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... can one be both?

I am curious. How can you claim to be "proud to be American", whilst at the same time state that you are "English" ... can one be both? -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 13:20, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I have English (and Irish) ancestry. That's why it links to English People not England but American links to United States. Hot Stop 15:39, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
"Gotcha!" Thank you for replying. If you were wondering ... I noticed your pithy comment on the United Kingdom talk page today. Good editing! -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 18:41, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 July 2012

Please comment on Talk:Mark Weber

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The Signpost: 09 July 2012

Wikipedia has a long history of collaborating with educational institutions. The Schools and universities program — international and in many languages, but dominated by US institutions — started in 2003 and evolved case by case with little system. However, that changed in 2009 as Wikimedia embarked on its formal strategic process, and outreach in higher education came to be seen in terms of achieving explicit goals — especially that of increasing editor participation.
The Russian Wikipedia has been blacked out for 24 hours, ending 20:00 UTC Tuesday, as a protest against Russian State Duma Bill 89417-6, a bill currently before the Duma (the Russian parliament). Visitors to the Russian Wikipedia are confronted by the sign above in protest at a draconian internet censorship bill before the Duma. The Russian word for Wikipedia is crossed out in this banner, and the text says: "Imagine a world without free knowledge. The State Duma is currently conducting the second reading of a bill to amend the "Law on Information", which has the potential to lead to the creation of extra-judicial censorship of the Internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Today, the Wikipedia community protests against censorship as a threat to free knowledge that is open to all mankind. We ask that you oppose this bill."
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Football, which focuses on the sport also known as association football or soccer. WikiProject Football is by far the largest sport project and one of the most active projects on Wikipedia in terms of the number of articles covered, edits to articles, and talk page watchers.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week: ... Aries (constellation) by Keilana. Aries the Ram (symbol ♈) is one of the constellations of the Zodiac and one of 88 currently recognised constellations. Its area is 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere). Although fairly dim, with only three bright stars, it is home to several deep-sky objects.
No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. ... The case concerns alleged misconduct with regards to aggressive responses and harassment by Fæ toward users who question his actions.
The results from last month's trial of the LastModified extension were published this week on the Wikimedia blog. The first analyses have indicated a significant positive impact, suggesting that the extension – which makes the time since a page's last edit much more prominent in the interface – could eventually find its way onto Wikimedia wikis.

Please comment on Talk:Wineries, breweries and distilleries of New Jersey

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Katy Perry

There is no source for the statement that Katy Perry attended the Music Academy of the West. Link is dead and the fact is that it is simply impossible. MAW is a summer school/festival for adults nearing professional careers, not 9-year-olds who want to take voice lessons. Apparently Perry took lessons from a teacher who rented a room on the Music Academy campus during their off-season. Saying she "enrolled" is completely erroneous. Please refrain from re-inserting this false statement. Thank you. Massenetique (talk) 21:45, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Pepper poll

You !voted: "Keep it capitalized", which should be clear enough to most, but I suggest you change your !vote to oppose, which seems to be your position. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 20:51, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Verifiability/2012 RfC

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The Signpost: 16 July 2012

User:Fæ was elected as the inaugural chair of the new Wikimedia Chapters Association, despite the controversies that have surrounded Fæ on the English Wikipedia and Commons, most recently aired in a live case before the Arbitration Committee. This is in marked contrast with unexciting movement, during the Wikimania meeting, on the most important issues facing the establishment of the association.
During Wikimania (July 12-15), the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) board finalized and enacted long-discussed reforms of the movement's financial structures, and considered procedures for creating new ways for Wikimedians to organize themselves into offline communities. The board moved on the controversial image filter issue, approved the 2012–13 annual plan, and issued a statement on the wikitravel proposal. It also appointed the two new chapter-selected trustees and elected the four office-bearers.
With the Tour de France in its final week, we traveled to the French Wikipedia for a chat with Projet Cyclisme (WikiProject Cycling). The French Wikipedia places a greater emphasis on portals than the English Wikipedia, which explains why WikiProject Cycling and its discussion page are actually extensions of the Cycling Portal. The project is home to two Article de Qualité (equivalent to Featured Articles) and eight Bon Article (Good Articles), primarily biographies of cyclists.
A brief overview of the current discussions on the English Wikipedia, including one regarding the purpose of the Community Portal. Started by Maryana, a Wikimedia Foundation employee, is this page for new users to be educated about the community, or is it for experienced users to find updates about the community?
Nearly 1400 Wikimedians and others from 87 countries descended on the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., for Wikimania 2012. Even with an unprecedented number (1400) of conference attendees — the previous two Wikimanias, held in Gdańsk (Poland) and Haifa (Israel), were attended by fewer than 1100 people combined – Wikimania 2012 was a complete success, with attendees' reaction to the conference coming out as ecstatic and laudatory.
Eight featured articles were promoted this week, including Paul McCartney by GabeMc. McCartney (born 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and his collaboration with John Lennon is highly celebrated. After the band's break-up he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings. McCartney has been described by Guinness World Records as the "most successful composer and recording artist of all time", and his song "Yesterday" has been covered more than any other song in history.
As Wikimania, the annual conference targeted at Wikimedians and often well attended by those with a technical slant, draws to a close, comments have already begun to come in from attendees regarding the many tech-related features of the conference.
No cases were closed or opened, leaving the number of open cases at three. A new remedy in the Fæ case calls for him to be indefinitely banned from the site after his attempts to solicit intervention from the Foundation, claiming that publicly listing all his accounts would be too onerous due to "ongoing security risks." He was further criticised for attempting to dodge good-faith concerns; the committee believes that if Fæ's claims are valid then he must be removed from the community.

