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The Signpost: 22 October 2012

Unlike the long-running disputes that have characterised attempts to reform the RfA process on the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia's tradition of making decisions not by consensus but knife-edged 50% + 1 votes has led to a fundamentally different outcome. In 2009, the project managed to largely settle the RfA mode issue in 2009 indirectly.
One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.
Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006, is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.
The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms be successful while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.
Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

Please may I ask you to send me a copy of ...

... the recently-deleted Menlo Park (band), or to userfy it ?

With many thanks

Ekphraster (talk) 09:08, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

The first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new financial arrangements has proceeded as planned, with the publication of scores and feedback by Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) staff on applications for funding by 11 entities—10 chapters, independent membership organisations supporting the WMF's mission in different countries, and the foundation itself. The results are preliminary assessments that will soon be put to the FDC's seven voting members and two non-voting board representatives. The FDC in turn will send its recommendations to the board of trustees on 15 November, which will announce its decision by 15 December. Funding applications have been on-wiki since 1 October, and the talk pages of applications were open for community comment and discussion from 2 to 22 October, though apart from queries by FDC staff, there was little activity.
This week, we're checking out ways to motivate editors and recognize valuable contributions by focusing on the awards and rewards of WikiProject Military History. Anyone unfamiliar with WikiProject Military History is encouraged to start at the report's first article about the project and make your way forward. While many WikiProjects provide a barnstar that can be awarded to helpful contributors, WikiProject Military History has gone a step further by creating a variety of awards with different criteria ranging from the all-purpose WikiChevrons to rewards for participating in drives and improving special topics to medals for improving articles up to A-class status to the coveted "Military Historian of the Year" award.
The TimedMediaHandler extension (TMH), which brings dramatic improvements to MediaWiki's video handling capabilities, will go live to the English Wikipedia this week following a long and turbulent development, WMF Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier announced on Monday ... Wikidata.org, a new repository designed to host interwiki links, launched this week and will begin accepting links shortly. The site, which is one half of the forthcoming Wikidata trial (the other half being the Wikidata client, which will be deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia shortly) will also act as a testing area for phase 2 of Wikidata (centralised data storage). The longer term plan is for Wikidata.org to become a "Wikimedia Commons for data" as phases 2 and 3 (dynamic lists) are developed, project managers say.
Thirteen articles, ten lists, nine images, one topic, and one portal were promoted to featured after peer reviews.
A paper in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup. Here, he uses an op-ed to explain the way the WikiCup works and to review this year's competition, which ended recently.
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it. But was Wikipedia's coverage unbiased?
The Signpost's weekly roundup of topics for discussion on the English Wikipedia.
This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. TimedMediaHandler also went live.
This week, The Signpost sings along with WikiProject Songs which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template.

The Signpost: 12 November 2012

Last week, media outlets reported a ruling by a German court on the problem of businesses using Wikipedia for marketing purposes. The issue goes beyond the direct management of marketing-related edits by Wikipedians; it involves cross-monitoring and interacting among market competitors themselves on Wikipedia. A company that sells dietary supplements made from frankincense had taken a competitor to court. The recently published judgment by the Higher Regional Court of Munich, in dealing with the German Wikipedia article on frankincense products, was handed down in May and is based on European competition law.
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status last week.
In late September, the Technology report published its findings about (particularly median) code review times. To the 23,900 changesets analysed the first time (the data for which has been updated), the Signpost added data from the 9,000 or so changesets contributed between September 17 and November 9 to a total of 93,000 reviews across 45,000 patchsets. Bots and self-reviews were also discarded, but reviews made by a different user in the form of a superseding patch were retained. Finally, users were categorised by hand according to whether they would be best regarded as staff or volunteers. The new analyses were consistent with the predictions of the previous analysis.
As promised, we're expanding our horizons by featuring projects that cover underrepresented areas of the globe. This week, we headed to WikiProject Brazil which keeps track of articles about the world's largest Portuguese-speaking country. The project has shown spurts of activity and continues to serve as a hub for discussions, despite the project's collaborations, peer reviews, and outreach activities being largely inactive.

The Signpost: 19 November 2012

The WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations for the inaugural round 1 of funding. Requests totalled US$10.4M, nearly all of the FDC's budget for both first and second rounds. The seven-member committee of community volunteers appointed in September advises the WMF board on the distribution of grant funds among applying Wikimedia organizations. The committee, which has a separate operating budget of $276k for salaries and expenses, considered 12 applications for funds, from 11 chapters and from the WMF itself for its non-core activities. The decision-making process included community and FDC staff input after October 1, the closing date for submissions. Taken together, the volunteers decided to endorse an average of 81% of the funding sought—a total of $8.43M, which went to 11 of the 12 applicants. This leaves $2.71M to be distributed in round 2, for which applications are due in little more than three months' time.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Turtles. The young project started in January 2011 and has accumulated 5 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 6 Featured Pictures. The project maintains a combined to-do list and hot articles meter, a popular pages ranking, and a collection of resources for turtle articles. We interviewed Faendalimas and NYMFan69-86.
WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was forced to clarify this week that proposed structural changes to the Foundation's Engineering and Product Development Department were not a "done deal" and that it was "important that you [particularly affected staff] realise that ... your input is wanted". The reorganisation, announced on November 5 and planned for the middle of next year, will see its two components split off into their own departments.
Seven featured articles, four featured lists and ten featured pictures – including the photograph that spawned the Streisand effect – were promoted this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include the question of ticker symbol placement and the notability of various types of creative performer.

The Signpost: 26 November 2012

On November 24, a general assembly of Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) voted on the fate of the Wikimedia Toolserver, a central external piece of technical infrastructure supporting the editing communities with volunteer-developed scripts and webpages of various kinds that are assisting in performing mostly menial tasks.
An open-access preprint presents the results from a study attempting to predict early box office revenues from Wikipedia traffic and activity data. The authors – a team of computational social scientists from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University and the Central European University – submit that behavioral patterns on Wikipedia can be used for accurate forecasting, matching and in some cases outperforming the use of social media data for predictive modeling. The results, based on a corpus of 312 English Wikipedia articles on movies released in 2010, indicate that the joint editing activity and traffic measures on Wikipedia are strong predictors of box office revenue for highly successful movies.
Six articles, one list, and six images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Wikidata, the new "Wikimedia Commons for data" and the first new Wikimedia project since 2006, reached 100,000 entries this week. The project aims to be a single, human- and machine-readable database for common data, spanning across all Wikipedia projects, which will "lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions" while lowering the burden on Wikipedia's volunteer editors—whose numbers have stalled overall, and continue to dwindle on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we uncovered WikiProject Deletion Sorting, Wikipedia's most active project by number of edits to all the project's pages. This special project seeks to increase participation in Articles for Deletion nominations by categorizing the AfD discussions by various topic areas that may draw the attention of editors. The project was started in August 2005 with manual processes that are continued today by a bevy of bots, categories, and transclusions. The project took inspiration from WikiProject Stub Sorting and some historical discussions on deletion reform. As the sheer number of AfDs continues to grow, the project is seeking better tools to manage the deletion sorting process and attract editors to comment on these deletion discussions.

The Signpost: 03 December 2012

The global jury of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the world’s largest photo contest, announced its results on 3 December.
Three articles, two lists, and four images were promoted to 'featured' status this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Deployments of MediaWiki 1.21wmf5 cause widespread problems for users across wikis when HTML and CSS updates came temporarily out of sync. On the first wikis targeted for deployment, this was caused by the different cache invalidation rates for HTML (typically one month) and CSS (typically five minutes). The retrospective on the problem highlighted the fact that that the test wiki – the WMF's answer to a production environment that individual developers can no longer practically emulate themselves – actually demonstrated the exact problem that would later manifest itself on production wikis. It went unnoticed.
This week, we went searching for white roses in the lands of WikiProject Yorkshire. The project began in May 2007 as a way to improve articles about the historic English county of Yorkshire and its modern-day administrative divisions and cities. Since then, the project has accumulated 31 Featured Articles, 14 Featured Lists, 91 Good Articles, and a monstrous list of Did You Know entries. Despite all of the effort improving Yorkshire articles, the project has experienced waning participation in the last few years. The project still publishes a newsletter each month, monitors the popularity of and recent changes to its articles, maintains a portal, and collects resources for contributors to use.

The Signpost: 10 December 2012

At the time of writing, this year's election has just closed after a two-week voting period. The eight seats were contested by 21 candidates. Of these, 15 have not been arbitrators (Beeblebrox, Count Iblis, Guerillero, Jc37, Keilana, Ks0stm, Kww, NuclearWarfare, Pgallert, RegentsPark, Richwales, Salvio giuliano, Timotheus Canens, Worm That Turned, and YOLO Swag); four candidates are sitting arbitrators (David Fuchs, Elen of the Roads, Jclemens, and Newyorkbrad); and two have previously served on the committee (Carcharoth and Coren). Four Wikimedia stewards from outside the English Wikipedia stepped forward as election scrutineers: Pundit, from the Polish Wikipedia; Teles, from the Portuguese Wikipedia; Quentinv57, from the French Wikipedia; and Mardetanha, from the Persian Wikipedia. The scrutineers' task is to ensure that the election is free of multiple votes from the same person, to tally the results, and to announce them. The full results are expected to be released within the next few days and will be reported in next week's edition of the Signpost.
Eight articles, four images, six lists, and one topic were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The Visual Editor project – an attempt to create the first WMF-deployable WYSIWYG editor – will go live on its first Wikipedias imminently following nearly six months of testing on MediaWiki.org. A full explanatory blog post accompanied the news, explaining the project and its setup. Once a user has opted-in, the editor can handle basic formatting, headings and lists, while safely ignoring elements it is yet to understand, including references, categories, templates, tables and images. At the last count, approximately 2% of pages would break in some way if a user tried the Visual Editor on them; it is unclear whether any specific protection will be put in place beyond relying on editors to spot problems.
In celebration of Human Rights Day, we checked out WikiProject Human Rights. Started in February 2006, the project has grown to include over 3,000 articles, including 12 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, 66 Good Articles, a large collection of Did You Know entries, and a few mentions "in the news". The project monitors listings of popular pages and cleanup tags. We interviewed Khazar2, Cirt, and Boud.

The Signpost: 17 December 2012

Seven days after the close of voting, the results of the recent Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced by two of the four stewards overseeing the election, Mardetanha and Pundit. Of the 21 candidates, 13 managed to gain positive support-to-oppose ratios, and the top eight will be appointed to two-year terms on the committee by Jimbo Wales, exercising one of his traditional responsibilities.
In the past year, we've tried to expand our horizons by looking at how WikiProjects work in other languages of Wikipedia. Following in the footsteps of our previously interviewed Czech and French projects, we visited the German Wikipedia to explore WikiProjekt Computerspiel (WikiProject Computer Games). The project dates back to November 2004 and has become the back-end of the Computer Games Portal, which covers all video games regardless of platform. Editors writing about computer games at the German Wikipedia deal with unique cultural and legal challenges, ranging from a lack of fair use precedents to the limited availability of games deemed harmful for youths to strong standards for the inclusion of material on the German Wikipedia.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
This week's big story on the English Wikipedia is obviously the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (which, by the time you read this, may be renamed 2012 Connecticut school shooting). Quickly created and nominated for deletion not once but twice, and both times speedily kept, the article saw the expected flurry of edits (a look at the history suggests an average of at least one a minute over the first day and a half) and more than half a million page views on the first full day.
Four articles, three lists, and five images were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week, including a picture of a three-week old donkey (also known as an 'ass').
MediaWiki users (including Wikimedians) can now organise themselves into groups, receiving recognition and support-in-kind from the Wikimedia Foundation. The project, backed by new Wikimedia technical contributor coordinator Quim Gil, has seen five proposals lodged in its first week of operation. The idea of MediaWiki groups mimics that of Wikimedia User Groups.

The Signpost: 24 December 2012

As part of its new focus on core responsibilities, the Wikimedia Foundation is reforming its grant schemes so that they are more accessible to individual volunteers. The community is invited to look at proposals for a new scheme—for now called Individual engagement grants (IEGs)—which is due to kick off on January 15. On Meta, the community is once again debating the two new offline participation models—user groups (open membership groups designed to be easy to form) and thematic organizations (incorporated non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work on a specific theme within or across countries). In a consultation process on Meta that will last until January 15, the community will be discussing WMF proposals for a new guideline on conflicts of interests concerning Wikimedia resources. The draft covers COI issues for both volunteers and organizations across the movement.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject A Song of Ice and Fire, which focuses on the eponymous series of high fantasy literature, the television series Game of Thrones, and related works by George R. R. Martin. The project was started in July 2006 and has grown to include 11 Good Articles maintained by a small yet enthusiastic band of editors.
Seven articles and two lists were promoted to 'featured' status this week, including List of battlecruisers. The article covers all of the battlecruisers—which were a type of warship similar in size to a battleship but with several defining characteristics—ever planned or constructed. The last British battlecruiser built, HMS Hood, is pictured at right.
Efforts were stepped up this week to sow a feeling of trust between the major parties with an interest in the future of the Toolserver. The tool- and bot-hosting server – more accurately servers – are currently operated by German chapter, Wikimedia Germany, with assistance from the Foundation and numerous volunteers, including long-time system administrator Daniel Baur (more commonly known by his pseudonym DaB). However, those parties have more recently failed to see eye-to-eye on the trajectory for the Toolserver, which is scheduled to be replaced by Wikimedia Labs in late 2013, with increasing concern about the tone of discussions.

