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COI questions

Hello, Ocaasi. You have new messages at WWB's talk page.
Message added 17:27, 9 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jane McGonigal

I've left a note regarding Jane McGonigal on the meta page for the Wikipedia Adventure. Ryan Vesey 18:59, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I got your note and replied there. She'd be an amazing person to have consult and it's worth a shot. Ocaasi t | c 14:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

COI template

I have initiated a discussion at Village Pump Proposals regarding applying Template:COI editnotice more broadly, in order to provide advice from WP:COI directly onto the article Talk page. Your comment, support or opposition is invited. Cheers. CorporateM (Talk) 19:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for everything! Tjanaka (talk) 19:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome! Stay around in our community :) Ocaasi t | c 19:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

(o;

It was great to see you today. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:58, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
Thanks for the admin toolbar, which I have borrowed from you for my user page. Bearian (talk) 14:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the barnstar. You're always welcome to steal a good idea. I stole most of mine ;) Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 17:45, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi! (=

 Hello Ocaasi, Eduemoni has given you a shining smiling star! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the Shining Smiling Star whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or someone putting up with some stick at this time. Enjoy! Eduemoni↑talk↓ 16:35, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Hey, thanks! See you around :) Ocaasi t | c 19:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
For your ongoing efforts to rationalize Wikipedia's COI editing policy. Altering fundamental policy at Wikipedia is akin to trying to steer a glacier with a curling broom. You have put in an extraordinary amount of work in support of the most sensible effort to regularize COI editing and to thereby open it to scrutiny. I thank you for your continued work and wish you the best for the ultimate success of the effort. Carrite (talk) 22:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Carrite, that means a lot to me. Ocaasi t | c 22:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 5

The Help Project Newsletter
Issue V - January 2013
Project news summary
From the editor

Hello again from the Help Project!

In the last newsletter (which was quite a while ago sorry!) I talked about my fellowship and the plans for improving the main portal page, Help:Contents. Well I'm sad to say that my fellowship is now over, but very happy to say that the proposed improvements to that page have been completed and implemented. Do check it out if you haven't already.

Another important and frequently used help page, Wikipedia:Contact us, has also seen a significant revamp. You may recognise the design inspiration from the new tutorial pages.

In project news, we now have a subscription to the "article alerts" service. Any deletion nominations, move discussions, or requests for comments on pages within the Help Project's scope will now show up at Wikipedia:Help Project/Article alerts. So that's definitely a page which project members might want to watch.

Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name.

-- the wub "?!" 23:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

04:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

COI and shills

A couple of years ago we had a situation where UK reporters, working undercover, recorded senior executives at a UK public relations firm, bragging to potential clients that they employed a team of shills, who could covertly sanitize any wikipedia article for their clients. Their team was already familiar with wikipedia culture, and would establish, or had already established, wikipedia personas to perform the sanitizing edits, that would pass as the regular edits of regular contributors.

The example they told their clients about was an article I had written -- Dahabshiil. It is a somali-based hawala -- an Islam-compliant remittance company.

US security officials feared hawalas, assuming that the 911 hijackers had been financially supported by funds transferred to them via hawalas. Although the 911 Commission determined that the 911 hijackers received their funds through regular banking transactions, US security officials continue to suspect hawalas. Half a dozen captives in Guantanamo were held solely because they worked for a hawala. One of them worked for Dahabshiil.

The PR firm, Bell Pottinger, IIRC, told how the owner of Dahabshiil, who had moved to the UK, was disturbed because every time their potential business partners googled the firm, all the first hits were related to the Dahabshiil employee who had been sent to Guantanamo...

OK. I just checked your contribution history, and see that there was a discussion of Bell Pottinger and Dahabshiil at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#BP and large company editing in general and I should presume you were aware of this situation.

So, why should we extend the assumption of good faith to User:Arturo at BP? We extend the assumption of good faith to individuals because we assume that when they work on the wikipedia they are putting the wikipedia's interest first. But I think we have to assume that Arturo's first interest is Bell Pottinger, and thus we should not trust any information shared with us publicly by Arturo or any other Bell Pottinger employee.

In the Dahabshiil example BP's sneaky, morally-blind rehabilitation process included describing Barre as a "former employee". Has Arturo, or anyone at BP ever acknowledged that this was not true? Geo Swan (talk) 13:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, BP refers to British Petroleum in this case not Bell Pottinger, if that makes a difference to you. I know about Bell Pottinger's history with Wikipedia, in fact, I wrote that article, Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia. I'm aware of the situation and how Wikipedia has been abused. Those incidents happened in secret, without disclosure. We caught some of them, but it's reasonable to assume that there are many that we missed. Ok, so what do we do about this situation? We can a) discourage, discourage, discourage, and ban on sight any COI editors who work on affected articles. This will send a clear message they're not welcome, but it will also drive them underground to continue operating in secret. They're unlikely to just go away, as Wikipedia is simply to influential to ignore. B) We can encourage full disclosure and transparent engagement--Arturo is an example of this--which exposes corporate representatives' suggestions to talk page community review like any other suggestion. This may be seen as 'legitimizing' paid advocates or 'encouraging' them. The process could also be abused by having transparent COI editors working in concert with undisclosed Wikipedians, something we're unlikely to detect. Ok, so we have a complex situation and generally imperfect choices. Some of us are going to say, stand on principle, don't let these people anywhere near Wikipedia. Others are going to say, they're already here, they're unlikely to go away, some of them might even have something to offer us, let's limit their engagement by keeping them on the talk page and add scrutiny by requiring reviews of their suggestions. That's where I stand at this point, but given the controversial nature of the situation, I respect others' variance in views. Ocaasi t | c 15:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
There are other questions, such as: What if a COI editor makes a transparent good faith suggestion on the talk page but no other editor responds? Or, if a COI editor proposes a substantial addition or rewrite of a section, particularly a controversial section, how much vetting and review does that draft need before it can be incorporated? These are practical questions we have to still figure out, but they're questions we can handle with better processes. Ocaasi t | c 15:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
The backdrop of this is a philosophical debate about COI and bias vs. judge the content not the contributor. There is a divide among those who think COI = untrustworthy and those who think COI is irrelevant, because we should just evaluate proposed contributions. That debate is even more complex when dealing with corporate representatives or paid advocates. Some folks are especially untrusting of editors from corporations, while others think these editors might even make positive suggestions or make requests that we should at least review. The right balance remains to be seen, and the model of doing this transparently is all fairly new. We need to proceed carefully and evolve our guidance as we encounter new challenges. Ocaasi t | c 16:15, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Ocaasi, please tell me how you would evaluate BP's 4000-word contribution to the article about itself. To do that well – even to do it adequately – would be an enormous amount of work, judging issues of weight, fact, omission, and whether the best-informed sources have been used. That would be a huge burden for non-expert volunteers. Is it not naive in the extreme to assume that a PR person for BP will put Wikipedia's interests ahead of BP's, and that therefore their work can be copied into the article after only the most cursory of reviews? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Something I'm very receptive to is the need for a better review process, Slim. I think a multi-factor approach is warranted...
To the extent that a draft is:
a) from a large (significant) company, organization, or public figure
b) about a controversial company, organization, or public figure
c) contributing a substantial amount of text or revisions
d) contributing text about the controversy themselves...
a more robust review process is needed.
I imagine this as somewhat of a sliding scale in which a small non-profit that changes a fact about their history or operations needs just cursory review, but BP editing about their environmental record warrants serious scrutiny. Hopefully we can put some kind of language like that into WP:COI and WP:PSCOI. The next step is to arrange for some mechanism to actually provide and ensure that review. Ocaasi t | c 18:04, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I've proposed some language along those lines here: Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Proposal:_Robust_Review. Please share your thoughts. Ocaasi t | c 18:21, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
It's impossible to organize a sufficiently robust review, because we're all volunteers with different levels of time and knowledge. But if you stop to think about it, any review that was robust enough would involve us educating ourselves about the coverage of the issue in question. Once we've done that, we can write the section ourselves. So realistically any review is going to involve inviting editors with levels of knowledge significantly below the level exhibited by the writer (or by the BP experts the writer has access to). That's where the danger lies. BP is the expert here, and also the subject, and the one with the financial and legal interests to protect. That's a powerful mix to ask a small group of volunteers to deal with. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, I'll reply on the WT:COI page so others can chime in. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 19:57, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
  • British Petroleum, not Bell Pottinger. Thanks for the clarification.
So, why can't officials at either BP, or any other organization, who want us to be aware of their interpretation, circulate a general press release, and draw it our attention?
  1. When information is in a public press release, we can cite its public URL. How would we cite information Arturo, or any other press agent, sent to us privately?
  2. When information is in a public press release, our readers, our critics, and rival wikis, can compare the press release to our coverage of it. It provides transparency -- missing when press agents provide information to us via a private conduit.
  3. When we add content to an article from a book, newspaper or magazine article, press release, or web-site, we rewrite it in our own words. Our putting it in our own words is not a pro forma task so we won't be accused of plagiarism. We should genuinely understand what we wrote. So, if Arturo, or some other press agent, sends us some paragraphs that are too complicated for us to genuinely put in our own words, because it is too complicated for us to understand, then perhaps those details are too complicated to be included in the wikipedia.
So, what if press agents don't want to add new material to our article, but want to "correct". In my limited experience these "corrections" are not so much fixing genuine factual errors, but are just "spin control". If our good faith volunteers introduced genuine factual errors, that is probably a sign their efforts failed -- so draft a new press release, update the web page. But, IMO, we shouldn't be part of "spin control".
Hold the presses. I just read Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia. It's impressive, comprehensive, fair, well-referenced. Congratulations! Geo Swan (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I have to update it from 2012 and 2013, including this whole BP situation. I have tried to keep a sound record of the times we catch this happening, it's certainly part of the reason I encourage disclosure, because I'm aware of the scope of the undisclosed activity that we find. Come by any time to share thoughts. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 21:03, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Trouble with references