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Harassment

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Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Harvard University (Notable people)". Thank you. — Bdb484 (talk) 13:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 July 2012

Does Wikipedia pay? is an ongoing Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues... by speaking openly with the people involved.
The Signpost's goal is to provide readers with essential information about the Wikimedia movement and the English Wikipedia – both of which have become large and extremely complex institutions that require timely, balanced and in-depth coverage.
Two weeks ago the Signpost reported that the Russian Wikipedia had just begun a 24-hour blackout in protest at a bill that was before the Russian parliament that proposed mechanisms to block IP addresses and DNS records. The protest, implemented after on-wiki consensus was reached during the preceding days, concerned the potential of the amendment to the information law to allow extra-judicial censorship of the internet in Russia, including the closure of access to the Russian Wikipedia. Among the questions now are how effective the blackout was and where we go from here in terms of internet freedom in one of the world's biggest and most influential countries.
With the 2012 Summer Olympic Games beginning this weekend in London, we decided to catch up with the chaps at WikiProject Olympics. The last time we interviewed WikiProject Olympics was in February 2010 when the project was gearing up for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We wanted to know how the project has grown since then and whether preparing for a Summer Olympics was more grueling.
For the second time this year (and the third in the history of the committee), there are no open cases, as all three active cases were closed last week.
There has never been a better time to improve the behavior of marketing professionals on Wikipedia. For the first time we're seeing self-imposed statements of ethics. Professional PR bodies around the globe have supported the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) guidance for ethical Wikipedia engagement. Although their tone is different, CREWE and the PRSA have brought more attention to the issues. Awareness among PR professionals is rising. So are the number of paid editing operations sprouting up and the opportunity for dialogue.
One featured article was promoted this week, Melville Island. A small peninsula in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, it was discovered by Europeans in the 1600s and initially used for storehouses. The land was purchased by the British and used to hold prisoners of war, then to receive escaped slaves from the United States. After being used as a place of quarantine and later a recruitment centre, the land was granted to Canada in 1907 and used to house prisoners of war. It is now home to the clubhouse and marina of the Armdale Yacht Club.
In the first of a series looking at this year's eight ongoing Google Summer of Code projects, the Signpost caught up with developer Harry Burt.

Beatles Mediation

FYI, I have added your name to the list of involved users at the Beatles Mediation. I hope you will agree to the mediation. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:52, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation

Please send a Wikipedia e-mail to User:Feezo, or User:Mr. Stradivarius to confirm that you are indeed part of the mediation. The link can be found here.--andreasegde (talk) 23:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Done Hot Stop 06:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXVI, July 2012

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Vassula Ryden

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The Signpost: 30 July 2012

From the modeling of social dynamics in a collaborative environment to why the number of Wikipedia readers rises while the number of editors doesn't.
Wikimedia Foundation published its Annual Plan, focusing on technical improvements, editor retention, and structural reforms over the coming year. The movement's total revenue, including almost all chapter funding, is slated to rise by 35%, from $34.2 million to $46.1 million, and global spending to more than $42.1 million. The foundation's own core spending will grow by 15% to $30.2 million in 2012–13.
We continue our Summer Sports Series this week with WikiProject Horse Racing. Started in November 2005, the project has grown to include nearly 8,000 articles maintained by 34 active members. There are 10 Featured Articles and 19 Good Articles included in the project's scope. In addition to preparing articles for GA and FA status, the project attempts to create requested articles and locate requested images. We interviewed Redrose64, Montanabw, Tigerboy1966, Ealdgyth, and Cuddy Wifter.
Eight new featured articles, five new featured lists, and eight new featured pictures. The highlights include a new featured picture of Frank Sinatra, created by William P. Gottlieb and nominated by Tomer T. Sinatra (1915–98) was a highly successful American singer and film actor whose career spanned 60 years. This image dates from around 1947.
In the light of recent questions over the long-term reliability of Wikimedia wikis, the Signpost caught up with CT Woo, the Wikimedia Foundation's director of technical operations.
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion requiring the alteration of any instances of an editor's previous username in arbitration decisions to reflect their name changes. The Devil's Advocate has initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.

Your response

You're turning the last bend, and it's the last lap. The mediators have asked for your comments in the "Your response" section, at the bottom.--andreasegde (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me. I will address it sometime over this weekend (I'd do it now but I may have to undertake more research). Hot Stop 16:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
The mediators have come up with a new idea, which seems good. It's under "Episode IV: A New Poll", and "Your thoughts".--andreasegde (talk) 10:09, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Could you look at this proposal and make a comment? I know it doesn't allow for arguments for/against, but it is as "simple as possible". Ta, --andreasegde (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm acklowding that I read it, but I don't intend further comment at this time. Hot Stop 04:46, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Sister Roma

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The Signpost: 06 August 2012

At this year's Wikimania, I [Brandon Harris] gave a talk entitled The Athena Project: Wikipedia in 2015. The talk broadly outlined several ideas the foundation is exploring for planned features, user interface changes, and workflow improvements. We expect that many of these changes will be welcomed, while others will be controversial. During the question-and-answer period, I was asked whether people should think of Athena as a skin, a project, or something else. I responded, "You should think of Athena as a kick in the head" – because that's exactly what it's supposed to be: a radical and bold re-examination of some of our sacred cows when it comes to the interface.
On August 1, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) portal was launched on Meta. The FDC will implement the Wikimedia movement's new grant-orientated finance structure in accordance with the WMF board's recent resolutions. As a volunteer committee, the FDC will make recommendations to the WMF board on a $11.4 million budget for 2012–13.
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion for a procedure on the alteration of an editor's previous username(s) in arbitration decisions to reflect their name change(s). ... The Devil's Advocate initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.
This week the Signpost interviews Casliber, an editor who has written or contributed significantly to a startling 69 featured articles. We learn what makes him tick, why he edits, and why he can write on everything from vampires to dinosaurs, birds to plants. He also gives some advice to budding featured article writers.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for July 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 (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project). ... At least one fibre-optic cable was damaged at the WMF's Tampa site on August 6, leading to a sharp downwards spike in traffic lasting over an hour and almost three hours of disruption for readers around the globe.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Martial Arts. Since April 2004, the project has been the hub for discussion and improvement of martial arts articles, including all disciplines and national origins. The project maintains a variety of conventions for handling the names and descriptions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Sikh, Filipino, Okinawan, and hybrid martial arts. WikiProject Martial Arts has spawned or absorbed several subprojects focusing on boxing, kickboxing, sumo, and mixed martial arts.