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

In the impersonal, detached Colosseum that is Wikipedia, people find it much easier to put their thumbs down. As such, many people active in the Wikimedia movement have witnessed a precipitous decline in civil discourse. This is far from a new trend, yet many people would agree that it all seemed somehow worse in 2012.
A recent, poorly researched and poorly written story in the Register highlighted the perceived "cash rich" status of the Wikimedia movement. ... The Telegraph and Daily Dot, among others, have alleged that there are multiple links between the WMF, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Kazakhstan's government, which is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party non-democratic state.
On 27 December the Wikimedia Foundation announced the conclusion of their ninth annual fundraiser, which attracted more than 1.2 million donors. The appeal reached its goal of US$25 million, even though fundraising banners ran for only nine days.
In the first of two features, the Signpost this week looks back on 2012, a year when developers finally made inroads into three issues that had been put off for far too long (the need for editors to learn wiki-markup, the lack of a proper template language and the centralisation of data) but left all three projects far from finished.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...
Brion Vibber has been a Wikipedia editor for nearly 11 years and was the first person officially hired to work for the Wikimedia Foundation. He was instrumental in early development of the MediaWiki software and is now the lead software architect for the foundation's mobile development team.
At the beginning of the year, we began a series of interviews with editors who have worked hard to combat systemic bias through the creation of featured content; although we haven't seen six installments yet, we've also had some delightful interviews with people who write articles on some of our most core topics. Now, as we close the year, I would like to present some of my own musings on the state of featured content—especially as it pertains to systemic bias and core topics.
This week, we're celebrating the New Year from Times Square by interviewing WikiProject New York City. Since December 2004, WikiProject NYC has had the difficult task of maintaining articles about the largest city in the United States, many of which are also among the the most viewed articles on Wikipedia. The project is home to 22 Featured Articles, 7 Featured Lists, 32 pieces of Featured Media, and a lengthy list of Did You Know? entries.
Northeastern University researcher Brian Keegan analyzed the gathering of hundreds of Wikipedians to cover the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. ... A First Monday article reviews several aspects of the Wikipedia participation in the 18 January 2012, protests against SOPA and PIPA legislation in the USA. The paper focuses on the question of legitimacy, looking at how the Wikipedia community arrived at the decision to participate in those protests.

The Signpost: 07 January 2013

Meta is the wiki that has coordinated a wide range of cross-project Wikimedia activities, such as the activities of stewards, the archiving of chapter reports, and WMF trustee elections. The project has long been an out-of-the-way corner for technocratic working groups, unaccountable mandarins, and in-house bureaucratic proceedings. Largely ignored by the editing communities of projects such as Wikipedia and organizations that serve them, Meta has evolved into a huge and relatively disorganized repository, where the few archivists running it also happen to be the main authors of some of its key documents. While Meta is well-designed for supporting the librarians and mandarins who stride along its corridors, visitors tend to find the site impenetrable—or so many people have argued over the past decade. This impenetrability runs counter to Meta's increasingly central role in the Wikimedia movement.
The dawning of a new year offers both a fresh slate and an opportunity to revisit our previous adventures. 2012 marked the fifth anniversary of the WikiProject Report and was the column's most productive year with 52 articles published. In addition to sharing the experiences of Wikipedia's many active projects, we expanded our scope to highlight unique projects from other languages of Wikipedia, and tracked down all of the former editors-in-chief of the Signpost for an introspective interview ... While last year's "Summer Sports Series" may have drawn yawns from some readers, a special report on "Neglected Geography" elicited more comments than any previous issue of the Report. Following in the footsteps of our past three recaps, we'll spend this week looking back at the trials and tribulations of the WikiProjects we encountered in 2012. Where are they now?
The past 12 months have seen a multitude of issues and events in the Wikimedia foundation, the movement at large, and the English Wikipedia. The movement, now in its second decade, is growing apace in its international reach, cultural and linguistic diversity, technical development, and financial complexity; and many factors have combined to produce what has in many ways been the biggest, most dynamic year in the movement's history. Looking back at 2012, we faced a difficult task in doing justice to all of the notable events in a single article; so the Signpost has selected just a few examples from outside the anglosphere, from the English Wikipedia, and from the Wikimedia Foundation, rather than attempting to cover every detail that happened.
Over the past year, 963 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured article candidates (FAC), which promoted an average of 31 articles a month. This was followed by featured picture candidates (FPC; 28 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 20 a month). Featured topic and featured portal candidates remained sluggish, each promoting fewer than 20 items over the year.
Following on from last week's reflections on 2012, this week the Technology report looks ahead to 2013, a year that will almost certainly be dominated by the juggernauts of Wikidata, Lua and the Visual Editor.

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

After six years without creating a new class of content projects, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has finally expanded into a new area: travel. Wikivoyage was formally launched—though without a traditional ship's christening—on 15 January, having started as a beta trial on 10 November. Wikivoyage has been taken under the WMF's umbrella on the argument that information resources that help with travel are educational and therefore within the scope of the foundation's mission.g
On January 16, voting for the first round of the 2012 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest will begin. Wikimedia editors with 75 edits or one project are eligible to vote to select their favorite image featured in 2012. ... On January 15, the foundation launched its latest grant scheme, called Individual Engagement Grants (IEG).
This week, we set off for the final frontier with WikiProject Astronomy. The project was started in August 2006 using the now-defunct WikiProject Space as inspiration. WikiProject Astronomy is home to 101 pieces of Featured material and 148 Good Articles maintained by a band of 186 members. The project maintains a portal, works on an assortment of vital astronomy articles, and provides resources for editors adding or requesting astronomy images.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Comforting those grieving after the loss of a loved one is an impossible task. How then, can an entire community be comforted? The Internet struggled to answer that question this week after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a celebrated free-culture activist, programmer, and Wikipedian at the age of 26.
Continuing our recap of the featured content promoted in 2012, this week the Signpost interviewed three editors, asking them about featured articles which stuck out in their minds. Two, Ian Rose and Graham Colm, are current featured article candidates (FAC) delegates, while Brian Boulton is an active featured article writer and reviewer.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
The Wikidata client extension was successfully deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia on 14 January, its team reports. The interwiki language links can now come from wikidata.org, though "manual" interwiki links remain functional, overriding those from the central repository.

The Signpost: 21 January 2013

The English Wikipedia's requests for adminship (RfA) process has entered another cycle of proposed reforms. Over the last three weeks, various proposals, ranging from as large as a transition to a representative democracy to as small as a required edit count and service length, have been debated on the RfA talk page. The total number of new administrators for 2012 was just 28, barely more than half of 2011's total and less than a quarter of 2009's total. The total number of unsuccessful RfAs has fallen as well. These declining numbers, which were described in what would now be considered a successful year (2010) as an emerging "wikigeneration gulf", have been coupled with a sharp decline in the number of active administrators since February 2008 (1,021), reaching a low of 653 in November 2012.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Linguistics. Started in January 2004, the project has grown to include 7 Featured Articles, 4 Featured Lists, 2 A-class Articles, and 15 Good Articles maintained by 43 members. The project's members keep an eye on several watchlists, maintain the linguistics category, and continue to build a collection of Did You Know? entries. The project is home to six task forces and works with WikiProject Languages and WikiProject Writing Systems.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured topics. We interviewed Grapple X and GamerPro64, who are delegates at the featured topic candidates.
The opening of the Doncram case marks the end of almost 6 months without any open cases, the longest in the history of the Committee.
On 22 January, WMF staff and contractors switched incoming, non-cached requests (including edits) to the Foundation's newer data centre in Ashburn, Virginia, making it responsible for handling almost all regular traffic. For the first time since 2004, virtually no traffic will be handled by the WMF's other facility in Tampa, Florida.

The Signpost: 28 January 2013

On New Year's Day, the Daily Dot reported that a "massive Wikipedia hoax" had been exposed after more than five years. The article on the Bicholim conflict had been listed as a "Good Article" for the past half-decade, yet turned out to be an ingenious hoax. Created in July 2007 by User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a, the meticulously detailed piece was approved as a GA in October 2007. A subsequent submission for FA was unsuccessful, but failed to discover that the article's key sources were made up. While the User:A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a account then stopped editing, the hoax remained listed as a Good Article for five years, receiving in the region of 150 to 250 page views a month in 2012. It was finally nominated for deletion on 29 December 2012 by ShelfSkewed—who had discovered the hoax while doing work on Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs—and deleted the same day.
A special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to "open collaboration".
When we challenged the masters of WikiProject Chess to an interview, Sjakkalle answered our call. WikiProject Chess dates back to December 2003 and has grown to include 4 Featured Articles and 15 Good Articles maintained by over 100 members. The project typically operates independently of other WikiProjects, although the project would theoretically be a child of WikiProject Board and Table Games (interviewed in 2011). WikiProject Chess provides a collection of resources, seeks missing photographs of chess players, and helps determine ways that Wikipedia's coverage of chess can be expanded.
New discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
To many Wikimedians, the Khan Academy would seem like a close cousin: the academy is a non-profit educational website and a development of the massive open online course concept that has delivered over 227 million lessons in 22 different languages. Its mission is to give "a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere." This complements Wikipedia's stated goal to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge", then go and create that world. It should come as no surprise, then, that the highly successful GLAM-Wiki (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) initiative has partnered with the Khan Academy's Smarthistory project to further both its and Wikipedia's goals.
This week, the Signpost featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured lists. We interviewed FLC directors Giants2008 and The Rambling Man as well as active reviewer and writer PresN.
The Doncram case has continued into its third week.
As reported in last week's "Technology Report", the WMF's data centre in Ashburn, Virginia took over responsibility for almost all of the remaining functions that had previously been handled by their old facility in Tampa, Florida on 22 January. The Signpost reported then that few problems had arisen since handover. Unfortunately that was not to remain the case, with reports of caching problems (which typically only affect anonymous users) starting to come in.

The Signpost: 04 February 2013

On February 12, 2012, news of Whitney Houston's death brought 425 hits per second to her Wikipedia article, the highest peak traffic on any article since at least January 2010. It is broadly known that Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website on the Internet, but the English Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles and 29 million total pages. Much less attention has been given to traffic patterns and trends in content viewed.
Article feedback, at least through talk pages, has been a part of Wikipedia since its inception in 2001. The use of these pages, though, has typically been limited to experienced editors who know how to use them.
This week, we took a trip to WikiProject Norway. Started in February 2005, WikiProject Norway has become the home for almost 34,000 articles about the world's best place to live, including 16 Featured Articles, 19 Featured Lists, and nearly 250 Good Articles. The project works on a to do list, maintains a categorization system, watches article alerts, and serves as a discussion forum.
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured portals, a small yet active part of the project. We interviewed FPOC directors Cirt and OhanaUnited.
On 30 January 2013, Kevin Morris in the Daily Dot summarised the bitter debates in Wikipedia around capitalisation or non-capitalisation of the word "into" in the title of the upcoming Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness.
Following the deployment of the Wikidata client to the Hungarian Wikipedia last month, the client was also deployed to the Italian and Hebrew Wikipedias on Wednesday. The next target for the client, which automatically provides phase 1 functionality, is the English Wikipedia, with a deployment date of 11 February already set.

The Signpost: 11 February 2013

Wikipedia has a long, daresay storied history with hoaxes; our internal list documents 198 of the largest ones we have caught as of 4 January 2013. Why?
Six articles, one list, and fourteen pictures were promoted to "featured" states this week on the English Wikipedia.
This week, we got the details on WikiProject Infoboxes.
Foreign Policy has published a report on editing of the Wikipedia articles on the Senkaku Islands and Senkaku Islands dispute. The uninhabited islands are under the control of Japan, but China and Taiwan are asserting rival territorial claims. Tensions have risen of late—and not just in the waters surrounding the actual islands.
Wikimedia UK, the non-profit organization devoted to furthering the goals of the Wikimedia movement in the United Kingdom, has published the findings of a governance review conducted by Compass Partnership.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week.

The Signpost: 18 February 2013

This week, we put our life in the hands of WikiProject Airlines. Starting in July 2005, the project has improved articles relating to airline companies, alliances, destination lists, and travel benefit programs. WikiProject Airlines has accumulated over 4,000 pages, including 4 Featured Articles and 26 Good Articles.
As of time of writing, twenty wikis (including the English, French and Hungarian Wikipedias) are in the process of getting access to the Lua scripting language, an optional substitute for the clunky template code that exists at present.
On February 15, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) declared 'victory' in its counter-lawsuit against Internet Brands (IB), the owner of Wikitravel and the operator of several online media, community, and e-commerce sites in vertical markets. The lawsuit clears the last remaining hurdles for the WMF's new travel guide project, Wikivoyage.
Sue Gardner's visit to Australia sparked a number of interviews in the Australian press. An interview published in the Daily Telegraph on 12 February 2013, titled "Data plans 'unnerving': Wikipedia boss", saw Gardner comment on Australian plans to store personal internet and telephone data. The planned measure, intended to assist crime prevention, would involve internet service providers and mobile phone firms storing customer usage data for up to two years.
Two articles, nine lists, and thirteen pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.

You've got mail!

Hello, Sjb72. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 00:00, 23 February 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

—Theopolisme (talk) 00:00, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

On 13 February 2013, PR Report, the German sister publication of PR Week, published an article announcing that PR agency Fleishman-Hillard was offering a new analysis tool enabling companies to assess their articles in the German-language Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Corporate Index (WCI).
"Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Production" by Jeff Loveland (a historian of encyclopedias) and Joseph Reagle situates Wikipedia within the context of encyclopedic production historically, arguing that the features that many claim to be unique about Wikipedia actually have roots in encyclopedias of the past.
The Wikimedia Commons 2012 Picture of the Year contest has ended, with the winner being Pair of Merops apiaster feeding, taken by Pierre Dalous. The picture shows a pair of European Bee-eaters in a mating ritual—the male bird (right) has tossed the wasp into the air, and he will eventually offer it to the female (left).
Current discussions include...
Six articles, three lists, and twelve images were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this month.
How can we measure the challenges facing a project or determine a WikiProject's productivity? Several prominent projects have been doing it for years: WikiWork.
Wikimedia Germany (WMDE) this week committed itself to funding the Wikidata development team, ending fears that phase three would be abandoned.

