WikiProject's scope within the WikiProject itself by listing relevant pages and categories, eliminating the need to tag every talk page with a banner. (You will still be allowed to do that, of course. It just won't be required.)

The end goal is a collaboration tool that can be used by WikiProjects but also by any edit-a-thon or group of people that want to coordinate on improving articles. Though implemented as an extension, the underlying content will be wikitext, meaning that you can continue to use categories, templates, and other features as you normally would.

This will take a lot of work, and we are just getting started. What would you like to see? I invite you to discuss on our talk page.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Suggested merge of Ancient technology into Prehistoric technology and History of technology
"Ancient technology" seems to have started as a dab page, and now duplicates material found in "Prehistoric technology" and "History of technology", which are much better articles. I've started a discussion at Talk:Prehistoric technology about this. Doug Weller talk 15:01, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Outbreak-related requested move discussions
There are a few outbreak-related WP:RM discussions going on. Feedback would be welcome! larryv (talk) 04:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Talk:1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak
 * Talk:2014–15 West and Central African cholera outbreak
 * Talk:Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
 * Talk:First cholera pandemic (1817–24)
 * Talk:Zika virus outbreak in Brazil (2015–present)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 7
Newsletter • February 2016

This month:

One database for Wikipedia requests

Development of the extension for setting up WikiProjects, as described in the last issue of this newsletter, is currently underway. No terribly exciting news on this front.

In the meantime, we are working on a prototype for a new service we hope to announce soon. The problem: there are requests scattered all across Wikipedia, including requests for new articles and requests for improvements to existing articles. We Wikipedians are very good at coming up with lists of things to do. But once we write these lists, where do they end up? How can we make them useful for all editors—even those who do not browse the missing articles lists, or the particular WikiProjects that have lists?

Introducing Wikipedia Requests, a new tool to centralize the various lists of requests around Wikipedia. Requests will be tagged by category and WikiProject, making it easier to find requests based on what your interests are. Accompanying this service will be a bot that will let you generate reports from this database on any wiki page, including WikiProjects. This means that once a request is filed centrally, it can syndicated all throughout Wikipedia, and once it is fulfilled, it will be marked as "complete" throughout Wikipedia. The idea for this service came about when I saw that it was easy to put together to-do lists based on database queries, but it was harder to do this for human-generated requests when those requests are scattered throughout the wiki, siloed throughout several pages. This should especially be useful for WikiProjects that have overlapping interests.

The newsletter this month is fairly brief; not a lot of news, just checking in to say that we are hard at work and hope to have more for you soon.

Until next time,

Harej (talk) 01:44, 24 February 2016 (UTC)