Please comment on Talk:Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War

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The Signpost: 13 August 2012

In a certain way, writing Wikipedia is the same everywhere, in every language or culture. You have to stick to the facts, aiming for the most objective way of describing them, including everything relevant and leaving out all the everyday trivia that is not really necessary to understand the context. You have to use critical thinking, trying to be independent of your own preferences and biases. To some effect, that's all there is to it. Naturally, Wikipedians have their biases, some of which can never be cured. Most Wikipedians tend to like encyclopedias; but millions of people in the world don't share that bias, and we represent them rather poorly. I'm also quite sure that an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia co-authors are literate. Again, that's not true for everyone in this world. Yet we have other, less noticeable but barely less fundamental biases.
The Bangla language, also known as Bengali, is spoken by some 200 million people in Bangladesh and India. The Bangla Wikipedia has a very small active community of about ten to fifteen very active editors, with another 35–40 as less active editors. The project faces particular challenges in being a small Wikipedia, and Dhaka-based WMF community fellow User:Tanvir Rahman is working to understand these challenges and to develop strategies that can improve small wikis that have strong potential to expand their editing communities.
A request for arbitration was filed late last week, ending the three-week long absence of pending cases.
Six featured articles were promoted this week, including Business US Highway 41, which was a state trunkline highway that served as a business loop in Marquette in the US state of Michigan.
Three weeks into a month-long evaluation of code review tool Gerrit, a serious alternative has finally gained traction in the review process: Facebook-developed but now independently operated Phabricator and its sister command-line tool Arcanist.
This week, we interviewed the lively bunch at WikiProject Dispute Resolution. Started in November 2011 to study and discuss improvements to Wikipedia's resources for resolving disputes between editors, the young project has supplemented dispute resolution efforts currently handled at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Mediation Committee, and other venues. Over 40 editors have signed up to provide feedback, a variety of ideas have been proposed, and a manual for dispute resolution has been created.
Current proposals and requests for comments include a competition to redesign the main page ...

Please comment on Talk:Flag of India

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The Signpost: 20 August 2012

The Wikimedia Foundation sometimes proposes new features that receive substantive criticism from Wikimedians, yet those criticisms may be dismissed on the basis that people are resistant to change—there's an unjustified view that the wikis have been overrun by vested contributors who hate all change. That view misses a lot of key details and insight because there are good reasons that Wikimedians are suspicious of features development, given past and present development of bad software, growing ties with the problematic Wikia, and a growing belief that it is acceptable to experiment on users.
The Core Contest is a month-long competition among editors to improve Wikipedia's most important "core" articles—especially those that are in a relatively poor state. Core articles, such as Music, Computer, and Philosophy, tend to lie in the trunk of the tree of knowledge; by analogy, featured-and good-article processes generally attract more specialist topics out on the branches.
In the Utah Court of Appeals this week, the majority opinion in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner relied on Wikipedia for the basic premise of their legal opinion, and included a concurring opinion devoted solely to the issue of citing Wikipedia in a legal opinion.
Thirteen featured articles were promoted this week, including pelicans, which are a genus of large water birds comprising the family Pelecanidae, characterised by a long beak and large throat-pouch. They have a fossil record dating back at least 30 million years and are most closely related to the Shoebill and Hammerkop. These fish-feeders have a patchy relationship with humans: the birds are sometimes persecuted and sometimes feature in mythology.
New embeddable scripting ("template replacement") language Lua received considerable scrutiny this week when it began its long road to widespread deployment, landing on the test2wiki test site on Wednesday (wikitech-l mailing list). ... the fourth in our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Korea. Started in September 2006, WikiProject Korea covers the history and culture of the Korean people, including both countries that currently occupy the Korean peninsula. This task has proven difficult with North Koreans notably absent from the Wikipedia community due to tight control over access to external media. The project is home to over 16,000 pages, including 15 pieces of Featured material and 66 Good and A-class Articles.

Re Nashville RM

Hot Stop, thanks for your perspective. Upfront, I believe all our policies and guidelines have too much wiggle room as you call it and as such we find ourselves in pointless and draining discussions where both sides want to wiggle a different way. The rationale for the Nashville, in deference to USPLACE was consistent with what I said in the Beverly Hills RM the same day (not moved in deference to USPLACE). At least I was consistent. Clearly there are conflicts of interpretation and practice with our WP:Title policy, MOS and naming conventions. Those conflicts won't go away with one RM decision. If you believe that USPLACE is not properly worded or being applied, then I would suggest you work to get things changed. I've been closing RMs long enough to know that an RM is not the place to get the policies and guidelines changed but its a great place to highlight the conflicts. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:43, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Fall Out Boy

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The Signpost: 27 August 2012

Wikimedia editors have been debating a community proposal for the adoption of a new project to host free travel-guide content. The debate reached a new stage when a three-month request for comment on Meta came to an end, with a decision to set up the first new type of Wikimedia project in half a decade. The original proposal for the travel guide unfolded during April on Meta and the Wikimedia-l mailing lists, centring around the wish of volunteer contributors to the WikiTravel project to work in a non-commercial environment.
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee and republished as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
Developers were left one step closer to an understanding of the code review outlook this week after the creation of a graph plotting "number changesets awaiting review" over time. The chart, which also shows the number of new changesets created on a daily basis, reveals a peak in the number of unreviewed changesets in mid-July, followed by a short drop. The current figure stands at approximately 219 unreviewed changesets.
This week the Signpost interviews Mark Arsten, who has written or contributed significantly to ten featured articles; most have related to new religious movements, and some have touched on other controversial or quirky topics. Mark gives us a rundown on how he keeps neutral and what drives him to write featured content; he also gives some hints for aspiring writers.
This week, we hopped in a little blue box with a batch of companions from WikiProject Doctor Who. Started in April 2005, the project has grown to include about 4,000 pages about the world's longest-running science fiction television show, its spinoffs, and various related material. The project is the parent of the Torchwood Taskforce and a child of WikiProject British TV and WikiProject Science Fiction. With new Doctor Who episodes airing this week and a 50th anniversary celebration around the corner, we thought now would be a good time to inquire about the famed Time Lord.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines

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The Bugle: Issue LXXVII, August 2012

Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

2008 Election

Why did you remove my edit. It is relevant information, it represents a trend over the past five elections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayday617 (talk • contribs) 05:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