Hi Ocaasi,

I'm having trouble making the references work here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Cypriot_financial_crisis#Consequences

Can you help or tell me what's wrong?

Best, Djbaniel (talk) 03:05, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


Thanks Occasi! Djbaniel (talk) 02:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

Thank you

Hey Ocaasi, I just thought I'd drop by to say thanks again for all the work you've done to help get access to HighBeam, Questia, and Credoreference. I've found HighBeam and Questia very useful both on and off wikipedia. I haven't yet gotten much out of credoreference, do you know what type of information it is useful for? Ryan Vesey 16:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome! Credo is most useful for tapping into other encyclopedia resources and general reference guides. It's a database of subject-specific encyclopedias basically. We're also out of Credo accounts right now, so I'm not sure there's a practical path forward for your interest. I'm going to continue working to get renewed access, and more access, to more sources, in the next several months. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 16:47, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Declaring COI

Ocaasi,

Is there a list of editors you have connected with articles, like with the NDAA 2012, that we can see? Like on the BP talk page, each of the pages where you have placed a special interest helper should have a declaration of that, and no - the archives are not the place for that declaration.

Further, would you consider perhaps that edits made on behalf of, in this case the US Congress, state that in each edit summary? For example, this diff - the edit summary which states This vote counts and mention of Jerry Moran do not belong in the lead, let alone in the first paragraph. could in the future be: "Edit on behalf of the US Congress; This vote counts..."

That would make it easier for editors to identify these helpers. Even with the requested talk page declaration, it would help to have each edit identified in this way too, since many editors don't bother looking at the talk page at all and usually it isn't needed.

Along with the talk page tag stating (for ex:) NDAA 2012 talk page at top (not archives) "User Darouet was assigned to help the US Congress by User Ocaasi; please contact Ocaasi at my talk page if any concerns arise". That would feel more supportive of the indie editor and acknowledge the fact that you can't ensure your editors are completely NPOV nor can you effectively monitor each page yourself.

My concern is that your editor removed information about which Congress people voted, saying it just didn't belong in the Intro, but without moving the information to a proper place. It was simply deleted. Do you stand behind this? Do you feel you have any responsibility for the edits made by your appointees?