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

Recently I was having a casual conversation with a friend, and he mentioned that he spent too many hours a day playing video games. I responded with a comment that I, too, spent way too much time on an activity of my own – Wikipedia. In an attempt to reply with a relevant remark, he offered something along the lines of: "So have you ever written anything?" After a second, I quickly answered yes, but I was still in shock over his question. It seemed to be rooted in a belief on his part that using Wikipedia meant just reading the articles, and that editing was something that someone, hypothetically, might do, but not really more likely than randomly counting to 7,744.
"WP:OUTING", the normally little-noticed policy corner of the English Wikipedia that governs the release of editors' personal information, has suddenly been brought to wider attention after long-term contributor and featured article writer Cla68 was indefinitely blocked last week. This snowballed into several other blocks, a desysopping by ArbCom, and a request for arbitration.
Three articles, six lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on "Laura Secord", who was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 best known for warning the British of an impending American attack.
This week, we tuned to WikiProject Television Stations, a project that dates back to March 2004. WikiProject Television Stations primarily focuses on local stations, national networks, television markets, and other topics related to television channels in North America, the Caribbean, and some Pacific countries. The project has a fair bit of work ahead of them with over 4,000 unassessed articles and only one Good Article out of 626 assessed articles, giving the project a relative WikiWork rating of 5.262.

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

I am pleased to announce that the Signpost and Wikizine have reached an in-principle agreement that will see Wikizine published as a special Signpost section at the beginning of each month.
During March, three of the Wikimedia Foundation's grantmaking schemes on Meta will reach important crossroads, which will shape how both the editing communities and Wikimedia institutions handle the distribution of donors' money across the movement.
Twelve articles, five lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including an image of the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, a front-engine, 2-seat luxury grand tourer automobile developed by Mercedes-AMG.
There are three open cases, and a final decision has been given in the Doncram case.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court Cases.
The WMF has aborted a plan to deploy version 5 of the Article Feedback tool (AFTv5) rolled out to all English Wikipedia articles.

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

Just two months into his second term as an arbitrator on the English Wikipedia, Coren resigned from the Committee with a blistering attack on his fellow arbitrators. At the heart of a strongly worded statement, posted both on his talk page and the arbitration notice board, was the claim that ArbCom has become politicised to the extent that "it can no longer do the job it was ostensibly elected for".
This week, we composed a tribute to WikiProject Composers. The project was created during the final hours of 2004 and finalized in early January 2005. It has grown to encompass over 8,000 pages, including 26 Featured Articles and 23 Good Articles. WikiProject Composers faces a difficult workload, with a relative WikiWork rating of 5.45.
Ask librarians what they think about Wikipedia and you might get some interesting answers. Some will throw up their hands about the laziness of the Google generation and their overdependence on Wikipedia. Some see it as the "competition". And some will tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Nine articles, seven lists, eleven images, and one topic were promoted to "featured status" this week on the English Wikipedia.
On Thursday, arbitrator Coren resigned, following closely on the heels of Hersfold's resignation on Wednesday. There are two open cases. A final decision has been given in the Richard case.
The WMF's engineering report for January was published this week, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

Our travels have brought us to Pittsburgh, the American city known for steelworks and bridges.
Seven articles, one list, six pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This case, brought by Mark Arsten, was opened over a dispute over transgenderism topics that began off-wiki. The evidence phase was scheduled to close March 7, 2013, with a proposed decision due to be posted by March 29.
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, has announced her plans to leave the position when a successor is recruited. Ranked as one of the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine, Sue Gardner is widely associated with the rise of the Wikimedia movement as a major custodian of human knowledge and cultural products.
Since its inception in May 2011, the Foundation's Visual Editor project has grown to become one of its main focuses. As the project nears its two-year birthday, the Signpost caught up with Visual Editor project manager James Forrester to discuss the progress on the project.
A paper presented at last month's CSCW Conference observes that "Mass collaboration systems are often characterized as unstructured organizations lacking rule and order", yet Wikipedia has a well developed body of policies to support it as an organization.

John Christian Hopkins

Thank you for saving the John Christian Hopkins article from "speedy deletion"!Ssenier (talk) 12:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No worries, just doin' my job! Stephen! Coming... 20:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Stephen, I would like to thank you for removing the request for immediate deletion from my John Christian Hopkins Wikipedia page. I thought that my writer was notable, and created his page as part of my American Indian Literature class at the University of New Hampshire. I noticed you suggests "PROD/AFD/Improve on my page, but I was unsure what that means exactly. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction in order to make by page better.

I appreciate the help.

Best, Oliver — Preceding unsigned comment added by Othomas39 (talk • contribs) 12:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Shorthand notes for other editors. Because I declined the speedy deletion, I am reminding everyone of the other avenues to follow, in case anyone still thinks the article should be deleted. PROD is short of Proposed Deletion and AFD is short for Articles For Deletion. The latter requires a formal discussion between editors. I always add the Improve bit as a reminder that deletion isn't the only option, and it is perfectly acceptable to improve an article.
Remember: just because I didn't delete the article doesn't mean that it is safe from deletion. The way to ensure that it remains is to demonstrate notability with good sources. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a note. Stephen! Coming... 20:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

CSD on Tamil Nadu Entrepreneurship Development Institute

What exactly constitutes a "school"? The Institute is described as a society that provides workshops, not a school where people enroll in classes. Does anything that provides instructional workshops/seminars fall under the "school" exception for CSD A7? I've never heard of workshops being considered schools for that purpose before. Inks.LWC (talk) 14:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, it was borderline. I had a look back through some of the earlier edits and it was described as a University, which was the clincher (all be it a clinch with a very weak grip). In cases like these, where it could go either way, the general advice is to not delete. If you think that the article should be deleted still, then I would suggest WP:AFD or WP:PROD. Stephen! Coming... 20:50, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

The Wikimedia Foundation has released its latest report card for the movement's hundreds of sites. The WMF has published statistics about the sites since 2009, but only recently have these been expanded in scope and depth to provide a rich source of data for investigating the movement and the world it serves. Dutch-born Erik Zachte is the driver of the WMF's statistical output, and he writes that the report card and accompanying traffic statistics comprise "enough tables, bar charts and plots to keep you busy for a while".
This week's Report is dedicated to answering our readers' questions about WikiProjects. The following Frequently Asked Questions came from feedback at the WikiProject Report's talk page, the WikiProject Council's talk page, and from previous lists of FAQs.
The Signpost interviewed prolific featured content creator and former Signpost "featured content" report writer Crisco 1492 about ? and Indonesian cinema. ? was the "Today's featured article" for 1 April 2013. 1 April is popularly known as April Fools' Day in many countries.
The first round of individual engagement grants (IEGs) have been awarded, disbursing about $55.6k (€42.7k) to seven applicants.
A case brought by Lecen involves several articles about former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Users of ten Wikipedias got access to phase 2 of Wikidata following its first rollout to production wikis.

The Signpost: 08 April 2013

Numerous Wikimedia Commons editors have chimed in on the Wikimedia Foundation's deployment of a new feature to its mobile website. Allowing anonymous users to register and upload pictures for use in an article, the feature was placed prominently at the top of Wikipedia articles in multiple languages.
This week, we felt the world tremble in the presence of WikiProject Earthquakes. The project was started in May 2008 to deal with articles about earthquakes, aftershocks, seismology, seismologists, plate tectonics, and related articles. While the project has seen success building 14 Featured Articles, one A-class Article, and 21 Good Articles, a fairly heavy workload remains, with a relative WikiWork rating of 4.94. WikiProject Earthquakes maintains a portal, a list of open tasks, a popular pages listing, and an article alerts watchlist.
Last Friday, the Wikimedia movement awoke to news that one of their number—Rémi Mathis, a French volunteer editor—had been summoned to the offices of the interior intelligence service DCRI and threatened with criminal charges and fines if he did not delete an article on the French Wikipedia about a radio station used by the French military.
The arbitration committee is looking for expertise in Argentina and the Spanish language for a case involving former Argentinean president Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877).
Four articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The deployment of phase 2 of Wikidata to the English Wikipedia, originally scheduled for 8 April but delayed due to technical problems, may be rescheduled again as the result of community resistance.

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

The RfA process is widely discussed here on the English Wikipedia and it has been well documented that less and less new Requests for adminship are being filed. There are an abundance of bytes devoted to the discussion and analysis of this situation and plenty of hands have been wrung over the matter. Various RfCs have attempted to find a way to fix the problem. Many proposals have been made offering solutions, some more potentially drastic than others, with the goal of making the changes necessary to kick–start RfA back into regular action. However, Wikipedia operates based on consensus and, to this point, there are have simply been too many disagreeing views for us to reach a consensus on how to increase RfA activity.
This week, we ventured to WikiProject South Africa. The project was started in February 2005 and is home to thirteen pieces of featured material, two A-class articles, and twenty-one good articles.
The most recent move to reform the requests for adminship process on the English Wikipedia has failed, after a complex and drawn-out three-step procedure for community input was subject to decreasing participation as time wore on and came up with no clear consensus.
Four articles, twelve lists, and seven pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

Talkback from Technical 13

‹ The template below (Talkback) is being considered for merging with Talkbacktiny. See templates for discussion to help reach a consensus. ›
Hello, Sjb72. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Sanicola.
Message added 11:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

The IP creator of the article who also happens to be the subject of the article seems to think that "Once speedy deletion is denied, and an administrator has agreed it should exist" and "an administrator has already DENIED deletion on the grounds that notability has been established but suggested it be 'improved.'" as arguments why the article shouldn't be deleted. I've kindly attempted to clarify your edit summary in the discussion and if it is not too much trouble would appreciate if you could confirm my clarification and/or clarify more. Thank you very much, and I hope you have a very nice day. {{SUBST:Mots}} Technical 13 (talk) 11:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

An article by John Sweeney published on 22 April 2013 on scnow.com, the website of the Florence, South Carolina Morning News, reported that Florence city officials have taken to monitoring and correcting the Wikipedia article on their city.
This week, we spent some time with a project that develops tools and methods for improving the user experience in the hope that new users will continue editing the encyclopedia. The project was started in July 2012 and has grown to include 124 members. The project's members partner with the Teahouse and the Welcoming Committee to spread WikiLove, welcome new users, encourage civility, and other related activities.
The Wikimedia Conference is an annual meeting of the chapters to discuss their status and the organisational development of the Wikimedia movement. For the first time it included groups that wish to be considered for WMF affiliation as thematic organisations and one of the three groups that was recently affiliated as a user group. The conference was also attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the WMF Affiliations Committee, and a representative of the Wikivoyage Association.
Nine articles, four lists, eight pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The Sexology case is nearing completion after arbitrators were unable to agree on a topic ban for one of the participants.
On Monday, the English Wikipedia became the 12th wiki to be able to pull data from the central Wikidata.org repository, with other wikis scheduled to receive the update on Wednesday.

Charles Tagg

You deleted my grandfathers article. I realize he wasn't as important as people such as US presidents or as notable as other figures but I believe he deserves his place in history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacobjakielaszek (talk • contribs) 11:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If you can show that he was a notable person, providing proper sources, then I will gladly reconsider restoring the article. Alternatively, you can get the deletion reviewed independantly at deletion review, but you will need to prove that he is notable to them too. See WP:NOTABILITY and WP:SOURCES for further information. Also, be aware that you are closely connected with the subject, so you will need to declare this - see Conflict of Interest. Stephen! Coming... 12:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

The Funds Dissemination Committee released its recommendations to the WMF board last Sunday. The news that the Hong Kong chapter's application for US$212K had failed was followed by a strongly worded resignation announcement by Deryck Chan on the public Wikimedia-l mailing-list.
On 24 April 2013, novelist Amanda Filipacchi published what turned out to be an influential op-ed in the New York Times; illuminating the unusual background of the Yuri Gadyukin hoax.
Nine articles, three lists, three pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" this week.
This week, we traveled to the Japanese Wikipedia's WikiProject Baseball for perspectives from a version of Wikipedia that treats WikiProjects as their own unique namespace (プロジェクト:) independent of "Wikipedia:".
The WP:TOP25 and WP:5000 reports chronicle the most popular Wikipedia articles on a weekly basis.
The Sexology case closed shortly after publication with no changes.
A report on an online service which was created to conduct real-time monitoring of Wikipedia articles of companies, and more.
This week saw the deployment of the Echo extension, also known as "notifications".

May 2013

I wasn't really trying to be mean or anything like that, i just thought it was kind of odd that the creator voted keep on an already very questionable page. Koala15 (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. Just try and remember that tones of voice never comes across in text form, so people can easily misinterpret what you are trying to say. Stephen! Coming... 20:53, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

Although not yet in great numbers, candidates are coming forward for Wikimedia Foundation elections, which will be held from 1 to 15 June. The elections will fill vacancies in three categories, the most prominent of which will be the three community-elected seats on the ten-member Board of Trustees (or the first Board meeting after the election results are announced, if sooner). The current two-year terms for these trustee positions ends on 1 September.
The Wikimedia Foundation will be receiving more than $100,000 worth of free developer time courtesy of internet giant Google, it was announced this week. The funds, allocated as part of Google's Summer of Code programme, will support up to 21 student developers through three months of coding time.
May sees the beginning of Round 3 of the 2013 WikiCup, with 33 of the original 127 competitors remaining. ... six articles, ten pictures, and two portals were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release. ... On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation published an article reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia, where it revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account.
This week's English Wikipedia project, WikiProject Biophysics, is home to several experts in their fields and a collaboration with the Biophysical Society. The project is hosting a contest through July 15 with six contributors winning $100 in cash and given the opportunity to attend the 2014 meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. Other strong entries will be awarded barnstars online and everyone who contributes can receive a physical button mailed out to them.