But why is 300 special? Hot Stop 06:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
It represents a trend. Rjensen, the history professor, also said it was relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayday617 (talk • contribs) 06:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
But 300 is an unimportant number, considering it takes only 270 to win. Do we include that no Democrat has gotten 400 since LBJ Hot Stop 06:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
No, but I'll take the history professor's opinion over yours any day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayday617 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the rude comment, but I still say my edit is relevant. Jayday617 (talk) 06:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayday617 (talk • contribs) 06:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
This would be better discussed at the article's talk page and not here since others reverted you too. Hot Stop 06:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up. And also, the fact about LBJ's EV victory margin could indeed be included on the page for the 1964 election, and I think it is. Jayday617 (talk) 07:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
That would be an argument for including it in the 1988 election page, not 2008. Hot Stop 07:28, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
huh? Including what in the 1988 election? Jayday617 (talk) 07:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
That would be the last election a Republican had 300 votes. Hot Stop 07:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Right, but why can't it be included on the 2008 page instead? Jayday617 (talk) 07:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Why should it be though? We don't include that bit of trivia on every subsequent's election page. Hot Stop 07:39, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Like I said, it represents a trend from 1992 to 2008. What if it continues? Jayday617 (talk) 07:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Find some sources that call it an important/relevant/whatever trend, then try and get it added. Hot Stop 07:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I included an article from the Washington Post and you still removed it. Jayday617 (talk) 08:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
True, but that article doesn't explain why 300 is important, considering you only need 270 to win. Hot Stop 08:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your insight. Jayday617 (talk) 08:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "2008 Presidential Election talk page". Thank you! EarwigBot operator / talk 23:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Jimmy Wales

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The Signpost: 03 September 2012

Some of Wikimedia's most valuable photographs have been shot and uploaded under free licenses as a direct result of the annual Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) event each September. Last year, the project was conducted on a European level, resulting in the submission of an extraordinary 168,208 free images of cultural heritage sites ("monuments") from 18 countries, making it the world's largest photographic competition. Organising the 2012 event—which has just opened and will run for the full month of September—has required input from chapters and volunteers in 35 countries.
Developers are currently discussing the possibility of a MediaWiki Foundation to oversee those aspects of MediaWiki development that relate to non-Wikimedia wikis. The proposal was generated after a discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list about generalising Wikimedia's CentralAuth system.
Five featured pictures were promoted this week, including a video explaining the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars. NASA called the final minutes of the complicated landing procedure "the seven minutes of terror".
Since May 2012 I've been a Wikimedia Foundation community fellow with the task of researching and improving dispute resolution on English Wikipedia. Surveying members of the community has revealed much about their thoughts on and experiences with dispute resolution. I've analysed processes to determine their use and effectiveness, and have presented ideas that I hope will improve the future of dispute resolution.

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

  • Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
  • Research: The most recent DR data
  • Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
  • Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
  • DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
  • Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
  • Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

--The Olive Branch 19:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Creativemind15 - disruptive editing in 2008 and 2012 U.S. Presidential Election articles

I just discovered that Creativemind15 sneaked in the VP candidates into the presidential candidates sections of the 2008 and 2012 election articles. In the 2008 article, he did it within the past 24 hours, adding Biden and Palin, and their pics. And he added the subtitles "Nominees" and "Withdrew" in both articles, even though those sections are just to list the presidential candidates. For example, see the Republican candidates sections in the 2012 article.[1] I just reverted what Creativemind did in the 2008 article and put in the edit comments that that section is for presidential candidates only; and that the VP nominees are only in the infobox. In the 2012 article, he started sneaking in the content at: 22:02, 14 August 2012‎ and apparently no one noticed. I can't revert it because the article is protected. He added Biden and Ryan, and their pics into the candidates section. I also notice he sneaks in changes of pics with comments like "I like this one better" or "This one is better", etc. Anyway, I fixed 2008, but I can't fix 2012 because it's protected. Here's the starting point in each article where he started added the VPs and their pics into the presidential candidates sections in the two articles: [2] (2008) and [3] (2012). Here's what the candidates photo gallery sections looked like in the 2012 article before Creativemind started changing them.[4] Thanks. --76.189.126.159 (talk) 20:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I posted this edit request because I'm not sure if you can fix it or if it requires and edit request. :) --76.189.126.159 (talk) 22:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Update: Jack Bornholm fixed it and then Creativemind posted this explanation. So it looks like the matter is resolved. :) But I still can't believe that no editors noticed that such a major, inappropriate change went overlooked for three weeks. Haha. --76.189.126.159 (talk) 23:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Fun

Having fun Yet?? :D--intelati/talk 04:09, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Military history coordinator election

The Military history WikiProject has started its 2012 project coordinator election process, where we will select a team of coordinators to organize the project over the coming year. If you would like to be considered as a candidate, please submit your nomination by 14 September. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the current coordinators on their talk page. This message was delivered here because you are a member of the Military history WikiProject. – Military history coordinators (about the project • what coordinators do) 09:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tenedos

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The Signpost: 10 September 2012

Thanks to the initiative of Yuvi Panda and Notnarayan, the Signpost now has an Android app, free for download on Google Play. ... but would readers be interested in an iOS app for Apple devices?
Much like article content, the English Wikipedia's help pages have grown organically over the years. Although this has produced a great deal of useful documentation, with time many of the pages have become poorly maintained or have grown overwhelmingly complicated.
Philip Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, wrote an open letter in the New Yorker addressed to Wikipedia this week, alleging severe inaccuracies in the article on his The Human Stain (2000).
Three hip hop discographies were promoted this week, alongside seven other lists.
After a week's hiatus, the WikiProject Report returns with an interview featuring WikiProject Fungi. Started in March 2006, the project has grown to include over 9,000 pages, including 47 Featured Articles and 176 Good Articles. The project maintains a list of high priority missing articles and stubs that need expansion.
In dramatic events that came to light last week, two English Wikipedia volunteers—Doc James (James Heilman) and Wrh2 (Ryan Holliday)—are being sued in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Internet Brands, the owner of Wikitravel.com. Both Wikipedians have also been volunteer Wikitravel editors (and in Holliday's case, a volunteer administrator). IB's complaints focus on both editors' encouragement of their fellow Wikitravel volunteers to migrate to a proposed non-commercial travel guidance site that would be under the umbrella of the WMF.
In its September issue, the peer-reviewed journal First Monday published The readability of Wikipedia, reporting research which shows that the English Wikipedia is struggling to meet Flesch reading ease test criteria, while the Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus".
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for August 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 (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment).
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.