Are you the only Admin or editor on Wikipedia taking part in this matchmaking service? If not, can I assume there is a list of all this activity somewhere? Transparency has got to be foremost in our minds when taking part in something like this, no? petrarchan47tc 19:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey Petrarchan, I keep a list on my userpage under What I've done here (Eli Lilly, Monitor Group, Occidental Petroleum, NDAA 2012). Of those only NDAA 2012 went through OTRS, the rest originated on-wiki from either talk page activity or someone asking me to evaluate a suggestion. Aside from common AfC drafts, of which there are hundreds, I've provided this kind of guidance to fewer than ten company representatives and even less so through OTRS (less than 5). I don't know how many others are doing this, but if you want to work together to craft guidance for people doing so I'd like to work with you on it. I did just add the Template:Connected contributor template to the NDAA 2012 and BP articles so that the COI declarations are easier to find. For future situations I will add the connected contributor template to the talk page. I think that's sound and fair.
Changing edit summaries should be taken in context, because I advise these editors to not make changes themselves, as WP:COI suggests. If a talk page editor reviews a suggestion I assume it's not 'on behalf of someone' as in editing by proxy, but because they individually take responsibility for the content of that edit. I do like your idea about edit summaries though and will think of a way to add that guidance into WP:PSCOI. We need a better way of formalizing the review process and edit summary notifications makes a lot of sense in that regard. I have to wait until the WT:COI discussion about drafts completes before proceeding into the details here.
I want to make sure there's not an overstatement of my 'assigning' roles. Darouet replied on the talk page and he had a history of working on the article, so I left him to work with Quirin42 (the U.S. Gov employee). I didn't deem Darouet responsible, he was just active at the time. I think a reasonable compromise is that when such a connection happens to also post to the COI noticeboard so that it's easier to track all this in a central place. I really have made extensive suggestions about making COI declarations robust--on userpages, article talk pages, at the COI noticeboard, and even in user signatures. I've added to that guidance just today to use the Template:Connected contributor on the talk page.
So Darouet, was not my editor by any means. And what I facilitated was just normal talk page discussion, with full disclosure, and no special powers. I did this as a volunteer fielding a request from OTRS, and OTRS has zero special powers over content (unless it's a legal office action, which is quite rare).
OTRS editors do sometimes communicate with corporate representatives and we direct them to community discussion processes. The goal of OTRS is to direct conversation to the community in almost all cases, rather than to influence it ourselves. Any time I make a suggestion which relates to OTRS, I make that abundantly clear on the talk page or noticeboard where I post. OTRS is not all or even most shadybusiness. We handle hundreds of BLP violation complaints and other copyright requests. Many are mundane and deal with notability (can I have an article on me...). A minority are sensitive and deal with controversy or libel. The OTRS rule is to use the community as the engine for response, not to just swoop in and make changes from afar.
I've also been reminded this week how critical it is that a corporate representative is engaged on talk pages by a variety of voices, including critical ones. Finding only a single editor to work with a corporate representative is a weak point that creates the perception of bias and may lead to non-neutral results. This outcome is less about intentional deception or strategy and more the fact that it's tough to find anyone in most cases to respond on talk pages. BP was an exception because it is so highly trafficked. We need a way to direct attention to these situations while they are ongoing so that there is sufficient review. Template:Edit request and COI noticeboard are one way to do that, and I encourage them both.
Transparency is critical and I've taken this week's discussions as a serious criticism of the lack of transparency that appears to have crept into these processes. It's my next goal to make as many stages of this process as I can suitable open to review and even easier to discover. I think that's vital to addressing the issue or at least perception of something inappropriate going on. Please continue to let me know how I can do that better. Ocaasi t | c 19:41, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ocaasi, I can't see where you added the "connected contributor" tag to the BP page. I think it should be added to alert the reader.
I think Petra's ideas are good ones. I particularly like the idea of adding in an edit summary: "Added at the request of Company X". It's not ideal because it doesn't alert the general reader (and in my view it shouldn't be happening at all), but at least anyone looking at the edit history would know.
I also think it's really important that you're transparent when you direct editors who support paid advocacy to certain articles at the request of the company or a PR rep, whether it's done via OTRS or in some other way. Otherwise it does look like some kind of behind-the-scenes PR pipeline. The appearance matters here as much as the reality. It does appear that you directed companies to Rangoon11 (you mentioned it here to Rangoon and he didn't contradict you). The problem with that is that I think few people would argue that he is a neutral voice on the articles he edits, including BP. So either it would have been better to choose someone else, or to choose more than one person (editors with different perspectives), or at least to leave a note prominently on the talk page, so that people can see this has been arranged. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
The connected contributor tag is a talk page template. It's on the talk page header. I offered the Template:COICOI template for article space, but like other NPOV templates (there is one on the article now), it requires an actual discussion about the neutrality. Other editors also pointed out that Arturo has not edited directly. I am ok with either the COI or neutrality template being on the article while the recent changes are reviewed.
I'd quibble on the language of "at the request of" but I'd certainly accept something like "Working with a representative from the company". The editors who make changes take responsibility for them and a mere request is not sufficient review. It has to be vetted. You've raised fair points about the potential of fully vetting a suggestion, but the key point is that a request is just a suggestions, it's not supposed to be editing by proxy. It presents a proposal for others to evaluate.
To avoid the behind-the-scenes PR pipeline, I will make sure these editors use article talk page COI disclosures, connected contributor templates on article talk pages, COI noticeboard disclosure, and either a username which discloses a connection or a COI declaration in the signature. That's about as robust a review process as I can create. I think the COI noticeboard is the best place to manage these disclosures and then locally at the article as well. I have to frankly think about whether its feasible that for any time I advise another editor, to post such a disclosure myself. Regardless, I've taken your criticism very seriously that "handoffs" to talk page editors should not just be to a single person if there's any question about their POV. The practical question is: how do we get more eyes on talk pages? Should we create a new template to put on a talk page such as {{COI edit request}} so they're all categorized together?
Slim, about the note I left to Rangoon, I was at that time still genuinely confusing my prior work with Rangoon (across several articles), my OTRS work, and my general interest in Arturo's approach. I have checked all my email, contributions, and OTRS tickets and I have zero record of reaching out to Arturo and connecting him with Rangoon. I specifically confirmed this with others just to double-check, and I'm happy to leave a note asking Rangoon to do the same. Of course, after such a serious conflation of events in my own memory, I can't prove a negative, but I can tell you that it didn't happen, and ask Rangoon to offer his recollection as well. Take it as such: you asked such piercing questions that you actually had me believing the worst, when the reality was not as bad as that. Ocaasi t | c 23:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
"I didn't deem him responsible, he was just active at the time" - if one were to scroll up this talk page just a bit, about Darouet you said he (along with Rangoon11) was "an active, non-POV pushing editor at the article's talk page/history whom I respect". I'm not sure you appreciate the trickiness of this situation. You are involved in a matchmaking service between special interests (in this case, the US Congress, on a page about a bill that is in the courts now, and is perhaps the most controversial decision the Congress has ever made in terms of changes to the US Constitution). It is a really big deal that a Wikipedia Administrator is 'helping' the Congress but won't stand behind the editor chosen to do the work. If you don't deem him responsible, and since I have pointed out that the article might be being scrubbed of damming info about the group you are helping to represent, what action will you now take? This project is so loose that you aren't even sure whether you are the only one participating? This is all very upsetting to hear. Are you willing to receive new information about the editors you choose for this project? Would you like to see how your trusted Rangoon11 treated me, so that perhaps we can avoid this happening to others? Or is your faith in your own ability to sense good, non-POV pushing editors so strong that input would not be persuasive (as I gathered by your comments at SlimVirgin's page)? petrarchan47tc 22:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Also, I just noticed the tag you left at the NDAA 2012 talk page is regarding someone other than Darouet, someone who is no longer active. Why have you not disclosed instead the editor who IS active? Why do I even have to ask such obvious questions? petrarchan47tc 22:41, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Petrarchan, I am not aware of any U.S. government employees working on the article since Quirin left. I called his office and he was no longer present, I was not informed of anyone who took his place, nor did I have future contact with anyone from the government. When a COI editor wants to engage with Wikipedia (using disclosure, stick to the talk page), please tell me how they should do this is a more transparent way. I have long advocated article talk page COI disclosures, COI noticeboard disclosure, and either a username which discloses a connection or a COI declaration in the signature. I've added to that connected contributor templates. What else should we do to make you feel the process is sufficient? Ocaasi t | c 23:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry I was not more clear. Am I correct that you had Darouet help the US Congress on the NDAA page? If so, this needs to be posted clearly on the top of the talk page, and that his edits are on behalf of the US Congress should be noted in his edit summaries, imo. It would help with transparency tremendously. petrarchan47tc

I put the template connected contributor COI declaration at the top of the NDAA talk page. But there is a lot of misinterpretation here. I didn't "have" Darouet "help" the US Congress. I introduced a government employee on the talk page with a COI declaration, and then Darouet, who had been quite active previousy at the article responded, and this kicked off an intense discussion over what coverage was appropriate and sourced. Neither I nor Darouet were implementing edits "on behalf of" anyone. We were doing what Wikipedia editors do which is ruthlessly (politely) argue what's the most fair presentation of facts and present sources which back that up. There was no editing by proxy from US.GOV to Darouet. There was actual discussion and then editors without a COI made changes when there was consensus. For the record, I was personally extremely concerned about NDAA 2012 and went out of my way to let the government representative know that we were not going to parrot their views, that we would cover the controversy precisely as published sources had an in no way would simply make the changes they wanted made.