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

The removal of administrator rights from all volunteers on the Wikimedia Foundation's official website sparked a highly emotional reaction on the Wikimedia-l mailing list—one of the largest off-wiki methods of communication for the Wikimedia movement.
This week, we spent some time watching WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts, which was started in August 2005 and has grown to include 12 Good Articles and a Featured List.
Fourteen articles, three lists, and three pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia, including Boletus luridus, seen above.
An article published on May 10 on Odwyerpr.com written by Greg Hazley documented a "spar" between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and public relations firm Qorvis partner Matt Lauer, who disputes Wikipedia's guideline discouraging public relations firms from editing articles on their clients.
The Race and politics case has been accepted for arbitration, and the evidence phase is now open. Two other cases remain open.

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet.
This week, we traveled to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project was started in May 2006 and has 37 featured articles.
On 16 May, the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article Rubicon, a symbolic yet important achievement.
Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young. It documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories, where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed.
Nine articles, six lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

"Mister Saint Laurent" wiki entry

Last Summer, the Mister Saint Laurent page was subject to trolling and some vandalism. People calling for the page to be deleted without just cause. You stepped in, asserted notability and the trolling and vandalism ceased thanks to you. Now the page is being targeted again. The entry is vastly improved from a year ago and asserts notability more than ever.

A discussion is now taking place to decide whether the page should be deleted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mister_Saint_Laurent_(2nd_nomination)

You have a history with this page and your thoughts would be a great help. I feel the page has been unfairly targeted by trolls and now people who are not familiar with the page may decide its fate. Would really appreciate if you could look over the current version of the page and offer your thoughts. I know even a year ago you asserted notability, but now the page is even more well sourced than ever and definitely deserving of a "keep". Thank you for your consideration. Larsonrick25 (talk) 02:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll have a look, but please be aware that I will be viewing it against the full criteria of notability rather than the lesser criteria requried for avoiding speedy deletion. I, like many of the other editors, know nothing about this person. This is no bad thing as it means that the article is assessed fairly against the criteria rather than from a skewed view about what you might have learned from non-notable sources. Stephen! Coming... 09:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I've had a look through, and agree that he meets the notability requirements; I have commented as such at the AFD. One thing that puzzles me is the accusation of trolls targetting the page. I have seen a couple of unexplained deletions, but nothing that would class as "troll-like" action. Could you please give me some examples of what you are referring to? Stephen! Coming... 11:44, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

Alongside the Signpost's interviews with the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) Board of Trustees candidates, the Signpost asked the candidates for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and its Ombudsperson position a series of questions relating to the positions they may be taking on. For the FDC candidates, this will include specific recommendations to the WMF on how to disburse over US$11 million in donors' funds to affiliate organizations, something which appears to have garnered little attention from the editing community at large so far.
In the continuing saga of User:Qworty's outing as author Robert Clark Young, several blogs and websites covered the now-banned user's anti-Pagan editing. In an article published on 22 May 2013, TechEye described Qworty's edits as a "reign of terror" and were pleased to find that he had not succeeded in removing several prominent Pagan biographies from the encyclopedia.
The elections for the three community seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees start on 8 June. This second and final part of the interview explores two broad themes: Meta, the site that hosts movement-wide coordination; and offline entities—the chapters and the new thematic organisations and user groups.
This week, we plotted out the demarcations of WikiProject Geographical Coordinates, which aims to create a single standard of handling coordinates in Wikipedia articles.
Twelve articles, four lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
An article in Library Review offers a much-needed comparison of data from a population of editors outside the English Wikipedia.
Second only to the technical track of Wikimania in terms of numbers, the Berlin Hackathon (2009–2012) provided those with an interest in the software that underpins Wikimedia wikis and supports its editors a place to gather, exchange ideas and learn new skills.

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

I am excited to announce that a Portuguese-language journal, Correio da Wikipédia has been launched by Vitorvicentevalente. It has just published its third edition, and I encourage readers who speak the language to read and contribute to its already-expansive coverage of the Portuguese Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement.
Five articles, four lists, and thirteen images were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
This is mostly a list of requests for comment believed to be active on 4 June 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC or watchlist notices.
On 31 May, the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal and Community Advocacy team announced that the Wikivoyage logo would have to be replaced, because it has become the subject of a cease-and-desist letter from the World Trade Organization (WTO).
An article on TheNextWeb.com says that the Chinese Government has effectively blocked Wikipedia by cutting off access to the HTTP Secure (https) "workaround", almost completely cutting off access to those in China.
This week, we reflect on the anniversary of D-Day by storming the shores of Operation Normandy, a special initiative of WikiProject Military History.
Last week, the Signpost reported on a feeling at the Amsterdam hackathon that Toolserver developers were coming round to the idea of migrating to Wikimedia Labs.

Petty Joy - Article

Hello,

is the discography and tour information ok? I added it again now.

And is this text ok to add, because the other user deleted it? But I think, it has good information.

Thank you for your objective view!

Kind regards,

WPia013

I have cut the text from the above and placed it here: User:WPia013/Sandbox. You assert that there is notability, but without proper references the article will be deleted. Have a read of WP:NOTABILITY to see what is required. See also WP:REFERENCES for how to add references. As the article is now in your own area, you are free to edit it as much as you like. When you think it is ready, let me (or any administrator) know, and we can assess it for moving into the main space. Stephen! Coming... 10:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, there are references on the article page itself. The Life and Career text is for information, as I saw a text like this on other wikipedia articles. How should I do references for biography(Life) and Career (some words ars links), when the content is only informative? Please help, I will make the article of "Petty Joy" better, but the other user just deleted without any statements. Kind regards :) WPia013 PS: Sorry for the problems, but I am new to wikipedia and I am still learning... — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPia013 (talk • contribs) 10:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look at the deletions of the various sources on the page. There are explanations included in the edit summary, but the editors and automatic bots have used abbreviations which, unless you are familiar with Wikipedia, probably seem meaningless. Essentially these are removing the links to social media pages which are not permitted as references. You Tube and other self-published media can't be used to demonstrate notability; you need to use proper sources. WP:VERIFY should explain what can and can't be used. Stephen! Coming... 08:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello Stephen, yes, I know that about the social media sites and didn't wrote any links to them in the article (an other user added them). My biggest question is, if the deleted text about the life and career is too bad for a wikipedia article, which was deleted by epeefleche. I think, it has good information about the artist in this article. Kind Regards, WPia013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPia013 (talk • contribs) 08:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

My apologies for not replying sooner - your post slipped under my radar! Ok, there are a few things here. I don't know why the text was deleted; it may have been a bit negative? Negative biographies are not permitted if they are unsourced. If you have a legitimate third party source to demonstrate that the things happened, then you must include the source as a reference. See WP:BLP.
If something has been removed and you don't think it should have been, then by all means put it back in. BUT, and this is extremely important, you have to be careful that you don't get into an edit war with the other editor. The proper way to question someone's removal or editing is to raise the topic on the article talk page, and drop a note with the editor inviting them to discuss the edit on the aticle talk page. Get their take on it, and come to an agreement.
What you must NOT do is do a back-and-forth removal, addition, removal, addition, etc., as that is a violation of the 3 Revert Rule, and may result in blocks.
If they don't engage in the discussion, and continue to remove your edits without explanation (do remember to check the edit summaries though), then you might want to get a 3rd party to have a look. The request for comment noticeboard is a good place for that.
Hope this helps. Stephen! Coming... 09:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


Hello Stephen,

thank you for your answer. I really can't find any negative in the biography or career text. The source for the text is the artist itself, I asked for any information. So I just can reference it to the official website, not to an other source, but the official website is at the end of the page. The problem is, I asked the other editor a few times, why he deleted the text and what is wrong with it, but didn't get any answer, but a threat of blocking my user.

Is it able, that you can check the text and if you think, it is ok, that you can add it to the article again?

On German Wikipedia the text is perfect and before the deletion of the other editor, there were votes on the english version too, that it is well written.

Thank you!

Kind regards,

WPia013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPia013 (talk • contribs) 09:17, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

The issue is, as far as I can tell, is that the material you added was unreferenced. Having a link at the bottom of the page to the website you got it from is not enough; we need inline citations. The easiest way to do it is add the website in the text in the following manner: <ref>www.insert-name-of-reference-website-here.com</ref>. Make sure you do that, and it should be fine. Stephen! Coming... 09:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello, ok, but the text for wikipedia has more and better information about the life and the career, than it is on the official website. So I thought, I cannot reference to the website. Kind regards, WPia013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPia013 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I have asked the editor who has been removing the text to give you a better response rather than just the templated replies. Hopefully you should get better clarification now. Stephen! Coming... 09:28, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello Stephen, thank you :) Kind regards, WPia013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WPia013 (talk • contribs) 09:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

VECohio

Hello Mr.StephenBuxton, VECohio is one of the fast growing company in this valley its sister companies have a history of more than 60 years and it is providing many jobs to the people around here. I created that page in order to share the history of this company to the people not only around here but also around the world. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you, Regards, Vamsi Borra — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vamsiborra (talk • contribs) 19:49, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The article did not show anything in the article that it was a notable company; Wikipedia is not a listing for every company that has ever existed. Have a read of WP:COMPANY and see if you can show that VEC meets the notability requirements. If you can show that it does ({{WP:VERIFY|including proper third party references]]), I will be more than happy to restore the article for you to work from.
Alternatively, you can appeal the deletion at Deletion Review, but you will need to show them that the company is notable too. Stephen! Coming... 08:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Also, you will have to rewrite the article in non-promotional terms. In its existing state it will be unacceptable even if you can produce evidence of notability. In fact, if you can produce evidence of notability then it may well be less trouble to just start a new article from scratch, rather than requesting undeletion of the old article and then substantially rewriting it. JamesBWatson (talk) 08:52, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

Late last year, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) awarded $8.4 million in donors' money to 11 Wikimedia entities, including the Wikimedia Foundation and 10 nationally defined chapters. Under this arrangement, these organisations are required to issue quarterly reports on how far they have progressed towards their declared programmatic and financial goals. The FDC has now announced that all 11 completed and submitted their reports by the 1 April deadline, and have responded to each.
Seven articles, two lists, five pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
In an article published by the Huffington Post's United Kingdom edition, writer Thomas Church asserts that the new VisualEditor will change history, literally. It says that Wikipedia's mark-up language has been to its advantage, as most people didn't bother trying to learn it
I've long thought that we should get rid of the Wikimedia Commons as we know it. Commons has evolved into a project with interests that compete with the needs of the primary users of Commons and the reason it was created. It's also understaffed, which results in poor curation, large administrative backlogs, and poor policy development.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
Last week's most popular article list on the English Wikipedia was dominated by the massively popular TV series Game of Thrones, which claimed six slots in the top 25, including the top three. Its popularity was likely stoked by the most recent episode, The Rains of Castamere. Bollywood continued to increase its share of views as well, aided by the tragic suicide of star Nafisa Khan.
Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement have been suspended. Argentine History remains open, and a proposed decision was posted on 12 June.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Computing. Started in October 2003, the project has grown to include 17 featured articles, 11 featured lists, 3 pieces of featured media, and 80 good articles.

The Signpost: 19 June 2013

Following last week's op-ed by Gigs ("The Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons"), the Signpost is carrying two contrary opinions from MichaelMaggs, a bureaucrat on Wikimedia Commons, and Mattbuck, a British Commons administrator.
The season finale of Game of Thrones ensured that the epic high fantasy series would dominate the top 10 again last week; however, it was joined by Maurice Sendak and Man of Steel.
Memeburn.com published an article on the yearning of students in South Africa for free knowledge through Wikipedia Zero.
This week, we visited WikiProject Tennessee, a project dedicate to the state at the geographic and cultural crossroads of the United States.
With erysichton elaborata, the Swedish Wikipedia passed the one million article Rubicon this week. While this is a mostly symbolic achievement, serving as a convenient benchmark with which to gain publicity and attention in an increasingly statistical world, the particular method by which the Swedish site has passed the mark has garnered significant attention—and controversy.
Eleven articles, twelve lists, and eleven pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
The WMF's engineering report for May was published recently on the Wikimedia blog and on the MediaWiki wiki ("friendly" summary version), giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month.
Richard Farmbrough was set to have his day in court, but as events transpired, this was not to be so. On 25 March 2013, an accusation was made against Farmbrough at Arbitration Enforcement (AE), claiming that he violated the terms of an automated edit restriction. Within hours, Farmbrough had filed his own request with the arbitration committee, citing the newly filed AE request and claiming that the motion was being used "in an absurd way" in the filing of enforcement requests: "I have not made any edits that a sane person would consider automation."

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

With most TV shows on hiatus for the summer, attention has turned to movies, celebrity and sports. The dramatic events at the 2013 Confederations Cup drew massive attention, as did summer blockbusters like Man of Steel and World War Z. But the most searched event of the week was the tragic and unexpected death of popular actor James Gandolfini on June 19.
The Daily Dot has examined the perennial controversy over explicit or pornographic media on Commons. This latest salvo was touched off when Russavia uploaded a portrait of Jimmy Wales made by the artist Pricasso, who paints with his genitalia.
A comparative work by T. Yasseri., A. Spoerri, M. Graham and J. Kertész looks at the 100 most controversial topics in 10 language versions of Wikipedia, and tries to make sense of the similarities and differences in these lists.
Less than three days after the close of voting, the volunteer election committee posted the results on Meta. The worldwide Wikimedia movement has elected three WMF trustees for two-year terms on the 10-seat Board: Samuel Klein (supported by 43.5% of voters), Phoebe Ayers (38.3%), and María Sefidari (35.6%). The new trustees will take their seats at a critical time for the movement: one of the first tasks in their terms will be to help the Board to find and approve the new executive director to take up the top job when Sue Gardner departs.
A list of current discussions on the English Wikipedia.
This week, the Signpost interviews Adam Cuerden, a Wikimedian who has been for years gathering featured pictures, and who constantly participates in what could be his favourite part of the project. Cuerden dedicates most of his time to scanning and restoring old, valuable illustrative works. He explains to us how the featured process works, its relation with other parts of the encyclopedia, and how pictures evolve before reaching featured status.
This week, we walked the runway with WikiProject Fashion. Started in March 2007, the project is home to 4 Featured Articles and 41 Good Articles. The project has a lengthy list of how you can help and a list of Article Alerts.
Argentine History was closed. Two cases, Race and politics and Tea Party movement, remain suspended until July.