Beatles FAC version

Did you know that the editor who got the Beatles through FAC (PL290) wanted lower-case but was bullied into it by others? Look into the archives if you don't believe me. He also quit Wikipedia shortly afterward due to the "Big T" click, facts. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 02:30, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I read through the FAC and didn't even see it mentioned there. Hot Stop (Edits) 02:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Look into the archives, you will see that PL290 was pro-lower-case. Like here for example, just before the FAC, when he !voted for small-case stating: "Support - this accords with the practice of most sources I've seen" ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 02:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
So? That poll, along with every other one I've seen, got nowhere. My point with bringing up the FAC in my vote was that if it wasn't a big deal then, why is it now. Hot Stop (Edits) 03:00, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Look here if you want some history. The thread actually includes a "legal reason" for going with "T". ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 06:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Citing the MOS isn't a legal threat. Hot Stop (Edits) 03:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Hot Stop, you are being given very false information about PL290. He was caught after he unilaterally changed the consensus of "The" to "the" on the main page. He was warned that it was not the right thing to do at all, and he went away soon after.andreasegde (talk) 08:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Paul Ryan

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The Signpost: 17 September 2012

We now have a Facebook page at facebook.com/wikisignpost. We invite you to "like" the page and join the discussion there.
This week, we shine the spotlight on the Indian Cinema Task Force, a subproject that seeks to improve the quality and quantity of articles about Indian cinema. As a child of WikiProject Film and WikiProject India, the Indian Cinema Task Force shares a variety of templates, resources, and members with its parent projects. The task force works on a to-do list, maintains the Bollywood Portal, and ensures articles follow the film style guidelines. With Indian cinema celebrating its 100th year of existence in 2013, we asked Karthik Nadar (Karthikndr), Secret of success, Ankit Bhatt, Dwaipayan, and AnimeshKulkarni what is in store for the Indian Cinema Task Force.
Eight featured articles, six featured lists, ten featured pictures, and one featured topic were promoted this week.
The world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is entering its final two weeks. The month-long event, of Dutch origin, is being held globally for the first time after the success of its European-level predecessor last year. During September 2011 more than 5000 volunteers from 18 countries took part and uploaded 168,208 free images. This year, volunteers and chapters from 35 countries around the world have organised the event. The best photographs will be determined by juries at the national and finally the global level.
1.20wmf12, the 12th release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch, was deployed to its first wikis on September 17; if things go well, it will be deployed to all wikis by September 26. Its 200 or so changes – 111 to WMF-deployed extensions plus 98 to core MediaWiki code – include support for links with mixed-case protocols (e.g. Http://example.com) and the removal of the "No higher resolution available" message on the file description pages of SVG images.

Talkback

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— Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 09:06, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:UK Independence Party

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The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #2)

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This edition The Olive Branch is focusing on a 2nd dispute resolution RfC. Two significant proposals have been made. Below we describe the background and recent progress and detail those proposals. Please review them and follow the link at the bottom to comment at the RfC. We need your input!

Please share your thoughts at the RfC.

--The Olive Branch 18:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

Oliver Keyes' (User:Ironholds) defense of Wikipedia against the recent Philip Roth controversy has drawn a significant amount of attention over the last week. The problems between Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, and Wikipedia arose from an open letter he penned for the American magazine New Yorker, and were covered by the Signpost two weeks ago. Keyes—who wrote the piece as a prominent Wikipedian but is also a contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation—wrote a blog post on the topic, lamenting the factual errors in Roth's letter and criticizing the media for not investigating his claims: "[they took] Roth’s explanation as the truth and launched into a lengthy discussion of how we [Wikipedia] handle primary sourcing."
A paper to appear in a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (summarized in the research index) sheds new light on the English Wikipedia's declining editor growth and retention trends. The paper describes how "several changes that the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have lead to a more restrictive environment for newcomers". The number of active Wikipedia editors has been declining since 2007 and research examining data up to September 2009 has shown that the root of the problem has been the declining retention of new editors. The authors show this decline is mainly due to a decline among desirable, good-faith newcomers, and point to three factors contributing to the increasingly "restrictive environment" they face.
This week, we tinkered with WikiProject Robotics. From the project's inception in December 2007, it has served as Wikipedia's hub for building and improving articles about robots and robotics, accumulating two Featured Articles and seven Good Articles along the way. The project covers both fictitious and real-life robots, the technology that powers them, and many of the brains behind the robotics field
In the second controversy to engulf Wikimedia UK in two months, its immediate past chair Roger Bamkin has resigned from the board of the chapter. The resignation last Wednesday followed a growing furore over the conflict of interest between two of Roger's roles outside the chapter and his close involvement in the UK board's decision-making process, including the access to private mailing lists that board members in all chapters need. But the irony surrounding Roger's resignation is its connection with efforts by Wikimedians and collaborators to strengthen the reach of Wikimedia projects through technical innovation.
Late last month, the "Technology report" included a story using code review backlog figures – the only code review figures then available – to construct a rough narrative about the average experience of code contributors. This week, we hope to go one better, by looking directly at code review wait times, and, in particular, median code review times
Fourteen featured articles were promoted this week, including Dodo, along with six featured lists and five featured pictures.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

Thanks

I owe you half a cookie... BencherliteTalk 21:48, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita

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Not really?

What did you mean by "not really" in relation to "Talia is Primary, Bane is secondary. The hallucination/manifestation of Ra's Al Ghul mentions to Bruce that his child is heir to the League of Shadows. That is Talia."? Jdogno5

Correct, but Bane is still the primary villain. Hot Stop (Edits) 20:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Here's an example, Darth Vader is the primary villain in Star Wars (the first three, not the crappy prequels) despite the fact that he's just second in command. Hot Stop (Edits) 00:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for that, the ec's are a nightmare.--v/r - TP 00:20, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Anytime. Hot Stop (Edits) 00:22, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012


Does Wikipedia Pay? is a Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues by speaking openly with the people involved. This week, a scandal centering around Roger Bamkin's work with Wikimedia UK and Gibraltarpedia erupted ... In light of these events, opinions on how to avoid future controversy are as important as ever. ... The Signpost spoke with Jimmy Wales to better understand how he views the paid editing environment and what he thinks is needed to improve it.
Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK's trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK's governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."
Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.
The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities ... In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics

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The Bugle: Issue LXXVIII, September 2012

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Beatles RfC Watchlist notice