What's going on here is COI disclosure from representatives, presentation of sources and suggestions, and individuals making changes they see as reasonable, and non-COI editors taking responsibility for them. You've made your point that COI declarations from representatives could be more visible, but that's something I've always worked towards. Seriously, these people are doing what they're encouraged to do, in the WP:COI guideline! When Jimmy Wales, who's been as firm as anyone about a bright line against direct editing says, "I think that accusing [BP employee] Arturo of ‘skirting’ Wikipedia’s rules in this case is fairly ludicrous – unless ‘skirting’ means ‘going above and beyond what is required in order to be very clearly in compliance with best practice....” then I think it's maybe a sign that the concerns here are getting blown out of proportion or are misdirected towards the wrong party. I have to leave it there for now, because there other projects I want to spend time on. I still would like to incorporate your feedback into future guidance. I think it should happen on the WP:COI and WP:PSCOI pages, so that we can bring in others input and move towards constructive changes to those texts. Ocaasi t | c 16:45, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi all: Ocaasi has written on my talk page to let me know that there is a discussion here on his editing of National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, also writing that he'd like to give me the opportunity to respond if I see that necessary. I'll write below what happened, as I best remember it. I first read about the NDAA 2012 legislation while it was being drafted, and was concerned about it, and surprised to see that wikipedia had no article on it. So I wrote the first draft and was heavily involved in the article for some time afterwards. The article received a lot of traffic because of the understandable controversy that emerged over the legislation, and some of that was reflected in editing of the article. At some point, Ocaasi posted on the talk pages of the article, writing that he had been contacted by someone (later User:Quirin42) who didn't want to edit directly, and had a conflict of interest. As far as I can tell, Ocaasi obliquely suggested, but did not directly state that the party he was bringing to the talk pages was someone affiliated with and working for the American government. Ocaasi did make it clear that he did not necessarily endorse their views. When Quirin42 began editing, he made it clear he was working for the American government.
Ocaasi responded very politely to all inquiries and collated a very impressive list of sources, and I engaged with the editor, Quirin42, on the talk pages. At one point I was willing to make a compromise with Quirin42 that I wasn't very comfortable with, at which point Ocaasi intervened and stated that all changes would need to be rigorously backed by sources. At that point asked another editor whom I very much trust, Thucydides411, for his opinion, and he wrote that Quirin42's proposed changes obscured the effect of the legislation and contradicted most available sources. At that point, Quirin42 stopped contributing.
So, I certainly never worked for Ocaasi, and in the end I think he acted according to wikipedia's policies, by demanding that all statements be rigorously sourced and therefore verifiable. I do wish it had been a little clearer, for me and from the very beginning, that Quirin42 was working for the government. Also, though Ocaasi didn't represent Quirin42's position and explicitly stated this, as a slightly greener editor at that time this wasn't wholly clear to me, and I was embarrassed to feel obliged to change the article for Quirin42. I'm thankful to Ocaasi and Thucydides411 for preventing that, and teaching me something.
Note that I'm also posted this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Direct_COI_representatives_to_talk_pages:_disclosure_and_review. Thanks! -Darouet (talk) 19:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
See my response there. And this is regarding this talk-page exchange at Talk:National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. I hope we can keep these discussions in one place. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
No worries Ocaasi, and thanks for notifying me. I think something that might help editors on a page, when you begin this process, is making even more clear that you and other editors will reject edit requests that are unreasonable according to wikipedia's core policies. You might furthermore make it clear that neither you nor other editors are obliged to represent the COI party's POV, and that their COI should be taken seriously. I know you're trying to make this process transparent and are therefore trying to make it appear less onerous or wholly unfavorable to the COI party, but that should come second to maintaining transparency on our end, in my opinion. I'll be interested to see how things turn out. -Darouet (talk) 21:57, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Assuming the process is kept, of course. I understand (I think) and respect why OTRS for COI was established, but would also understand if the community decided against it in the end. -Darouet (talk) 22:00, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Request to restore your post

Hi Ocaasi, I've just noticed that you changed a post of yours after I had replied to it, making my reply seem meaningless. Would you mind going back and restoring your original post, then clarifying/updating underneath it? Otherwise, I look as though I responded to something that you didn't say. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 19:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure Slim, I will try and make it very clear when the addendum was added, I'll strike the incorrect piece, and leave a note at the bottom. No confusion intended. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 19:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Sounds good, many thanks. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Ocaasi. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

The Interior (Talk) 19:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

  • I actually moved on to Serrano ham for a bit, then, after going back to school and getting poor again, I was forced into prosciutto salami territory. Oh the ignominy. I'm writing this in the Calgary airport after all the restaurants have closed; I've been staring at the link you left for the last five minutes. I also would injure people if they stood between me and dry-cured pork products. The Interior (Talk) 03:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Course you might be interested in

Coursera is offering a course on gamification that you might be interested in. [1]. Ryan Vesey 04:26, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Ryan, the content and timing of this course could not be more perfect. Werbach is one of the best gamification experts bar none (he's also down the road from me at UPenn), and I will look into this course seriously. Thanks for your continued great tips. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Idea

So here's the idea I had. It's very rough, and I know a thousand holes could be shot in it, but I wonder whether it could be made to work. It seems to me that we would have a win-win situation if we could iron out the wrinkles. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, this is a bold and novel idea. It's indeed a rough sketch but I want to think more about this. Very creative thought, Slim. Ocaasi t | c 14:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Your comment

Hi Ocaasi, I thought that your comment on WBB's talk page was very astute and productive and I took the liberty of quoting you in my comment here at the WBB RfC. I hope this is alright with you. If you find it objectionable in any way please contact me and I will remove it ASAP. Thanks for your kind consideration. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:10, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt response and nice to meet you! I have also seen your work on other WP pages as well, from time to time, so its not the first time I have been impressed with your thoughtful approach :-) I look forward to working together sometime in the future. Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Hello Ocaasi. I was notified on my talk page that I had been approved for a Highbeam account and a Credo account. I received the Credo email with instructions and have been using it, but I never received an e-mail from Highbeam. Is there any way to get this taken care of? Thanks. Strebe (talk) 04:33, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I resent your code. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
  • I saw on someone else's talk page that someone had been granted a one year test subscription to highbeam. That note implied that this would allow them to see the whole text of those articles, for that year. Can you tell me what one has to do to qualify for one of these one year test subscriptions? Geo Swan (talk) 11:59, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

COIReview

Just a note to say I've now read Slimvirgin's talk page, so have a deeper appreciation of what you are going through, and what motivated your desire to write the draft on COIReview. However, it hasn't changed my views. I am sorry you are taking some abuse. but my opinion is that some have an unreasonable expectation of how Wikipedia works and should work. If widespread, it needs addressing, but if one or two, it does not need boilerplate, it needs pointed responses to one or two. If I can help, let me know.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:36, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sphilbrick. I'm going to keep working on tweaking language over the next few months, while avoiding a counterproductive battle. I'd appreciate your comment on any of the involved pages, including WP:PSCOI which seems to be the newest involved page in this debate. Ocaasi t | c 17:35, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

hey

thanks. i enjoyed the interview and learning how to set up an account.--Chasedavidsonsmith (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam

Hello Ocaasi! Last year I got the activation code for HighBeam Research; do you know if it is possible to renew the 1-year free period? Thank you very much, --Delfort (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Ocaasi. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 23:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:51, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

Hey

Hey, interview style is cordial and effective, I know these things can be challenging.