The Signpost: 03 July 2013

Amy Chozick's profile of Jimmy Wales in the New York Times sparked significant controversy in international news outlets this week. Chozick's profile covered Wales's personal life, including his 12-year-old daughter, ex-wife, and current wife Kate Garvey, describing Wales himself as "a well-groomed version of a person who has been slumped over a computer drinking Yoo-hoo for hours." Chozick described his current role in Wikipedia as "Benevolent Dictator for Life", a statement which garnered conflict from all corners of the web, including from Wales, who responded to the piece as a whole with a lengthy talk page statement.
Four articles, four lists, and fifteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
This week, the Signpost went to the kennel and interviewed WikiProject Dogs. The project has several featured and good articles, along with a large number of "Did you know" entries. We asked three project members about the challenges of creating, curating, and maintaining canine content in an increasingly dog-obsessed world.
The key annual event in the Wikimedia calendar, Wikimania 2013, will be held in Hong Kong in just five weeks' time. Among the events will be a presentation by two people who are working to promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects. One is James Heilman of Wiki Project Med, a non-profit dedicated to making "clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice". The other is Lori Thicke, president of Translators Without Borders (TWB), the Connecticut-based organisation set up in 2010 to provide pro-bono translation services for humanitarian non-profits
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The VisualEditor extension has gone live by default to registered users on the English Wikipedia, marking a huge milestone in a project that has taken the best part of a decade to reach fruition. The extension was previously described as "the biggest and most important change to our user experience we’ve ever undertaken" by the WMF team behind it.
The real world made a strong showing in the top 10 last week, as news stories such as Yahoo!'s purchase of Tumblr, the murder of Odin Lloyd, the continuing drama over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the ill-health of Nelson Mandela crowded out the usual roster of TV shows, movies, websites and video games. Not that they were entirely excluded, of course.
Following a one-month period of moderated discussion, Tea Party movement has been reopened by the Committee. The proposed decisions are currently being voted upon. Race and politics remains suspended pending the return of User:Apostle12.

The Signpost: 10 July 2013

This is Wikinews' fundamental problem: it can neither do a good job providing a summary of world news, nor does it have any special focus that it does well. It's a collection of random articles, with only the occasional, passing resemblance to important current events.
This week, we traveled to Cymru with the folks at WikiProject Wales.
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
In apparent acknowledgment of the urgency of two issues facing the Wikimedia movement—the need to engage both women and the global south—the WMF Board has appointed Ana Toni as one of its four expert members. Toni will bring rare expertise to the movement, and the Signpost understands that her skills in advocacy and her key roles in international NGOs are likely to be a natural match with the WMF as the hub of disseminating free knowledge around the world.
The fundamental idea of an infobox is clear: keep it simple and limited to essentials. At some point, however, these basic principles seem to have been abandoned, in favour of an approach akin to "the more the merrier".
Five articles, six lists, and ten pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

Delete page

You deleted a page for copyright infringement when it was obviously cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.246.191.2 (talk) 14:09, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Check the guidelines on Copy and pasting: "you may not copy and paste text from other sources into Wikipedia". You can use the source text as a reference for your article but you cannot use it AS the article. In this instance the biography was copied in it's entirety. The fact that it was referenced is irrelevant. Stephen! Coming... 17:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Question about my page: Grilling with Rich

Hi Stephen,

I wanted to get your feedback on how I can get a wikipedia page about my website so that it isn't in volition of the policies that Wikipedia has set out. I am a bit confused on the section about articles can't be about websites, blogs etc... when there is a lot of pages about websites, blogs etc..

Any feedback would be helpful.

Thank you for your time

Richard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richmanwash (talk • contribs) 15:59, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Two reasons. Firstly, there was nothing on there that indicated it was a notable website. Secondly, the entire article read like an advert.
If you think that it meets the notability guidelines for websites and can demonstrate it, then by all means let me know and I will review it. Alternatively, go to deletion review and ask them to review it.
However, you still need to address the issue of the article reading like an advert. It may not have been your intention, but the language used read very much like advertising copy. This is the main reason why we discourage people from writing articles about anything they are closely associated with. Have a read of Conflict of interest and self promotion. Stephen! Coming... 16:07, 18 July 2013 (UTC)


Stephen -

Thank you for your feedback on the page. I was in the middle of adding content to the page and adjusting the content.

Here is are two awards that was issued to the website in 2011 by FriendsEat.com a website about Food -> Top 5 Food Bloggers of 2011

2010 - Grilling with Rich Named One of The Top 50 BBQ Blogs

My Alexa rank in the United States of Today: 223,266 According to Google Analytics to date I have had over 100,000 unique visitors and over 200,000 page views and loads.

I hope that this satisfies you that Grilling with Rich is a legitimate source for BBQ and Grilling news — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richmanwash (talk • contribs) 16:18, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

In addition to these stats, I have written for various food websites such as the Daily Meal, The Today Show Food Blog; Grilling.com which is published by Kingsford Charcoal — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richmanwash (talk • contribs) 16:20, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, it sounds like there might be some notability through the awards, depending on whether or not the people who gave the awards are themselves notable. The listing ratings are irrelevant and aren't used for determining notability. The fact that you write for
However, the fact that it is you writing about your own website is what I still have the issue about. It is strongly discouraged by Wikipedia, for all the reasons that are listed on the COI page I linked to. And there are loads more reasons besides - see An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing.
Ask yourself why you want an article about the website, and be honest about it. Is it to generate publicity? Is it in the hope of getting more hits to your site? If you answered yes, then you really need to rethink it.
Bear in mind that if anything negative gets reported in the news about your site, and there is an article here on Wikipedia, it will almost certainly get added to the article, and there will probably be nothing you can do about it.
Here's a hypothetical example. Let's say you recommend the Acme Wileycoyote Burnatron 2000 barbecue as the best purchase of the Summer. A week or two later, at a picnic for the International Orphan and Sick Puppy Society, several of these explode, injuring everyone there, and causing bacon to rain down on the nearby Rabbi Convention, who just so happen to be near them. The organisers of the picnic tell the reporters that they bought the units following your recommendation, and this is reported in the national press.
Even though you were not the cause of this, because you were named in the report, this will almost certainly get added to the article about your website. And it will stay there, as both the good and bad (provided it is properly referenced) is included to keep the article balanced.
To conclude, I won't be restoring your article. If your website is notable enough, then I dare say someone else will add it in due course. However, if you really feel strongly that the article should be restored, then go to deletion review and ask for other admins to review it. But I will be honest and say that I suspect that they will say the same as me. Stephen! Coming... 23:17, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 July 2013

This week, we explored the fantasy worlds of video game developer Square Enix by interviewing WikiProject Square Enix. The project began in September 2006 as a spin-off of WikiProject Final Fantasy, but today covers that, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, and a variety of other game series, with exceptions explained in the interview below. The project is home to 32 pieces of Featured material and 104 Good and A-class articles.
The most-viewed articles on the English Wikipedia last week include...
Last week the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual plan for July 2013 to June 2014. It provides a surprisingly frank view—of past achievements and failures, and future goals and risks—that could be afforded only by a non-profit that is confident and beholden to no commercial or political interests.
Four articles, five lists, and sixteen pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The case Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds was opened. Voting on the Tea Party movement case continued, after a failed attempt at moderated discussion. A group tasked with deciding the content of the lead section of the Jerusalem article has reported back to the committee. Applications for checkuser and oversight permissions close on 22 July.

Why was myPizza.com deleted?

Hello,

I just created the myPizza.com webpage, and saw that it was deleted. We're just trying to get the info of our website up on Wiki, just as our competitors Seamless, Grubhub, Eat24 have one.

Please explain. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meritonch (talk • contribs) 03:05, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

  • The problem is that there's nothing there to show that your company passes notability guidelines. You have to have coverage in reliable sources (WP:RS) to show that you pass WP:CORP. It's ultimately not up to Wikipedia to inform people or to have a page on every corporation or website out there. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 04:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
I've had a look at the deleted article, and Tokyogirl79 has pretty much covered why it was deleted. I would also add that the article basically read as an advert, so even if the article was about a notable company, it would have been deleted as an advert. Have a read of notability guidelines for websites and guidelines about advertising. Stephen! Coming... 09:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 July 2013

The Washington Post reported Tuesday on the most controversial articles on various language Wikipedias as determined by a cross-continental research group.
This week, the Signpost delved into the vast and complex areas of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that make up religion. WikiProject Religion has been around since 2005 and has a complex scope, in that it only takes articles that deal with religion in a non-sectarian sense, along with any articles that do not have a dedicated daughter project.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
Contributors to Wikivoyage, the sister project adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, are celebrating their 10th anniversary this week. ... The Wikimedia Foundation has announced via press release that it has partnered with Aircel to provide free mobile access to Wikipedia.
Death hangs over the top 10 this week, as tragic deaths both past and present continued to cast their pall over an already troubled world. The death of Corey Monteith led to a spike in interest in the man himself, his girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele, and the show that made them both famous, Glee.
Twelve articles, seven lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
The case Infoboxes was opened. The evidence phase continues in Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds. Voting on the proposed decision continues in the Tea Party movement case.

you deleted the Shenouda Wiki page

Stephen,

You deleted a page I wrote up yesterday about a woman named Mary Shenouda. I am a big time paleo person and Mary is a well known paleo chef in that world. Obviously the article was very poorly cited but I was in the process of adding additional sources. I have no connection to her companies. I haven't even met her. I added the page because I love her blog and recipes, but more importantly she is a well known figure in a growing field. Can you undelete the page and I will add better sources. If you have other problems I would like to discuss them as I don't see this as promotional material.

Thanks,

David — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidBellos (talk • contribs) 22:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Article has been restored and moved to User:DavidBellos/Mary Shenouda. I'll post some notes on your talk page. Stephen! Coming... 22:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2013

One of the narratives I've heard a lot is that Wikipedia is unable to change, that it's too stagnant, too poorly resourced, too inherently resistant to change. I don't believe that at all.
An ArXiv preprint titled "Highlighting entanglement of cultures via ranking of multilingual Wikipedia articles" is about the Wikipedia articles on individuals and their position in the hyperlink network of the articles in each Wikipedia language edition, considering the whole hyperlink network.
Somewhat predictably, the birth of a new heir to the House of Windsor on 22 July led the English-speaking world to suddenly embrace Monarchism. In honour of this occasion, the Traffic report will be assiduously employing British spelling and dating conventions. Cheers.
This week, we visited the Turkish Wikipedia for an interview with VikiProje Siyaset (WikiProject Politics). The project began in April 2010 and has sustained a small but enthusiastic group of editors focusing on both the domestic politics of Turkey and international politics. The basics for article quality and importance ratings have been determined, but tracking this data has not yet become widespread on the Turkish Wikipedia. The project maintains a portal, a variety of resources, and a rotating selection of images to spruce up the project's page.
The ninth annual Wikimania conference will open in just over a week at the Jockey Club Auditorium, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania is for people worldwide who have an interest in Wikimedia Foundation projects. It features presentations and discussions on those projects, on free knowledge and content, and on related social and technical issues.
The case Race and politics was closed, while three other cases remain open.
Eight articles, five lists, seven pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia this week include...

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

Fourteen editors have been proposed for a six-month page ban in the Tea Party movement case. In the Infoboxes and Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds cases, the workshop and evidence phases have closed, and proposed decisions are scheduled to be posted.
It's crickets and tumbleweeds this week, as the top 10 sees its lowest view-count since the project began. If Wikipedia were selling anything, we'd be having a fire sale by now.
The opening days of the annual Wikimania, referred to as the "pre-conference", are not typically newsworthy. This changed dramatically when the Chapters Association council met on Thursday.
This week, we journey into a WikiProject that focuses about what keeps Wikipedia running, the freedom of speech.
The week's newest featured content includes...
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 14 August 2013

About a thousand Wikimedians journeyed to Hong Kong this week for the annual Wikimania conference, the annual gathering of the Wikimedia movement. Wikimania, which has been held since 2005, serves as the principal physical meetup for Wikimedians around the world.
One major story that came out of Wikimania was Jimmy Wales' statements at the conference that he would prefer to have Wikipedia banned entirely in mainland China than censored as it is currently.
The week's newest featured content includes seven articles, four lists, and twelve pictures.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and its public face to most of the media, has declared that media organizations are missing out on the "opportunity of the century" by not conducting true investigative reporting into American surveillance practices, a debate kindled by information leaked by Edward Snowden.
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case has closed, with a unanimous decision to desysop a Wikimedia Foundation employee and indefinitely ban another editor. The Tea Party movement case has stalled yet again, in the wake of a controversial proposal to ban 14 editors. A proposed decision in the Infoboxes case was scheduled to be posted on 14 August.

The Signpost: 21 August 2013

Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.