The issue of a Watchlist notice is now up for a !vote. Cheers! ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Watchlist-details#Beatles_RfC

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

Wikipedia in education is far from a new idea: years of news stories, op-eds, and editorials have focused on the topic; and on Wikipedia itself, the Schools and universities projects page has existed in various forms since 2003. Over the next six years, the page was rarely developed, and when it did advance there was no clear goal in mind.
On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a new Signpost column with an overview of WikiProject Biography. Today, we're celebrating two milestone: five years of the WikiProject Report and the tenth birthday of our first featured project. WikiProject Biography is by far the largest WikiProject on Wikipedia, with over one million articles under the project's scope. As a comparison, WikiProject Biography is three times larger than Wikipedia's second largest project, and if WikiProject Biography were split into its 14 subprojects and work groups, it would still make the list of the 20 largest WikiProjects... four times.
This week the Signpost interviews Arsenikk, an editor of six years who has brought sixteen lists through our featured list process, mostly regarding transportation in Norway but also about the 1952 Winter Olympics and World Heritage Sites in Africa. Arsenikk tells us about why he joined the project, what moves him, and how editors can join the sometimes daunting world of featured lists.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for September 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 (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment). Three of the seven headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: problems with the corruption of several Gerrit (code) repositories, the introduction of widespread translation memory across Wikimedia wikis, and the launch of the "Page Curation" tool on the English Wikipedia, with development work on that project now winding down. The report also drew attention to the end of Google Summer of Code 2012, the deployment to the English Wikipedia of a new ePUB (electronic book) export feature, and improvements to the WLM app aimed at more serious photographers.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

Please comment on Talk:Bulgaria

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The Signpost: 15 October 2012

There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.
This week saw a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal on editorial debates in Wikipedia. The story focused on the title-naming dispute surrounding the Beatles article, and specifically the RfC on whether the 'the' in the band's name should be capitalized or not.
On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USS Lexington, a ship built for the United States Navy that, although ordered in 1916 as a battlecruiser, was converted to an aircraft carrier. It was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea during the Second World War.
The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of US$11.4M.
A trial of the first phase of Wikimedia Deutschland's "Wikidata" project–implementing the first ever interwiki repository—may soon get underway following the successful passage of much of its code through MediaWiki's review processes this week.
This week, we experimented with WikiProject Chemicals. Started in August 2004, WikiProject Chemicals has grown to include over 10,000 articles about chemical compounds. The project has a unique assessment system that omits C-class, Good, and Featured Articles. As a result, the project's 11 GAs and 9 FAs are treated as A-class articles. WikiProject Chemicals is a child of WikiProject Chemistry (interviewed in 2009) and a parent of WikiProject Polymers.

Please comment on Talk:List of songs recorded by Hannah Montana

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The Bugle: Issue LXXIX, October 2012

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Not really?

What did you mean by "not really" in relation to "Talia is Primary, Bane is secondary. The hallucination/manifestation of Ra's Al Ghul mentions to Bruce that his child is heir to the League of Shadows. That is Talia."?

Jdogno5

Correct, but Bane is still the primary villain. Hot Stop (Edits) 20:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Here's an example, Darth Vader is the primary villain in Star Wars (the first three, not the crappy prequels) despite the fact that he's just second in command. Hot Stop (Edits) 00:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually Darth Sidious/Palpatine is generally the primary villain in the Star Wars films and other media detailing the time period/s (saying he was ressurected 6 years after the events of Return of the Jedi but was destroyed for good a further year later) when he was alive. He is partly responsible for the events of the Naboo Crisis/+Naboo War with Darth Plagueis (It has been revealed that Sidious only killed him the night before he became Supreme Chancellor) being the one ultimately directing it. However he was ultimately responsible for the Seperatist Crisis and the resulting Clone Wars. He is the central source of fear, suffering and death during the Galactic Empire Period i.e Sidious's Sith Empire, as well as that during the Dark Empire Period (his attempt to rebuild the Empire).

Jdogno5

And you completely ignored the whole thing about ignoring the prequels. Anyway, I'm not the only one who reverted your edits, so I think this is best discussed elsewhere. Hot Stop (Edits) 15:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

No I don't ignore the prequals, I think that they are a valid part to the Star Wars lore in their own right. So who else reverted them then? Where should this be discussed then?

Jdogno5

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.

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sally Season

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Sally Season. Viriditas (talk) 07:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship

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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.

Please comment on Talk:Slaughter and May

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Apologies!

Hot Stop - very sorry about that accidental revert at The Beatles mediation page. As I said there, it must have been a random click at Undo which I did not intend. I didn't realize it had happened until I came back on just now - really very sorry. (Actually thought your comment was funny.) Tvoz/talk 18:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I kinda figured it was accidental. I've done it too. Hot Stop (Edits) 07:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

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.

Barnstar

The Socratic Barnstar
For your help in peacefully resolving The Dispute That Must Not Be Named, and helping to provide your side of the debate with an adequate and well-thought-out defence! Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 07:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Bidisha

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I noticed (while looking for something else) that you were putting together a page of links to recent arbitration cases. I think Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases may be an easier way for you to access links to the cases and save you some time. Hope this helps. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I saw that, I just hate clicking through all the pages to get to it. Plus I intended to add more stuff to that page at some point. Hot Stop (Edits) 01:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Okay, just wanted to make sure you weren't spending time unnecessarily. You're right that that page could be a little more user-friendly—it was created when there were a lot fewer cases (and hence subsections to click on) than there are now. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Raising a flag over the Reichstag

You and an ip made queries as to the "name" of the aforesaid article. It was discussed earlier this year as to why it is named such, as it is, in the title. See: Talk:Raising a flag over the Reichstag [5]. I told the ip the same info. on his talk page (with a welcome). Cheers, Kierzek (talk) 02:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Hot Stop (Edits) 05:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

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.