Dbarrett5959 (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Ocaasi. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Kurtis (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Ocaasi, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Ocaasi! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy note

Hi Ocaasi. Thanks very much for your support of the project and especially for your work at WP:TWL. I think it's a great benefit to the community. I mentioned you and TWL at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 58#Time for the next step in our evolution? and thought it would be courteous to let you know about it. Kind regards. 64.40.54.241 (talk) 06:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note 64, I'll check it out. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 April 2013

Please fill out our brief Individual Engagement Grant reviewer survey

Hello, the Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback on Individual Engagement Grants! We have created a brief survey to help us better understand your experience participating in the IEG program and how we can improve for the future. You are being selected to participate in our survey because you served on the IEG Committee.

Click here to be taken to the survey site.

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. We really appreciate your feedback! And we hope to see you in the IdeaLab soon.

Happy editing,

Siko and Jonathan, Grantmaking & Programs, Wikimedia Foundation.

This message was sent via Global message delivery on 01:45, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Please fill out our brief Individual Engagement Grant survey

Hello, the Wikimedia Foundation would like your feedback on Individual Engagement Grants! We have created a brief survey to help us better understand your experience participating in the IEG program and how we can improve for the future. You are being selected to participate in our survey because you created an IEG grant proposal.

Click here to be taken to the survey site.

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. We really appreciate your feedback! And we hope to see you in the IdeaLab soon.

Happy editing,

Siko and Jonathan, Grantmaking & Programs, Wikimedia Foundation.

This message was sent via Global message delivery on 01:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey Jake

This is all really good stuff that you have here. Really, there are only a few tweaks to making it pretty darn awesome!! --Alliglass (talk) 18:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

HighBeam again

Hello Ocaasi, I'm here again :-) You told me to ping you after two weeks, so..I'm here :-) Any news? Thanks a lot! --Delfort (talk) 08:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiLoveinstallscript.js

Hello Ocaasi. I've modified the Teahouse "Great Answer" large badge slightly to include the message and signed parameter's inside the box and am wondering if you can update the script to include them as well. Thank you. Technical 13 (talk) 15:55, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey Technical. Thanks for your help. I'm testing to see if this works and checking with other folks to make sure it's a change we can properly integrate. Will get back to you soon! Ocaasi t | c 16:10, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
No problem, let me know if there is anything I can do or any questions I can answer to help. Technical 13 (talk) 16:23, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Ocaasi, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Ocaasi! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Congrats... You asked an awesome question in the Teahouse!

Great Question Badge Great Question Badge
Awarded to those who have asked a great question on the Teahouse Question Forum.

There are no stupid questions, but some are excellent! Good questions are those that reflect serious curiosity about editing and help others learn.

Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges
This is a test using my beta script replacement to include the previously unused parameters.


+ What do you think of it like this? Message centered and sig right with less padding? Technical 13 (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Pending release of Notifications

Hey Ocaasi :). I'm dropping you a note because you have signed up for the Notifications, or Echo, newsletter.

If all goes according to plan, we should be launching Echo on en-wiki either tomorrow, or next Tuesday - I'll drop a followup tomorrow when we know what's happening. Should the launch succeed, we'll begin the process of triaging bugs and gathering feedback on what features work, what cause problems, and what we should do next; I hope you'll help us out on these fronts by leaving any comments you might have on the talkpage.

Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

Copyvio tool/script

Hey, I searched for "copyright violation detection tool" and saw your archives listed a few times in the results. I'm learning how to be a reviewer over at AfC and in addition go through the requirements to get reviewer rights (yes, I know the two are not tied together, yet...) Are you aware of any toolserver tools or userscripts that I can use to test an article to see if it is copy-pasted from (an)other site(s) and return url(s) if that is the case? Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 12:17, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Teahouse Small Badges

Due to my self-perceived success with the modification to the large template, I've decided to tackle adding the ability to specify a number of badges received in the Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Small template and have set up a series of -sandbox templates (Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host-sandbox, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Small-sandbox, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Answer-sandbox, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Easter egg-sandbox, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Host-sandbox, Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Question-sandbox) and have been testing the changes on Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host landing#Technical 13. For some reason, setting the value of badges to "yes" or "1" changes the placement of the badge. Also, the easter-egg badge seems smaller to me, and I'm not sure why. I know you are familiar with some of this coding stuff, so I figured I'd have you look at it and see if you can offer some improvements. I'm also asking Soni, Writ, Heather, and Sarah to take a peek at it as well and see if we can't get it working right. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 22:22, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Hey, I just found WP:Village pump (technical)#Temporarily disabling WikiLove on English Wikipedia and thought it might be of interest to you. Should we post some kind of notice on the Teahouse page someplace? How would we go about doing that, is there a template designed for host notices? Technical 13 (talk) 23:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Credo References

Hi Ocaasi. I just happened to see the old (fall 2012) comments/discussion on User talk:Mugginsx Talk page re Credo Reference.

I don't have time to research it now, but being as I am a rather citation/source-oriented editor, if you or Credo are looking for other wikieditors who can correctly/carefully use a reference source that lets wikieditors get behind paywalls for Wikipedia purposes, feel free to contact me in another few weeks when I expect to come up for air. If they/you are not, no worries. Wikipedia gets better at the margins, little by little in any case.

Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

Hello, You signed up to participate or view in this month's GLAMout. We'll be using Google Hangout, but unfortunately the link to the Hangout won't be available, until 15 minutes beforehand. We'll post the link as soon as possible at Wikipedia:GLAM/GLAMout#Link

Time: 12pm-1pm Pacific Time (3pm-4pm ET | 19-20h UTC) Coordinator: Merrilee Proffitt, OCLC Anchor topic: VIAFbot and authority control in EN:WP, and on Wikidata.

Great American Wiknic for Philly in June

Howdy! I would like to invite you to join with a local edition of the Great American Wiknic this June :) Also, please add any preliminary details to Wikipedia:Wiknic#2013 Wiknic.--Pharos (talk) 17:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

BTW, feel free to copy from the previous Philly Wiknic: Wikipedia:WikiProject Philadelphia/Wiknic, or maybe LA's: Wikipedia:Meetup/LA/6. And don't forget to invite the Chemical Heritage folks! I'll start on the publicity drive soon, but for now it would be great to at least just put something interim under Wikipedia:Wiknic#2013 Wiknic.--Pharos (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Would you mind spamming this?