Regarding Deletion of My Page

Hi Stephen, I have created a page on Mr Sanjay Singh, And I have provided the original and authentic content with the reference links. I am not promoting any brand or Products not doing any marketing stuff just written the biography of Mr Sanjay Singh. The reference link I have provided is from high quality News website. I am unable to understand why my pages is deleted. Please do the needful, Provide me the right suggestion what I do to make webpage on Mr Sanjay Singh life he is serial Entrepreneur, he established the two big companies.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanjay Singh (Entrepreneur) (talk • contribs) 16:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The simple answer is that the article read like an advertisment. Notability was demonstrated; that wasn't the reason for deletion.
There is an issue with your username; I'll go over this on your talk page. Stephen! Coming... 23:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Once you've sorted out your username, let me know and we can discuss how to go about rewriting the article so that it isn't promotional. Stephen! Coming... 23:34, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Deletion of My Page on Sanjay Singh

Hi Stephen, I have created account on my name as Pamela Giradin, Now I want to publish a page on Mr Sanjay Singh can I publish the older content which you was deleted or you can give me some suggestion in writing for new content which is easily approved by Wikipedia Moderators.

Thanks Pamela — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pamela Girardin (talk • contribs) 03:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Restored. See comments on your talk page on how to improve the article. Stephen! Coming... 09:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I see we think alike

Still unsure that he is sufficiently notable, though, but less promotional fluff and clutter may clarify matters. Less is often more. Fiddle Faddle 09:41, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 August 2013

Wikipedia's gender identity MOS section and its effect on Chelsea Manning was both praised and emulated in the media this week. ... Coverage of the distributed open collaborative course called "Storming Wikipedia" continued this week.
98 registered participants attended the annual WikiSym+OpenSym conference from August 5-7 at Hong Kong's Cyberport facility.
This week, we secured free admission for WikiProject Amusement Parks, the project dedicated to amusement rides, roller coasters, theme parks, traveling carnivals, and funfairs.
The debt that Wikipedia owes sites like Reddit or Google often goes unacknowledged around here. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to bring knowledge to the world, then it is sites like these that are actually doing it.
The 2013 WikiCup competition is entering its final round. Eleven articles and nine pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), Wikimedia's annual volunteer-driven and the world largest photo contest, is gearing up to be conducted throughout September 2013. The event, originally developed in the Netherlands in 2010, has gone global with 34 countries taking part last and 49 this year.
Wikipedia's traditional image gallery format, produced by the markup, has remained largely unchanged for years. The resulting layout, seen below, does not adapt well to variations in image size, and has been characterized by some critics as aesthetically unappealing.

Deletion of Before the Betrayer Article

I was wondering why my article was deleted from Wikipedia? It took a lot of effort to create that page and to write about my band. This was not an article written about another band or anything with false information, I am part of the band and wanted to write an article about it. Everything that was given to me such as pictures and such were given to me by people who have taken pictures at our shows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BTB518 (talk • contribs) 14:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

There was nothing in the article to indicate your band was notable; see WP:BAND for information. If you believe you are notable, then let me know and I will review. Alternatively, go to [{WP:DRV|deletion review]] for an indpendant assessment. However, I would caution against writing an article about yourselves, as this is a conflict of interest - see [{WP:COI]] Stephen! Coming... 14:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 September 2013

After media praise for Wikipedia's decision to move the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning, the reversion of that page move on August 31, after a discussion in which several hundred Wikipedians participated, has so far triggered less favourable feedback, as well as a blog post from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressing her disappointment with the decision.
On September 3, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the second stage of the process to improve the privacy policy implemented on most Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia and its sister projects, by publishing a policy draft.
A news-heavy week offers some insight, perhaps, into humanity's priorities.
As mentioned in "In the news" on Wikipedia's main page, the Library of Birmingham in the United Kingdom has opened. This interior photo was taken a week before opening. The article reports that the library "has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe."
Four articles, four lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status this week on the English Wikipedia
This week, we spent some time with the minds behind WikiProject Psychology. The project was created in March 2006 and has grown to include 14 Featured Articles and 43 Good Articles.
The dispute over the title for the Manning article escalated quickly to arbitration levels, as the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute case was accepted for arbitration.
In this week's "Technology report", we explore ways of making Wikipedia more accessible to users of screen readers. Graham87 is a highly active contributor who is also blind and accesses the site through a screen reader.

The Signpost: 11 September 2013

'The National Law Journal reported on September 9 that lawyer Susan L. Burke has been taking legal steps to discover the identity of Wikipedia editor . Zujua had edited her biography, allegedly adding misleading content about various lawsuits in the process
The Signpost went to Indonesia this week.
Four articles, eight lists, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status this week on the English Wikipedia.
The deadline for proposals to the Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) volunteer committee on Meta will pass on 30 September. The program is designed to fund projects that tackle long-term problem and have a significant editing community impact; it has previously supported solutions like The Wikipedia Library, which improves Wikipedian access to online reference sources like JSTOR (see Signpost coverage).
While the Syrian Civil War crept its slow way into the minds of the public, with a new fourth related entry in the top 25, the top 10 remained dominated by celebrity, mainly sports and music. Two megabucks transfers stimulated public interest in football/soccer ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, while Lil Wayne's public apology ahead of his latest album release sent him to the top.
Discussion over the Manning title dispute was off to a running start as evidence and workshop phases continued in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute. The Infoboxes case closed with topic bans for two users, and a recommendation for community discussion of infoboxes.

The Signpost: 18 September 2013

The Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), the volunteer-led body that evaluates chapter and (for the first time) thematic organizational annual plan grant requests to the Wikimedia Foundation, is preparing for its third round of public proceedings to deliberate on the distribution of several million US dollars of Wikimedia movement funds.
This week, the Signpost headed to WikiProject Good Articles. As of publishing time, out of the 4,331,477 articles on Wikipedia, only 18,464 are rated as "good" (about 1 in 235).
Thirteen articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status last week on the English Wikipedia.
In this week's "Technology report", we look at how the growth of Wikidata can benefit Wikipedia. Gerard Meijssen is a highly active contributor and frequent blogger about Wikidata. We asked him to share his thoughts on how the new project benefits Wikipedia.
The top 10 is bookended by unlucky dates, as Friday the 13th fell just after the anniversary of 9/11. Breaking Bad's final season continued to draw attention, while interest in Miley Cyrus's youthful exuberance is fading only slowly.

Article about the Meliora Testlab -test tool

Hi

I was going to recreate the article about testing tool that was speedily deleted (Meliora_Testlab). Any insights you would like to give before creating the article?

TimoPulkkinen (talk) 06:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

First, check it is actually notable. Read WP:NOTABLE for details.
Secondly, make sure that it isn't promotional. Read WP:ADVERT.
Are you connected with the product/company? If so, don't write it, as it is a conflict of interest - see WP:COI.
Finally, I would suggest writing it in a userfied area, and then get it moved when it is ready. Less chance of it getting deleted! See WP:USERFY.
Hope this helps. Stephen! Coming... 07:03, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 September 2013

Over the last year, there's been extensive debate about whether public relations professionals and other corporate representatives should participate on Wikipedia and, if so, to what extent and what kinds of rules should be followed.
The saga of Walter White, chemistry teacher-turned-drug kingpin, as told in the critically adored television series Breaking Bad, has been a water-cooler necessity for years, and now, as it nears its end, audiences are feverishly following every plot thread to guess what the finale will reveal.
Fox News writer Perry Chiaramonte published an article detailing Wikipedia's alleged abandonment of its fight to remove pornography.
On 30 September, Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), the Wikimedia community's global photo competition, will reach to the end of its submission period. The proceedings have been underway since the first of this month; national juries will start reviewing submissions for the first round of selections after it closes ... Community aggravation with one of the Wikimedia Foundation's signature initiatives, the VisualEditor, came to the fore again this week with the announcement and implementation of code blocking the tool.
This week, we continued our exploration of other language editions of Wikipedia by visiting the Spanish Wikipedia's Wikiproyecto Fútbol (WikiProject Football).
Twelve articles, six lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.
A conference paper makes a rather serious claim: "We find a surprisingly large number of editors who change their behavior and begin focusing more on a particular controversial topic once they are promoted to administrator status."

The Signpost: 02 October 2013

Medical images have transformed many aspects of modern medicine. Over the past two decades the increasing sophistication of MRI, CT-scanning, and X-ray techniques has made these technologies the cornerstone of diagnosing a range of conditions, replacing what used to be largely guesswork by doctors. They can be the difference between life and death for a patient, and their importance is underlined by the tens of billions of dollars spent on them annually just in North America. For Wikimedia Foundation projects, advanced images are now a powerful tool for describing and explaining, and educating our worldwide readership of medical articles.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
In what will be remembered as a game-changing week for Wikimedia grantmaking, the Foundation's executive director, Sue Gardner, published a forthright and in places highly critical statement, Reflections on the FDC process, and grantmaking staff revealed that the WMF will significantly strengthen its targeting of optimal impact in funding.
Six articles and two pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
Editor's note: To go beyond the mere facts of cases, the "Arbitration report" invited several editors who participated in the recent Infoboxes case to comment on infoboxes: what they are, where new users can go to find out about them, specifications and protocols, best practices, and how the upcoming community discussion recommended by the Committee in the case decision should be framed.
This week, we revisited the enthusiastic editors at WikiProject U2. Started in June 2007, the project has grown in spurts, resulting in a collection of 8 Featured Articles and 24 Good Articles. The project maintains a to do list, portal, and a list of references.

The Signpost: 09 October 2013

If you're living in the United States, what did you do during the government shutdown? Well, it seems most people watched the final episode of Breaking Bad.
This week, we moved to the esoteric world of Australian roads.
Seven articles, six lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
An investigation by the English Wikipedia community into suspicious edits and sockpuppet activity has led to astonishing revelations that Wiki-PR, a multi-million-dollar US-based company, has created, edited, or maintained several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts.
The University of California, San Francisco attracted substantial media attention over its new course offering that will give credit to fourth year medical students for editing Wikipedia articles about medicine.
A proposed decision has been posted in the Manning naming dispute. The workshop phase of the Ebionites 3 case closes 13 October. Arbitrator NuclearWarfare has resigned.

About Rakesh Varre

Hi StephenBuxton, Pete aka Shirt58 here. I hope you're OK with my edits to the article - to be honest I added 'em so I could help out a new editor when the page got speedied - no treading on your toes was intended. Pete aka --Shirt58 (talk) 15:24, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry yourself; I would never view edits to improve an article as "stepping on my toes"... if I did, I expect the other sysops would demand that I hand back the mop! Stephen! Coming... 19:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

public article

sir this is important article so not delete it pls publish it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.38.27.49 (talk) 04:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Which article is this? I have reviewed and deleted (and rejected deletion requests) of a lot of articles. Whichever article it is, if it doesn't meet the General Notability Guidelines, it will be deleted, regardless of its importance to you. Stephen! Coming... 07:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

A9

Hello StephenBuxton, I respectfully disagree with your decline at Make it Rain (Courtney Argue song). The point to A9 is to delete music recordings by a not notable artist, if they are alone not notable for a Wikipedia, there works are also not, even if Pitbull is featured on it, as the notability is not inherited from him. This would be kinda different if it was just released because it would have the chance to chart or become notable, but this song was released almost two years ago. That combined should indicate a speedy deletion. I would PROD it but the creator article removed the speedy deletion tag, so obviously they would not wait 7 days and not remove it. I also do not think AfD is appropriate, because why keep it up and have a discussion, if it meets the criteria for WP: CSD#A9. STATic message me! 16:03, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

True, but remember that the general Speedy Deletion guidelines apply here, not the general notability guidelines. An assertion of notability is all that is required to avoid deletion. Here the assertion is that there is collaboration with some named notable people. Any viable assertion of notability stops it from being deleted, so it has a stay of execution, so to speak. Stephen! Coming... 07:02, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
True that, but in all cases I have seen just having a notable artist appear on your song, does not mean the song should have an article, and A9 not apply, especially when the lead artist is not notable. Well either way, it is now up for AfD. Regards, STATic message me! 07:09, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
That's the thing about CSD (amongst other things) - rightly or wrongly it is up to the interpretation of a single admin to decide. I have seen a few articles deleted that I probably would have saved from speedy deletion. I am possibly a bit more inclusionist than others when it comes to assessing. Stephen! Coming... 11:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 October 2013

Media coverage on Wiki-PR, the multi-million-dollar US-based company that has broken several policies and guidelines on the English Wikipedia in its quest to create and maintain thousands of articles for paying clients, continued this week with a feature story by Martin Robbins in the British edition of Vice magazine.
A slow week, with low overall views and the Top 10 dominated by longstanding pages. Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's outer space-set action art film, not only held its position at the top of the US box office but climbed to the top of the Wikipedia chart as well, showing that it has become a major talking point.
This week, we studied coats of arms and flags with the folks at WikiProject Heraldry and Vexillology. Started in September 2006, the project has grown to include 20 Featured Articles and nearly 50 Good Articles. The project maintains a portal, a list of resources, and a variety of images and templates.
Six articles, two lists, and thirty-three pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The Manning naming dispute case has closed, with a strong and unanimous statement by the Committee against disparaging references to transgendered persons. Sanctions were enacted against six editors.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

3MB

Sorry to bug you but will you look at the third nomation of the artice titled above you deleted before? The results once again result in favor of deletion and for the page be salted because they aren't really notable, the page is poorly sourced barely sourced as it is. They're are barley a team. Per Generally acceptable standards for pro wrestling, fails WP:ENTERTAINER - recently-established team of "heels" with no history of influence/notability. Also, article's references (all of which emanate from the WWE) fail the reliable source standard of being independent of the subject. We can put the information in the singles articles. -- Miss X-Factor (talk) 02:26, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure you've sent this to the right sysop? Just checked through the entire history, and my name has not been involved with that article, either in editing or deleting. Did you mean User:Phantomsteve? He was the last one to delete it. Stephen! Coming... 17:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2013

The next twice-yearly round of Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) grantmaking is soon to close for community questioning and commentary. Ten nation-based Wikimedia chapters and one thematic organisation are asking for a total of more than US$5M of donors’ money from the Foundation’s renamed annual plan grant process. Aside from Wikimedia UK ($708k), the three biggest asks are from the German-speaking chapters: Wikimedia Germany is asking for $2.4M and Wikimedia Austria $311k; and the German-language-related Swiss chapter is applying for $500k.
Media, sports and Google Doodles dominate, though a very odd fish decided to crash the party.
Twelve articles, four lists, and four pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week, including the article on cabbage.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
MIT Technology Review published a long article on what it called "The decline of Wikipedia". Editor involvement has decreased since 2007; according to the article, this has had an adverse qualitative effect on content, particularly on issues pertinent to non-British and American male geeks.
This week, we headed to an elementary subject with WikiProject Elements. Founded by Mav in 2002, this project has grown to have 19 featured articles, 2 featured topics, and 68 good articles. The project also has a list of templates, and a periodic table of elements filled with pictures.