Please comment on Talk:Suicide of Amanda Todd

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About the voter guide

I did not re-create my old userpage as a subpage. My friend admin User:Bishonen attempted to create that as a compromise. It was Mfd'd by the Sven Manguard lynch mob canvassed their way to push both mfd's through and baselessly launch an SPI investigation against me despite previous Mfd's with significantly wider community showed community consensus allowed me to keep my userpage Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Certified.Gangsta Wikipedia_talk:User_pages/UI_spoofing--YOLO Swag (talk) 20:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I clarified it. Hot Stop (Edits) 23:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Also about the whole Salma Hayek thing, Wikipedia used to have a category named "List of big bust models and performers". It was deleted under controversial circumstances after 6 failed nominations Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_big-bust_models_and_performers_(6th_nomination) on September 29th, 2008. At the time, many actresses, page 3 girls, porn stars, and models were listed under this category and many of them have the "well known for her large, natural breasts" lead. I added the lead to Salma Hayek's article for consistency. It was unfortunate that after the Afd (which I had no knowledge or participation of whatsoever) passed, a bunch of rogue admins including a fellow candidate that year, User:Gwen Gale and another who was in another separate dispute with me, used that as a ground to block me just before the election when I was not even aware of the Afd's existence. Even then-arbitrator User:FT2 was appalled [6]--YOLO Swag (talk) 01:43, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Hot Stop! Although I’ve been around for a while (on and off), this is the first year I’ve taken an interest in elections & whatnot, and Voter Guides are new to me. Could you please explain what you mean by “strategic reasons” for opposing certain candidates, or point me to a page that explains the concept? Of course I’m familiar with the expression in the context of IRL elections in which there’s a party system and where each citizen has only one vote, but I don’t see how that applies here. Thanks in advance.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 03:42, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It's a little complicated but I'd suggest reading both approval voting (the method we use) and tactical voting (which is what the strategic reasons refers to). But essentially since there are only 8 seats to be filled, I'm only supporting 8 candidates and I'm opposing all the others to help my preferred candidates chances. When I say I'm opposing for strategic reasons, it means I found no real fault with the candidate in question but I prefer my candidates instead. Hot Stop (Talk) 05:21, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks: I guess I was trying to generalize the comments as recommendations, rather than seeing them as the result of the choices you yourself are making. Much clearer now, and I’ll follow those links to make sure I’m not labouring under any misapprehension of the mechanism.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 06:02, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

A chat

I saw your guide, and I'd like to figure out if there's a way for me to express the same concept in a way that doesn't cause you to have such an issue. I didn't say that all teenagers are Demi Lovato fans, or even mean to imply it. What I do believe is that as one gets older, the intensity of a person's attachments to external things fades. For most of us, the things that got us really excited and passionate when we were younger become things that are interesting later, and eventually become fond memories. It's hard for me to really even remember how it felt to be as excited and charged up about things as I used to get. What I can remember is that I did get so excited and charged up, and things that I can shrug off today as "meh ... that's his opinion" would have been fighting words that I couldn't let go of. It's because of that shift (which I think is an inevitable part of aging) that I'm inclined to be more lenient with younger editors when it comes to disputes. Show me a 13-year-old that thinks Lady GaGa is worth fighting over, and I'll understand it as a part of the normal maturation cycle, and be willing to believe that given time, that same editor will be able to be productive in many areas. Show me a 50-year-old that thinks Lady GaGa is fighting over, and I'm quite willing to believe that he hasn't got sufficient detachment from the topics he edits to ever be effective.—Kww(talk) 15:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll remove that comment, but I still intend to oppose. Hot Stop (Talk) 15:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for looking after the vandalism on my userpage. RandomAct(talk to me) 06:57, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

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.

Please comment on Talk:Howden Joinery

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Removal of National Lampoon edit 18th Dec 2011

Hi, I just spotted that you removed my edit from the National Lampoon Christmas Vacation page here National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and said it was not true. It is in fact true, I remember watching the film when it first came out and if you watch the part of the film I refer to you can quite clearly tell where the edit had taken place. I will re-edit the page to include my revision thank you very much.~~Dave~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.203.254.1 (talk) 11:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Clearly says "fuck" on my DVD. And IMDB isn't reliable Hot Stop (Talk) 14:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I was under the assumption you deleted my edit as you didn't believe they edited the word fuck out, I spent ages trying to find links that showed it originally had it in the soundtrack, doh! Anyhow, I found a link to show that in the UK it was dubbed due to age restrictions imposed by the BBFC to get it on a PG rating for dvd release [7] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.203.254.2 (talk • contribs)
I'd suggest taking the discussion to the article's talkpage since another user has removed the section. Hot Stop (Talk) 13:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:KitchenAid

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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 Bugle: Issue LXXX, November 2012

Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 01:31, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Libraries Seattle

Decemmber 8 - Wikipedia Loves Libraries Seattle - You're invited
Seattle Public Library
  • Date Saturday, December 8, 2012
  • Time 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
  • Location Seattle Public Library Meeting Room 1 on Level 4, Central Library, 1000 4th Avenue, Seattle WA, 98104
  • Event An editathon on Seattle-related Wikipedia articles with Wikipedia tutorials and Librarian assistance on hand.
  • Hashtag #wikiloveslib or #glamwiki.
  • Registration http://wll-seattle.eventbrite.com or use on-wiki regsistration.

Yours, Maximilianklein (talk) 03:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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American Revoloutionary War

Thank you for your compliments to my contribution on American Revoloutionary War(I did think it was a rather good piece of writing,even if I do say so myself). While I understand what may have led you to remove it,I would like an explanation. Would you mind? Rwenonah (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It's already discussed on the American Revolution page, which deals with the political changes and not the war. Also already on the the DOI's page. Both are more appropriate. Hot Stop (Talk) 23:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou. Rwenonah (talk) 23:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. Hot Stop (Talk) 13:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

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.