Hey.

Would you mind using EdwardsBot to spam the talk pages of interested people [2] with this, or something like it?

Wikimania 2013 will be held in Hong Kong August 7-11. Presentation submissions have now closed. Here are the health-related proposals. Please add your name to the bottom of each presentation you might be interested in attending - it will help the organisers decide which presentations to approve:

Here are some other proposals which talk about sciences in general but which are of direct interest to Wiki Project Med:

If it's just as much trouble to do it with the bot as it would be to do it by hand, let me know and I'll do it, but if it's relatively easy with the bot, I'd appreciate your help. Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:29, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done Ocaasi t | c 21:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Help

Hi Ocaasi,

I had submitted an article on 'Cullen Investments', which was declined on 17 April 2013. Here's the link for your reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Cullen_Investments

Previously the article was declined on 31 March 2013 due to insufficient references considering which the reference list was updated considerably.

This time the reason for rejection is 'promotional stuff'. I'll be grateful if you can help me with the editing and successful submission of the same article. Additionally it will be good if you can point out a few lines in the article which sounds like promotional stuff.

Thanks

Ingoddess2805 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ingoddess2805 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

  • As a (talk page stalker) on both this user's talk page as well as TheOriginalSoni's, and an AfC reviewer myself, I've taken a look at the article in question. It appears the most recent decliner has add a comment as to detail why specifically it was declined of, "After a request on my talk page about clarification I give the following elaboration: The portfolio companies section reads like news blurbs without any significant analysis or explanation of it's importance to it. 9 out of the 24 "references" are Cullen Investments corporate site itself. Very significant problems that cause this to not be acceptable." I agree with this assessment. I suggest you change the portfolio section to be a short one or two paragraph prose style section, and remove the promotional stuff. I also see some cite bloat going on in that article that needs to be addressed (I often comment out the extra citations myself with <!-- <ref>(citation)</ref> --> I hope this helps you in your revision of the article and happy editing! Technical 13 (talk) 11:09, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam

Hi, you're probably the wrong person to come to with this, but my HighBeam login still works, but I can only look at the first paragraph or so and it invites me to sign up to a free trial. Has my account expired? Thanks and I really appreciate the work you did to get the accounts in the first place. :) --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 15:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I'm the right person to come to. It's possible your year account expired. Please reapply at the WP:HighBeam page. I'm working on procuring a new set of accounts. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 21:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Notifications box replacement prototypes released

Hey Ocaasi; Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Hi. You might remember that I gained access to this a few months back and it has been a tremendous help. However for a good week or so now I've been unable to access the full articles and although my log in works the access of the articles doesn't. Can you find out what the problem is?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Gilderien says he is having the same problem. Surely it hasn't been a year already? Has it expired? I thought it was going to be renewable?? I value it as a resource above anything else really aside from google books and it has allowed me to produce some GAs and some really good articles on subjects I'd otherwise not have been able to work on to that level of quality.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Got to reapply I see, Wikipedia:HighBeam/Applications#Renewal account♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yep, a year went fast! I'm working on getting new accounts. Will try to do that quickly :) Ocaasi t | c 21:54, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Where did the renewal list get moved, or was it accidentally deleted? --Ronz (talk) 22:15, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Ronz, I did move old applications but kept all the new applications at WP:HighBeam#HighBeam 7, part of the main WP:HighBeam page. Past applications were moved so the page wouldn't take ages to load. Let me know if you need anything else. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 22:20, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Don't know how I missed that. --Ronz (talk) 22:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: April 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 22:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

UCSF Education Project

Hi! I saw the short notice in the Stethoscope about this project and I was wondering if you, Doc James or Michael Turken (his Wikipedia name doesnt appear) would like to write a short article on the project for the Wiki Education newsletter. [3] We "publish" on the 15th and would love to include something for May. The newsroom is at [4]. Michael is more than welcome to contact me! Thelmadatter (talk) 03:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Thelmadatter! I'll try and get something together today or tomorrow. I'll also ping Michaelturken and Doc James to see if they want to contribute. Thanks for including us in your thoughts! Ocaasi t | c 15:49, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! Im always on the lookout for new article ideas for the newsletter!Thelmadatter (talk) 17:03, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

For quoting Pinky and the Brain on your userpage I believe you deserve this cookie. Just don't eat it with the milk that Pinky just ejected from his nose. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! One of my favorites. And the Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain combo was an unbeatable hour. Nom nom. Ocaasi t | c 14:36, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Adventure: Text Mockup (feedback welcome!)

Hi TWA folks!

It's been a long time since we worked on The Wikipedia Adventure together, but this spring I proposed the game for an Individual Engagement Grant and it was accepted :)

I spent the last two months refining the script and getting ready to build the game using Guided tours. I am working with an amazing designer and getting expert curation tips from the Grant program leader.

Here is the full 7-mission text version of the game: http://jatspan.org/twa2.html#29

I'd love to have your feedback on it, before I get started with the build. I would love it if you would leave any thoughts, tips, comments, recommendations, suggestions, ideas, or concerns, at WP:TWA/Feedback.

Hope you're doing great,

--Ocaasi 14:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Hello Hello! :D

RexRowanTalk 14:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi! Thanks for the cat :) Ocaasi t | c 14:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Question about village pump proposal

Hi,

At your suggestion, I posted some proposals on Village Pump to try to get "move subpages" permissions, here, here, and here. As you can see, they seem to have gone nowhere, either because of lack of interest from other people in this issue, or not quite enough support. I just now discovered that this permission was originally restricted to admins in 2008. Reading over that discussion, I don't see anything there that would conflict with the idea of allowing one or another of the "trusted user" groups ("filemove" or "rollback") to have it.

Do you have any suggestions about where I should go from here? Maybe repost to VP/PR but with more info? What is required to get a consensus and actually get something done?