Hi

Please respond to my comment non-responded to comment on the talk page for RIDC. Thank you. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 10:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I would like to have the copy of RIDC thank you in advance. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 10:40, 1 November 2013 (UTC)


Your question from the deleted talk page:
This page should not be speedily deleted because... the reasons cited were misplaced on this article since A7 specifically states: "The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines". And G11 specifically allows for a very neutral article such as this with "An article about a company or a product which describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion". A non-profit that was created by a state/private partnership 58 years ago seems an extremely unlikely candidate for speedy deletion. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 09:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
For notability, it did not make any assertion about how notable it was. Nothing about media coverage, nothing about awards, nothing that showed it to meet the General Notability Guidelines. As for advertising, an article doesn't have to be about a business to be sound promotional. A lot of the text read as if it were promoting this organisation, and was not neutral in tone. Some of it appeared to be slightly modified text from the website, taking it dangerously close to [[WP:COPYVIO|breaking the copyright guidelines too.
If you disagree with my deletion, then feel free to make your case here, or take it to WP:DRV. Stephen! Coming... 10:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Appreciate the discussion, is there a copy of this page I may sandbox for a week? I can debate your points but both our times will be better spent if I just improve it. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 10:44, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Bit busy right this minute, but I'll do it a bit later. If you haven't seen anything in two hours time, feel free to remind me! Stephen! Coming... 10:53, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Been about an hour, I went ahead and listed it at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2013 November 1, a copy will still be appreciated however depending on the outcome, thank you. Market St.⧏ ⧐ Diamond Way 11:50, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Done; see your talk page for info about where the article is, and what you need to address. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to drop me a note. Stephen! Coming... 12:22, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 October 2013

The top 10 encapsulates the history of human aviation; at #1, a Google Doodle celebrating the 216th anniversary of the first parachute jump; at #10, the enduringly popular scifi film Gravity, a paean to human spaceflight. It's odd to think it's taken us 200 years to travel about that many miles up.
While giving a speech on behalf of a gubernatorial candidate, Paul advocated his pro-life position, and compared allowing unrestricted abortions to the film Gattaca. He went on to use strikingly similar language and phraseology in his speech to what the Wikipedia page reads. The Washington Post's article conceded that Wikipedia is a widely used source for trivial information, but mocked the fact that a politician would view it as a reliable source.
In January we raised several potentially troublesome issues for the Wikimedia movement in taking on Wikivoyage, including the apparent inadequacy of the English Wikivoyage sex-tourism policy, hurriedly strengthened against mention of child sex after our inquiries. However, both sex-tourism and illegal-activities policies remain equivocal about how the site should treat entries about sex tourism more generally, and drugs that are classed as illicit in almost every country. Yet the Signpost has found it remarkably easy to locate material in Wikivoyage that violates both the spirit and the letter of the policies.
This year's WikiCup competition has finished, while three articles, five lists, and six pictures, were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
Laura Stein, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, has concluded that, based on her comparison of user policy documents (including the Terms of Service) of YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia, Wikipedia offers the highest level of participation power overall.
With Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and other gloomy celebrations this week, we're taking a look at Wikipedia's dead and dying. For some dead WikiProjects, the sole purpose of their life was simply to serve as a warning to others. Some of these projects may still be salvageable, but for most, a revival is unlikely. Here are some projects that never got off the ground and the lessons that can be gleaned from their follies

The Signpost: 06 November 2013

As part of the second major "outing" controversy to hit the English Wikipedia in less than a year, the Chelsea/Bradley Manning naming dispute was dragged into the spotlight yet again when the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee ruled by motion to remove the administrator tools from and ban long-time Wikipedia contributor Phil Sandifer.
It's fair to say that commemorating death was a strong theme this week, with Lou Reed's passing generating interest, as well as a Google Doodle celebrating the costume designer Edith Head. And of course, the world's greatest celebrations of the dead, Halloween and the Day of the Dead, were also popular this week.
HMS Hood, one of the most famous warships of the Second World War, was a battlecruiser and therefore part of what is now the largest featured topic on Wikipedia: "Battlecruisers of the world". The topic was promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week alongside eleven articles, three lists, four pictures, and two other topics.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Accessibility, a project that strives to make Wikipedia accessible for users with disabilities. The project improves Wikipedia's guidelines and Manual of Style, collects useful templates and scripts, and provides support to impaired Wikipedians.
The Ebionites 3 case has closed with an interaction ban for the two editors involved in the dispute.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

The Signpost: 13 November 2013

The numbers this week are beyond anything that has been seen since this report began. The top view count beats the average by an order of magnitude. Usually the appearance of numbers this big on the list is due to spamming, but in this case it seems they are due to honest interest; more specifically, Google Doodles, which for the first time claimed all five top slots. This column has raised numerous times the power of a Google Doodle to shine light on Wikipedia, but the wattage has never been as high as this.
Five articles, two lists, one topic, and nine pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.
The supporting staff of the Wikimedia Foundation’s powerful volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have released their assessments for the third half-yearly round of funding applications. The applications for the newly named annual plan grants were submitted by affiliated entities on 1 October, and comprise a total of more than US$5M in bids.
The Italian-language Wikipedia community has overwhelmingly voted to request the Wikimedia Foundation's assistance in recovering wikipedia.it, a website that has been frequently confused with the Italian Wikipedia.
This week, we followed the intricate storylines of WikiProject Soap Operas.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

Daniel Margotta

I didn't see anything that was not COPYVIO at Daniel Margotta and I greatly respect your effort to chop away the 99.9% COPYVIO and still be able to find the redeemable 0.1% without deleting the entire article. What's left may be useable as a starting point to create a viable article, perhaps with less of the COI issues that plagued the previous version. Thanks again for the nice work. Alansohn (talk) 21:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2013

As I said in August, contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do. The genre is refreshingly different from that of Wikipedia articles, and can allow writers to use a different range of skills. The need for an independent, volunteer-run Signpost continues to grow, given the increasing complexity and financial expenditures of the global Wikimedia movement, not to mention the English Wikipedia.
Peter Burke's A Social History of Knowledge: Volume II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia is a broad and wide-ranging look at how knowledge has been created, acquired, organized, disseminated, and sometimes lost in the Western world over the last two and a half centuries, a sequel to his 2000 book covering the prior three centuries, A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot.
Four articles, five lists, and thirty-four pictures were promoted to 'featured status' this week, including an image of a small fraction of the 18,000 taxis that serve Hong Kong.
This week, we headed over to WikiProject National Football League. With 10 Featured Articles, 61 Featured Lists, and 142 Good Articles (as of publication), this WikiProject has done a lot of work improving American football articles.
The Wikimedia Foundation has sent a formal cease and desist letter to Wiki-PR—the public relations agency accused of breaking Wikipedia policies and guidelines by creating, editing, and maintaining several thousand articles for paying clients through a sophisticated array of accounts. The Foundation's attorneys, Cooley LLP, have demanded that Wiki-PR's employees abide by the site's Terms of Use and the language of a community ban from the English Wikipedia.
It's not hard to guess which event is leading interest in the top 25 this week. The sheer scale of Typhoon Haiyan is staggering; estimates place its maximum windspeed upon first landfall in the Philippines on November 6 at 315 km/h, which would make it the most powerful tropical cyclone ever to reach land. To date, the storm has killed nearly 4000 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 4 million homes.
Back in March, when the March 25 Arbitration Report covered the Audit Subcommittee appointment discussion, a statement from the WMF legal division clarified its position that access to deleted revisions required an RFA or RFA-identical process; therefore AUSC committee appointments were not open to non-admins. The WMF legal team has now further clarified its position, saying that running for and winning an election for arbitrator would qualify as the type of rigorous community selection process required for the checkuser and oversight rights held by arbitrators.

The Signpost: 04 December 2013

Summary:Doctor Who nearly got cancelled in its first week because its premiere was swamped by coverage of the JFK assassination, which happened the same day. Thankfully, producers saw fit to rerun it the next day, which is now its official anniversary date.
Wikipedia works on the efforts of unpaid volunteers who choose to donate their time to advance the cause of free knowledge. This phenomenon, as trivial as it may sound to those acquainted with Wikipedia inner workings, has always puzzled economists and social scientists alike, in that standard Economic theory would not predict that such enterprises would thrive without any form of remuneration.
Recent discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
The sister project Wikisource, the digital library that hosts free-content primary sources, is now a decade old. Wikisource, which now has versions in 63 languages, is the sixth type of project to reach ten-year milestone and will be the last until 2016. The Wikimedia Foundation's volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee has published its recommendations to the Board of Trustees on 11 new applications for annual grants by 11 WMF-affiliated organisations. The maximum total budget for the current and upcoming March rounds is US$6M.
This week, we returned to WikiProject Apple Inc. for a peek at their newest articles about the latest in gadgets and software. The last time we took a bite out of WikiProject Apple, they had just finished merging WikiProject Macintosh and WikiProject iPhone OS. Today, the project is hard at work rewriting their primary article, improving the subject's outline, and adding to the project's list of 25 Good Articles and 6 Featured Articles.
  • Featured content: F*&!
Seventeen articles, four lists, and twenty-eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status in the last two weeks.
The Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute case has opened. The second draft of the discretionary sanctions proposal is now open for review.

Revolve Robotics Page

Hi Stephen, Last night I posted the Revolve Robotics page that you deleted. This is a webpage that is intended to be informational about our company, history, product, etc. I attempted to make it informational. Can you please let me know if there were specific things that were posted that you deleted it for so that I can make sure that I modify appropriately when I re-post? Thanks, Marcus — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcusr5 (talk • contribs) 15:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Simply put, it was an advert, and articles cannot be used for promotional purposes. Have a read of WP:ADVERT for more details. Even if you were able to rewrite it so that the article was more neutral in tone, I would still advise you against writing about your company because of the policy on Conflict of Interest. There are many directories out there where you could advertise your company, Wikipedia is not the place for it. Stephen! Coming... 16:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 December 2013

When one edits this page for too long, one is tempted to appoint oneself as the psychoanalyst for the human race, or at least the English-speaking portion thereof. Since nearly everyone uses Wikipedia, the constant stream of TV updates, pointless celebrity scandals, and inquiries after who has died can seem like a dreary peek into humanity's surprisingly banal collective consciousness.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales caught headlines last week when he referred to former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden ... Loek Essers of the International Data Group, (IDG) News Service is reporting that a German court has held Wikipedia liable for its content, but still does not have to fact check the information in advance.
Amid great anticipation the international prize winners have just been announced for the fourth annual Wiki Loves Monuments, now the world's largest photographic competition and one of the biggest events on the Wikimedia movement's calendar. ... The first prize has gone to David Gubler's photograph of a Swiss train crossing a viaduct.
This week, the Signpost interviewed the Wine WikiProject.
On 7 December, Wikipedia editor Wehwalt reached the momentous milestone of 100 featured articles with History of Chincoteague, Virginia. Quite apart from the reading and research, that's around three-quarters of a million words of finalised text, not counting footnotes, image captions and the rest.
Three articles, one list, and eight pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia last week.
On 6 December, the latest version of the MediaWiki software was released. In development from March 2013 through October 2013, the release featured anti-spam and counter-vandalism improvements.

Tureck, Economic Collapse

Hi

I've read your guidelines on why you delete posts and external links and believe they don't apply to the two external links I supplied yesterday. One was a memoir about Rosalyn Tureck appended to the Wikipedia article about her. Among other things, it enhances one's knowledge and understanding of her philosophy, approach and habits; and it sheds light on the "revelation" she spoke of frequently with respect to the course her musical life ultimately took.

The other was a link to a webpage about The Moron's Guide to Global Collapse, a book on both economic and environmental collapse. This link was appended to the Wikipedia article on economic collapse. If you were to read the book, you would see that it discusses the root cause of our present economic crisis: The paradigm of infinite growth which cannot continue ad infinitem on a finite planet. It then encapsulates the history of how this paradigm played out with respect to the use of interest, the establishment of the Federal Reserve, the arrival of such figures as Bernie Madoff and other recent phenomena.

Both these links are relevant, on point and not in violation of copyright.

Thank you. Usernameusernameagain (talk) 17:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

The links you added nothing to the article, and were bordering on advertising/promoting the opinion of one person who was not referred to within the article. As such, they were removed.Stephen! Coming... 07:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

my user page

hey why you so serious about my user page, it's my privacy got it?--KreanMek (talk) 00:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Traceability between accounts is preferred. However, I see that you have managed to get it deleted, so the question is fairly academic now. Stephen! Coming... 07:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Deleted article

Why did you delete the Godoi Business Group Article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.122.13.129 (talk) 06:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

It was deleted because there was nothing to indicate that the article was about a notable organisation. See the notability guidelines for companies for more information. I would also recommend that even if you believe it does meet the notability requirements, that you don't write the article, as you are closely connected to the organisation; see the conflict of interest policy for more information. Stephen! Coming... 07:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Deleted Wiki page

Dear Stephen,

I am writing to you with regards to a wikipedia page that was recently filed under "speedy deletion"

On behalf of ThoughtBuzz, I request that the article be revived, as it is still a work in progress.