Lets AGF and let bygones be bygones

While I realise that we disagree on a few issues, I still think you are a quite sensible person with whom I could positively interact. Its probably just me, but from my perspective you have kinda been following me around Wikipedia since April or earlier refuting and/or questioning my motivations on a regular basis. So while my actions may seem completely absurd to you, I am asking you here and now to please stop accusing me of dishonesty. If you knew me in RL, you would know that dishonest is absolutely the one thing I am not. If anything, I am honest to a fault, people tell me that here on Wiki, and in RL. Ideally, I would like to find a comfortable working relationship where, while we rarely even cross paths, I really do not want any kind of ongoing grudge with you. I harbour no ill will toward you and I do not take our interactions during the Beatles mediation personally, I hope you feel the same. Best! GabeMc (talk|contribs) 03:34, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, the only interactions I can remember having with you outside the mediation are the recent one regarding NYB (I've taken an interest in the elections since the RFC in October) and when we both commented on a couple TFA requests (and I voted to support two of the three you supported there).
On a related note, I'm a little confused about why you told Coren you would "drop the issue" and then 6 hours later began asking others to comment on it. I also don't understand why you notified those users since only one of them was a party to the mediation. (And FYI, I intend to comment there). Hot Stop (Talk) 04:18, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
After looking through some contribs I did oppose your RFA too (based on interactions regarding our favorite band). It also looks like we were involved in discussions on Mitt Romney's talk page, But I was involved there four days before you Hot Stop (Talk) 04:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I did follow-up with jc37, probably shouldn't have in hindsight. I took Coren to mean don't ask Brad anymore questions, which is a bit strange in light of the fact that he is currently a candidate for re-election, but that's another story ... GabeMc (talk|contribs) 04:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
On a side note, I do think you've done a very good of copyeditng and getting articles up to FA status. Especially getting Imagine up in time for Saturday. Hot Stop (Talk) 04:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Hot Stop! GabeMc (talk|contribs) 04:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Meh, I don't think 'the Beatles' should be avoided at all costs but there could be some cases where it be re-written to avoid it without hurting the prose. That being said, the article is an FA so I understand that minimization might not be possible and could seem counter intuitive at times Hot Stop (Talk) 05:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I thought we could agree to at least some common ground on this issue in general. If the article passes FA, then its prose is excellent and the subject doesn't necessarily need to be avoided mid-sentence just because some people are jarred by it for various reasons. I personally don't find "The Beatles" jarring at all, I just think Wikipedia should generally follow external style guides and the vast majority of high-quality sources. My main concerns with the "avoid-dance" caveat are 1) the undue restraint it puts on prose and 2) that it leaves a can-of-worms on the table for further disputes, per article, per occurance. Believe it or not, above all else I just want this lame and tedious dispute to end, long-term, big "T" little "t", either way is fine with me as long as this vague caveat isn't grounds for further dispute and edit-warring. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 07:08, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Abbey Road. I think they all new it would be their last recorded album and they all came together (pun intended) and put together something (ditto) they'd all be remembered for. It also, at least for me, is the one album where each member (including Ringo) really contributed in terms of writing. Hot Stop (Talk) 13:34, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
An excellent choice for excellent reasons! I agree, their songwriting was most balanced on Abbey Road, which was one of the very first albums I ever purchased. I go back and forth between AR and Pepper. Depending on the mood I'm in, either one might be my all-time Beatles fav, though Revolver is certainly no slouch either IMO. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:13, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Paul Watson

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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.

Yield sign Straw Poll

Since you were involved in the move discussion for Yield sign, please checkout the straw poll over at Talk:Yield sign#Proposal to close discussion and share your thoughts. Thanks Tiggerjay (talk) 21:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Hamas

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Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive830#User:Hot Stop

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. - SudoGhost 23:36, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for attempting to harass other users. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding below this notice the text {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}, but you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.
Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 23:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
icon
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Vaulter (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Where to begin? SG's post at ANI lacks any context. Buck Winston (talk · contribs) invoked the dispute with this personal attack and when I removed it he came back with this one. So maybe I was a little perturbed when he continue to accuse me of disruption. Hot Stop (Talk) 23:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Fuck off dick face, your request is fucking declined. Eat shit.

Now how did that make you feel? Were those appropriate responses to your unblock request? I am declining your unblock request because it does not address the reason for your block, or because it is inadequate for other reasons. To be unblocked, you must convince the reviewing administrator(s) that

  • the block is not necessary to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, or
  • the block is no longer necessary because you
    1. understand what you have been blocked for,
    2. will not continue to cause damage or disruption, and
    3. will make useful contributions instead.

Please read the guide to appealing blocks for more information. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

With all respect, I do understand what I was blocked for. But I don't understand why swearing is considered worse than the stuff he said to me. And for the record, I didn't say "eat shit" to anyone. Hot Stop (Talk) 00:16, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)You know what? I am actually having second thoughts here. I can hardly be the author of this page and condemn you for doing the exact same thing. It was not immediately obvious from the conversation or the blocking admins reasoning that Buck was persistently posting to your talk page after you removed several of his comments without calling him a dick face. I am going to speak to the blocking admin about this. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate that. Hot Stop (Talk) 00:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
What a joke. An editor doesn't get blocked for edit warring and another editor who was trying to stop repeated notices on his talk page by swearing gets blocked? What kind of policy is that. This is completely pathetic imo. (Granted the personal attack is not appropriate). Intoronto1125TalkContributions 00:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Ah, well, Buck is being dealt with.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
While I strongly feel that HotStop's profane personal attacks were highly inappropriate, I also feel that the standard by which he is being held is wholly unfair. I've been sworn at by admins who call people worse names then "dick face" and absolutely no sanctions have ever resulted. There are far too many double standards on Wikipedia, and in light of the provocation he was subject to, and the fact that I've never seen this type of profanity from him before, I do not feel HotStop should have been blocked and I strongly recommend the block be lifted. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:59, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Intoronto1125TalkContributions 01:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I appreciate both your comments. Hot Stop (Talk) 13:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, Buck has just gotten his own block for edit warring, and is quite possibly going to be indeffed blocked as a sockpuppet. I am afraid that by the time we can say we have a consensus one way or the other on this block it will probably be expired anyway, and it appears the blocking admin stopped editing for the day just after issuing this block. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about Newyorkbrad's closure of Beatles RfC

Hello. This is to let you know that there is currently a discussion at User talk:Mr. Stradivarius#RfC closure questions about Newyorkbrad's closure of the RfC about whether to use upper-case "The" or lowercase "the" in mid-sentence in articles about (t/T)he Beatles. You are receiving this message because you were involved in the mediation case that led up to the RfC. Some editors have expressed dissatisfaction with the caveat in Newyorkbrad's close that "[t]he suggestion that editors should try to structure sentences to avoid unnecessary mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" remains a valid one", and the discussion is focused on how that caveat is affecting the editing decisions in Beatles-related articles. There is also the opportunity to discuss other aspects of the close should the need arise. Please see the points at the top of the discussion thread and leave a comment if you think it is appropriate. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 13:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

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.

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates

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The Bugle: Issue LXXXI, December 2012

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:11, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

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.

Please comment on Talk:Greenwashing

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