Thanks! Klortho (talk) 15:37, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey Klortho!. I would try the RFP talk page and I would pursue bundling it with Filemover rather than Rollbacker (the latter has far more users). Good luck! Check in any time. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I will check it out. Klortho (talk) 20:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Hi, someone at WP:RX said they coundn't access this article. They think is is because it is a business document. Are all wp Highbeam accounts limited? I think it may start at page 23, written by Brie Childers. My email is on and thanks in advance.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey Canoe. I have to check with HighBeam about their business account. I don't have access to it, but I'm talking with them about account renewals next week and will bring it up. Thanks for the tip! Best, Ocaasi t | c 19:32, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you as well. I will wait patiently. I will leave that as unresolved at WP:RX until we find out.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:51, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

Highbeam subsrciption

Hello there, it has been a year I have been subscribed to Highbeam. The service has proven very useful in my activity as a mediator on the French Wikipedia. It seems I cannot log in any more. Do you have any idea if this is normal, as the year is finished, or if the subscription can be extended ? Thanks in advance, — Racconish Tk 20:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey Racconish, check out WP:HighBeam and sign up for an account renewal. I'm talking to HighBeam about it next week and will keep you posted! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:15, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks, — Racconish Tk 20:50, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam results

I've got the results of counting the highbeam.com links per your request, with a lovely graph. See User talk:Johnuniq#Highbeam results. Johnuniq (talk) 05:05, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Amsterdam

I'm delighted to see you'll be in Amsterdam, and look forward to meeting you there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed! I'm getting in on Thursday and staying at the hostel. Looking forward to seeing you in person, Andy. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:55, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

Re: The Wikipedia Library

Can you have a look to see if I had made any applications for that in the past? ISTR some process where you had to post to a talk page and present a detailed case for yourself to be given access or something like that. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

OK. Where/when do I do it again? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:40, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

JSTOR request

Hi Ocaasi. A little bird tells me you might have access to JSTOR - I don't (and I'm waaaay down the list for sign-ups), so I was wondering if you might be able to dig up some info for me. I've just created a stubby little article about Hu Zhengyan, who was a fairly important figure in Chinese art history. The lack of sources in English is a bit of an issue, but there's one absolutely ideal source (25 pages of biographical discussion) here - the problem being, of course, that I can't see any of it beyond a very tantalising Page 1. If you can obtain the article for me, expand the content of the Wikipedia page or just give me a few pointers based on what's in the source, I'd be tremendously grateful. All the best, Yunshui 雲‍水 13:16, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Yunshui. I actually do not have jstor access, but WP:RX will have someone who does and WP:JSTOR has 100 people who definitely do. I did not organize the JSTOR partnership, that was mainly Steven Walling at the WMF. I hope to integrate JSTOR into The Wikipedia Library and expand those partnerships further, but at the moment I'm not the point person for that. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 11:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Whoops, I just sort of assumed that if anyone had access, it would be you. No worries, I'll go and wave my begging bowl at someone else. Cheers, Yunshui 雲‍水 11:54, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Hi Ocaasi. I just noticed that my Highbeam account has expired - whilst it was useful, I'm happy for the free account slot to be allocated to someone else, rather than renewed. Given that I tend to work on East Asian articles (for which Highbeam doesn't have a great deal of coverage), I reckon someone who spends their time on US pages would get more use out of it. It's been a great tool, though, and I'd just like to say thank you to you for setting the project up. Much obliged, Yunshui 雲‍水 08:20, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Yunshui. As long as you don't list yourself for re-application, it will just expire. We're working with a whole new batch for the next round. I'm glad you got to give it a shot, and I'll keep working on getting better coverage of areas like East Asia. Do you have any recommendations for a source, publication, or database that would be most useful to you? Ocaasi t | c 15:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

A kitten for you!

:D

Pvm99 (talk) 04:28, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! :) Ocaasi t | c 18:47, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Teahouse Badge-o-meter not working properly

Something in the hidden code isn't working properly and when someone cuts and pastes the info onto their page, they don't get the right formatting. I was able to copy the actual code from the example shown above it and get it to work, (nice job!) but I can't see what is messed up in the revealed version and don't want to risk messing it up.

Aggie80 (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Aggie, thanks so much! I've fixed the code and updated the page. Now all you have to paste is {{subst:User:Ocaasi/badegeometernew}} and it will work. Great eye! Ocaasi t | c 19:09, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to fix it! I asked in the Teahouse, but those on weren't getting what I was asking, so I went to the source!
Aggie80 (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with the additional level. I'm still playing with my bio page, it think the justification/centering is going to depend on the individual and how they set things up. It's an easy enough change either way, even I can handle that and I haven't done coding for a couple of decades! Aggie80 (talk) 21:23, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Easy Office Phone

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Easy Office Phone, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Please read the guidelines on spam and Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. j⚛e deckertalk 18:30, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Artnet

Hi Jake,

Good to meet you last weekend; I hope you got home OK.

http://www.artnet.com/ is a subscription website which lists artworks sold at auction. It would be great if it (or one of its competitors) could be included in the Wikipedia Library. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:17, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll reach out to them Andy, that's a neat idea. Can you give me a sense of how you think they would be most useful for content creators? (Articles on art obviously, but any more details you can offer will help me approach them). Cheers and nice seeing you in Amsterdam!, Ocaasi t | c 04:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. By way of example, I recently wrote Ernest Dade. Pages like [5] have provenance info on his artworks, available only to subscribers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:44, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Also of use would be Oxford Art Online (part of the same family as the ODNB; OED, etc). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:05, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

About the accesses

I tried to find you at IRC. But couldn't find. Anyway

PS- Please do anything that notifies me that you have answered.--Pratyya (Hello!) 11:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Hi User:Pratyya. Sure, just sign your name on the list of applicants right on that page. Just add your username, and also if you want to include a brief summary of your activity on Wikipedia and how you might use the account that would be nice too. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 17:07, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

The Adventure

What does it mean by "Add Bold"? Pokebub22 (talk) 21:59, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pokebub. Add bold refers to adding bold to the text so that it formats like this. I will try and make that more clear. Also, the game is very much just under construction so I wouldn't take any part of it too seriously yet. Still, thanks for your feedback, and feel free to share more as it develops. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 13:54, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: May 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 22:51, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

WP:Snuggle is live at snuggle.grouplens.org

The snuggle logo
The snuggle logo

Snuggle, the newcomer socialization tool I've been building, is finally ready for general use. All you need to do to get started is point your browser to https://snuggle.grouplens.org. Let me know if you run into any trouble. I'll be watching WT:Snuggle. Or you can also just contact me directly. Thanks for your patience.

See also:

--EpochFail(talk • work) 19:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library now offering accounts from Cochrane Collaboration (sign up!)

The Wikipedia Library gets Wikipedia editors free access to reliable sources that are behind paywalls. Because you are signed on as a medical editor, I thought you'd want to know about our most recent donation from Cochrane Collaboration.

  • Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization that conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.
  • Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to 100 medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account.
  • If you are still active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:38, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to say great job with this! GabrielF (talk) 00:58, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Your messages in de

Hello,

you have to correct the links on your bot messages in de. I've done it here. Cheers, DestinyFound (talk) 21:24, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

DestinyFound. Thank you for noticing and fixing it locally! I have sent out the correct link. My apologies for the error :/ Ocaasi t | c 21:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Also second links were wrong. To make a link you do [[:en:pagename]] (notice the ":" in front of the "en", without it it becomes an invisible interwikilink). I fixed it in nl.wiki. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 21:51, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Taketa. It was a silly error, which I made twice in one message. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 21:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
You also have made similar mistakes in svwp; and hence perhaps also in a large number of wp's. JoergenB (talk) 22:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey Ocaasi, I've been stuck on Botik of Peter the Great for a while now. It's really close to FA status, but I need to find a little bit more information for the soviet & post-soviet era sections. I'd also like to find some way to mention the stamp that I include in the text. How good are you at searching for resources? Do you think there's any chance you might be able to find something? Ryan Vesey 03:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey Ryan! I highly recommend WP:RX to be used as a research desk. Those folks are much better informed about tracking down sources than I am. Good luck! Ocaasi t | c 15:06, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Ping

Yo, Ocaasi, sorry for taking a while to respond, but I have on my talk page. I'll also be idling on IRC for a while, so if you happen to be on, just ping me, and we can talk more specifically if you like. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Congrats... You were an awesome Teahouse maître d!