Nicholasfoo (talk) 03:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

If you believe the article should be reviewed, I would suggest WP:DRV. But before you do that, please read the policy on Conflict of Interest, as you are clearly connected with the company, and writing about topics that you are personally involved with is strongly advised against. Stephen! Coming... 07:59, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


Nicholasfoo (talk) 10:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your reply. We are committed to provide facts about ThoughtBuzz on Wikipedia and are prepared with articles from the web that explains the function of ThoughtBuzz. Or could you recommend the next course of action?

Simple - don't post about it on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a directory, nor is it to be used for promotional purposes. It sounds like you are being paid for promoting ThoughtBuzz on Wikipedia - if that is the case please make sure that you read WP:PAY. And even if you aren't, then the rest of the COI policy still needs to be adhered to. Also, if you have articles from the web ready to place on Wikipedia, then you should also be aware of the copyright rules.
One other thing you might want to read - Why having an article on Wikipedia is nothing to be proud of.Stephen! Coming... 10:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Nicholasfoo (talk) 11:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Stephen,

So may I ask why do wiki pages of some Fortune500 companies exist? Who creates these pages? And on what valid grounds?

Those would have been written by people unconnected with the companies in question, and those companies meet the notability guidelines. Remember, just because an article on Company A exists, it does not automatically mean Company B qualifies for an article – see Other Stuff Exists. And something else to bear in mind – once the article exists, as there is no owner of an article (see WP:OWN – ‘’’anyone’’’ can edit it, and ‘’’anything’’’ that happens to the company and is in the news will almost certainly end up on the article, good or bad. Just have a read about companies such as Apple, Microsoft or any other of the really big companies on Wikipedia. They are balanced, not written as adverts and contain published criticisms about the company. Sometimes these criticisms of the company are so lengthy they warrant a separate article. Do you really want to have all that on the article about ThoughtBuzz? I can’t imagine that they would be too happy about it.
I cannot emphasise this strongly enough – you do not want to use Wikipedia to advertise anything. If you are truly desperate to get the article restored, then go to deletion review and make your case, showing why it is notable, and also declaring any connection with the company. But do have a read of all the other links I have provided you with first. Stephen! Coming... 11:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2013

This week, the Signpost interviewed the Tunisia WikiProject on the French Wikipedia.
An animated Google Doodle for computer programmer and naval rear admiral Grace Hopper generated another record-breaking hit count for the year, though the count for the list overall was lower than for that of the previous holder.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
A little more than six days after the close of voting, the results of the annual Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) elections have been announced. Of the 22 candidates, 13 managed to gain more supports than opposes, though only one gained the support of more than half of the voters. Eight were elected to two-year terms, and a ninth will serve for one year.
Seven articles, three lists, and eight pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia this week.
This week, the GLAMWikiToolset, or GWToolset, is being deployed to the Wikimedia Commons. It allows for GLAM organizations to batch upload content based on various metadata stored in an XML schema. In the past this has been done by various bots, but now it will be easier for GLAMs to do it directly.

The Signpost: 25 December 2013

Analyzing edits to the-then 46 largest Wikipedias between July 9 and August 8, 2013, a study identified a set of about 8,000 contributors with a global user account who have edited more than one of these language versions in that time frame.
Five articles, two lists, and five pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
We saved one last special report for 2013. After our well-received review of great WikiProject logos a couple years ago, it was only a matter of time before we collected a new batch of interesting iconography that showcases the creativity of the Wikipedia community. Hopefully, these logos will also inspire other projects to liven up their drab pages.
A significant move by the Wikimedia Foundation has been to broaden the types of activities it funds to develop several different programs for judging and allocating that funding, and to set up volunteer committees that initially assess applications for funding.
Last month, the OAuth extension was deployed to all Wikimedia wikis. OAuth is a standard used for allowing users to authenticate third-party applications, also known as consumers, to take actions on their behalf.

Hello Stephen

Hello Stephen, Im writing to you because of your recommendation to "speedily delete" the page "Prateek Singh". I have gone through the Wikipedia guidelines and I understand it has been categorized as blatant advertising. Thank you for your help as as admin of Wikipedia and I truly think you are doing a great job. However the page : 1) There Was no advertising of anything, If you followed the citation references, all the information was taken from news publications. 2) The article was not written like an encyclopedia: this is absolutely true, But I thought being a reservoir of information the article would slowly grow as more people would contribute to the article.

Stephen, I would really appreciate another opportunity to write the article. If you would be so gracious in helping me write the article again within the norms of Wikipedia I think I would learn something. I have gone through the guidelines and now understand why it was deleted. Today I learnt why Wikipedia is what it is.

Thank you Stephen :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prateekknight (talk • contribs) 13:34, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay; been away for Christmas.
My first question to you is this: Are you connected in anyway personally with the subject of the article? The connection could be through business relationship, family member or you know the person. In which case, I would strongly suggest that you do not write this article. See the Policy on Conflict of Interest for full details.
If you are not connected, then the next thing you need to do is check whether or not the person is notable enough for an article. Read the general notability guidelines to see whether or not there is enough notability. If there isn't then no matter how well written the article is, it will be deleted, thus wasting all your hard work.
If the person is notable, then you need to see about writing the article. I recommend writing the article in your userpage area, in other words a "userfied article".
The Manual of Style will help with general details on how to write an article (I must confess, I'm not very good at this!), but by far the best article to read is the guidance on words to avoid which will help you write an article that is neutral in tone.
Do please read all the links I have provided you with, and if you follow that, you should end up with a decent article. Stephen! Coming... 21:48, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Hello Stephen, Thank you for your reply, I have a lot of reading to do before I start writing for Wikipedia. I shall read up and then start posting/editing articles that interest me. Thank you again for taking out the time to explain how things work around here. If I do get stuck somewhere, I shall be bothering you. Happy holidays and a happy new year to you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prateekknight (talk • contribs) 10:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

No worries; glad to be of service. And have a Happy New Year to you too! Stephen! Coming... 15:39, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 January 2014

In fact, the majority are relatively evenly split between three themes: people of interest, television, and websites.
In 2013, the arbitration committee closed 10 cases, 9 amendment requests, and 26 clarification requests.
On New Year's Day, an article by Tim Sampson published in The Daily Dot and republished shortly after on Mashable covered the currently ongoing medical disclaimer RfC.
Dariusz Jemielniak's book is the newest about Wikipedia, published in Poland in 2013 and with an English edition forthcoming in 2014.
This was the year in which one journalist described the flagship site, Wikipedia, as "wickedly seductive". It was the year Wikipedia's replacement value was estimated at $6.6bn, its market value at "tens of billions of dollars", and its consumer benefit "hundreds of billions of dollars". But it was also the year in which one commentator forecast the decline of Wikipedia—that the project is in trouble from its shrinking volunteer workforce, skewed coverage, "crushing bureaucracy" and 90 percent male community.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia and around the Wikimedia movement include...
The year 2013 has come and gone, adding 50 new WikiProject Reports to our long list of projects we've had the privilege to meet. Last year saw the continuation of our Babel series, featuring WikiProjects from other languages of Wikipedia. We also expanded our selection of special reports, offering readers a growing collection of helpful tips and tools as they participate in WikiProjects.
Over the past year 1181 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured picture candidates (FPC), which promoted an average of 46 pictures a month. This was followed by featured article candidates (FAC; 32.5 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (FLC; 18 a month).
2013 saw a lot of changes to MediaWiki software and Wikimedia infrastructure.

The Signpost: 08 January 2014

Public Domain Day—January 1, 2014—gives me an opportunity to reflect on this important asset, mandated by the Constitution of the United States.
The various maladies that befall humanity got some well-known faces this week: the death of the well-liked actor James Avery topped the list, but Michael Schumacher, who is in a coma after a skiing accident, also drew attention.
MediaWiki developers will be meeting in San Francisco on January 23–24 for an Architecture Summit.
On 8 January, the Wikimedia Foundation notified the Wikimedia-l mailing list that Sarah Stierch, a popular Wikimedian and the Foundation's Program Evaluation Community Coordinator, was no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, as a result of being paid to create articles on the English Wikipedia.
At the very start of the new year, 2014's WikiCup—an annual competition which has been held on Wikipedia in various forms since 2007—began.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Television.
Twelve articles, three lists, seven pictures, and a portal were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia in the last two weeks.

PDS & Associates

Hi, I just wanted some clarity with respect to the above mentioned page deleted by you. All of the citations therein were from reputed News sources such as the Economic Times, Business Standard etc. The page also spoke of a Firm that has been in the news in the Legal Industry in India, especialy due to its relationship with Ernst & Young and thereafter the breakaway from PDS Legal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.176.60.32 (talk) 12:33, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The vast majority of the articles referenced in the article were Press Releases, and as such cannot be used to show notability. The remaining ones were just instances where a member of the firm gave commentary to news items apparently unrelated to their company (such as this one about an Indian Ponzi scheme). As such, there is nothing in the article that demonstrates sufficient notability about the company.
If you do still believe that the article should remain, I would suggest taking it to Deletion Review, but you will need to demonstrate how it meets the [{WP:NOTE|General Notability Guidelines]]. Stephen! Coming... 12:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Deleted my page

My page clearly has importance to anyone with sense as it is a gang which has been involved in serious crimes. Please don't do this again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maarlon (talk • contribs) 17:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The article was removed as there was nothing in there to show notability (see Guidance on what is notable for more details). It was also deleted as it was an article that gave negative information without any references, which if left could put Wikipedia at risk of libel. See WP:NOCITE for more information. Also, the article was based on Original Research, which is not allowed either. In short, there was nothing in the article in the condition it was presented to me in that would allow me to consider leaving it up for further work. If you disagree, then by all means take it to Deletion Review and present your case there.
One final thing though - please take care with your tone when writing messages on other people's talk pages. It may not have been your intention, but your message above came across to me with an edge of intimidation/threats; it certainly was bordering on rudeness. I would like to draw your attention to the rules of Wikipedia about being civil; repeated failure to follow these rules can result in being blocked indefinitely. Stephen! Coming... 15:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

You are clearly a cvnt who deserves to be kicked off wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maarlon (talk • contribs) 19:37, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 January 2014

Wikimedia Germany, the largest national affiliate, has authored an extensive critique of the Funds Dissemination Committee's process for issuing funding recommendations for the various large organizations in the movement.
The proposed schedule for the MediaWiki Archicture Summit has been published. The two main plenary sessions will be about HTML templating, and Service-oriented architecture.
It is heavily ironic that two decades after the World Wide Web was started — largely to make it easier to share scholarly research — most of our past and present research publications are still hidden behind paywalls for private profit. The bitter twist is that the vast majority of this research is publicly funded, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide each year.
Wikipedia's recent decline in readership, possibly due to Google's Knowledge Graph. ... Judith Newman in the New York Times asks "What Does Judith Newman Have to Do to Get a Page?"
We now can get a far more accurate picture of which short surges in popularity are likely natural and which are not.
This week, we studied human social behavior with the folks at WikiProject Sociology.

The Signpost: 22 January 2014

A particularly esoteric anthology of speculative fiction, filled with imaginary Wikipedia entries from, as the introduction puts it, "the many Wikipedias across the Multiverse."
The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy's application of pending changes level two on the article Conventional PCI—an action taken under its rarely used office actions policy—has escalated to the Arbitration Committee after an editor upgraded it to full protection.
Fifteen articles, nine lists, twenty pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.
On 15 January, Wikipedia turned thirteen years old. In that time, this site has grown from a small site that was known to only a select few to one of the most popular websites on the internet. At the same time, recent data suggests that there is a power curve among users, where the comparative few who are writing most of Wikipedia have most of the edits. The result of this is that there is going to be bias in what is created, and how we deal with it as Wikipedians is indicative of the future of the site. Furthermore, this brings up what we have to do in order to combat this bias, as there are many ideas, but the question is whether they will work or not.
This week we're interviewing Brion Vibber about the then-upcoming Architecture Summit. Brion is a long time Wikipedian, the first employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and currently the lead software architect working with the mobile team.
An article in USA Today announced that a European-funded project called RoboEarth that is designed to give robots a mechanism by which to access information to dispense.
While the 71st Golden Globe Awards, held on 12 January, had an impact on the top 25, their presence was largely absent from the Top 10. With the exception of Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio, the only Golden Globe entrants in the Top 10 are films that would have been there anyway.

Drrty Pharms

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

The lines that opened that article (which i saw from a link on facebook, before it was deleted) come directly from the artist's album release bio https://soundcloud.com/drrtypharms and have been reported in review articles elsewhere, making them valid for use here.

I'm unable to see the rest of the wiki page, but i believe you acted quite hastily. The article -was not- an attack article. It was just an article about a major pervert, a rapper who intentionally wallows in filth and self-degradation.

The deleted article (which I am not going to reprint here) had nothing in there to demonstrate that it was quoting lines from an album. The links were either to photos of someone, who may or not be related to the article, which did nothing to back up the article, or to someone's opinion. Again, nothing that could be used to back up the article.
The tone was that of an attack page, there was nothing biographical about the page, and so it was deemed to be an attack page. See WP:DUCK.
If you think that it was deleted unfairly, take it up with WP:DRV. But given the tone and content, I can see that it would be turned down immediately. Better to rewrite one from scratch, in accordance with the Manual of Style and guidelines on biographies. Stephen! Coming... 12:02, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Sriparnachoudhury

I noticed your warning on her talk page. She says she lives in Pune, so [1]. Dougweller (talk) 14:59, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

That definitely appears to explain her interest in these products! Well, she seems to have stopped now; if she starts up again, she can be blocked. Or she might come back as a valued contributor? Could happen... Stephen! Coming... 18:02, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you.
Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency, whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia. Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia".
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result.
An author experimented with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with students at the University of Warsaw.
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