{{Wikipedia:Teahouse/Badge/Maitre d%27|size=|signed=Technical 13 (talk) 13:05, 18 June 2013 (UTC)|message=I saw someone try to give this badge and the result was broken... Kind of like it is here. This is all it takes to fix it. Feel free to undo the edit that posted this. }}

test

Congrats... You were an awesome Teahouse maître d!

Teahouse Maitre d' Badge Teahouse Maitre d' Badge
Awarded to those who manage the public part of the Wikipedia Teahouse.

The maître d' acts as a community organizer and a moderator who helps to make sure that all aspects of the Teahouse are running smoothly, and that guests have a good experience. The maître d' is not the boss of Teahouse, but acts as a responsible facilitator for the project.

Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges
I take it back, it needs these changes to fix it.


Thank you from Tamil Wikipedia

Thank you for the information you provided on Tamil wikipedia about The Cochrane Library, thank you for your consideration.--Senthi (talk) 19:14, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 June 2013

Thank you - re Cochrane access

Thanks for suggesting I apply for access to the Cochrane Library. I have now. - Rod57 (talk) 14:31, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Ping

Ohai. –Quiddity (talk) 20:11, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Today's roundtable

It was great to meet you today, and my wife and I really enjoyed the interaction with a wonderful group of Wikipedians and WMF staffers. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

thanks for inviting me to the teahouse yesterday

Hi! Great to meet you yesterday. Thanks also for sending me the invitation. This gives me a chance also to practice using the talk pages! RaymondYee (talk) 23:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

Cochrane Library access

Hi Ocaaasi,

Thanks for the update on The Cochrane Library. Actually I have access to the Library due to a national subscription from the Government body- ICMR (http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/FreeAccess.html#INDIA). Do I need to sign up?

I was one of the people who initiated the talks with the Collaboration for this purpose. I am glad that it has finally worked out officially. I also have had a project for the purpose of updating evidence based content in medical articles.Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Evidence_based_content_for_medical_articles_on_Wikipedia#Articles_to_be_updated_with_newer_evidence. Check it out and comments are always welcome.

Manu Mathew (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey Manu! If you already have access then no you don't need to apply. Thanks for the link to the WPMED EBM page. I think I might link to it from the Cochrane sign-up page. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:07, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi, it would be great if you could link up to the project page on EBM. Ill add a link to this page too. And also any help in filling the table with the articles that need to be updated would be much appreciated. Manu Mathew (talk) 16:45, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi, thanks for letting me know about this. I have access to the Cochrane library through work, but it was kind of you to notify me Adh (talk) 23:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Ocassi, This is sarindam7 (talk · contribs). Thanks for the heads up on the Cochrane access. But I am not very active on WP anymore (for now) and wouldn't want to waste a valuable ticket. Just letting you know. Thanks again. Sarindam7 21:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I think a number of people, like me, have applied when we already have access. I just assumed I wouldn't because I can access very little yet some people in other countries seem to have journal access through their library. But I'm wrong and in the UK we have access. You might want to ping those UK editors who have signed up. Colin°Talk 11:07, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi, I think it was you who posted on other wikis about this access using EdwardsBot? I'm afraid the link is still broken even after correction. It needs a preceding colon before the link to create an interlanguage link, like so: [[:en:w....]]. I have corrected gv.wiki but you'll need to do the others yourself. -- Shimmin Beg (talk) 10:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Heleana from BaswareGlobal

Hello, thanks for connecting with me about CREWE's work. It would be great if we could talk again about the Basware stub and discuss how to deal with some current issues it has.

Hi Heleana. Where I have time, I try to help people in your position communicate with our community and follow our policies and best practices. A few things in order to make that possible:
  1. You need to change your username so that it represents you as an individual rather than an entire company. BaswareHeleana is ok, but BaswareGlobal is not. You can do that here: WP:CHU/S or just register a new account.
  2. Once you do that, please add a declaration about your conflict of interest on your Userpage. It'd also be good to introduce yourself at the conflict of interest noticeboard (WP:COI/N).
  3. Please review The plain and simple conflict of interest guide
  4. Write up a list of your issues, concerns, suggestions, and please post it at the Talk page of the BaswareGlobal article. If you want to make any changes, they have to abide by our neutrality policy, and you need to provide sources which back up the changes. Stick to the article's talk page and let others make actually make the changes that have been agreed upon.
  5. Last ping me and I'll take a look if I have time. You also might check in at the paid help board: WP:PAIDHELP. Any changes will be the result of consensus discussion at the article, so expect a bit of dialogue to take place.
  6. Note too, please sign your comments with ~~~~ so that your name will appear on them.
Best, Ocaasi t | c 19:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ocaasi, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Ocaasi! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 July 2013

WP:Snugglers & Teahouse hosts collaborate on office hours?

Hi Ocaasi. I have a proposal for you. I'm planning to hold an office hours next Wednesday (1600 UTC) to gather Wikipedians who mentor newcomers across Wikipedia, to discuss the state of things and figure out if Snuggle can help. Would you be interested in working with me to gather wiki-mentors and come up with topics for the session? I've got a brief write-up (still very Snuggle focused) that I've been working on with Technical 13 and TheOriginalSoni. If you're interested, I'm happy to broaden the topic appropriately. --EpochFail(talk • work) 21:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ping! --EpochFail(talk • work) 16:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Hey EpochFail! So sorry I missed your first message. I think I assumed it was just a snuggle newsletter/office hour update and passed it by. I'd love to help. Checking out the page now. Feel to email me and/or we could set up a Skype/Hangout before then. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 17:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Awesome! I'll drop an email to coordinate. --EpochFail(talk • work) 18:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Edited your userpage

Hope you don't mind. πr2 (t • c) 19:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter

Hey Ocaasi! We've just deployed some fixes to the VisualEditor. These include:

  • "Edit" will load the latest version, not the version you're looking at (bug 49943)
  • "Edit" will load the latest version, not the version you edited last time if this is your second edit (bug 50441)
  • VE edit section links will load the latest, not original, version in diff view preview (bug 50925)
  • <big><big>Foo</big></big> and similar repeated tags will not get corrupted any more (bug 49755)

In the meantime, testing is proceeding well, and hopefully we can get some more fixes out over the next couple of days. If you're interested in helping out, we have a set of open tasks we'd really appreciate your assistance with :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: June 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 15:21, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

TWA script project

I just got a moment to take a peak and it looks like your script is well on its way and is developing above my pay grade atm. If there is anything I can do, let me know, I'll be on IRC all day. Good luck! Technical 13 (talk) 11:57, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Ocaasi

We just deployed another VisualEditor release; bugs fixed include:

  • Firefox 13/14 has been temporarily blacklisted, to avoid the insertion of broken links [[./that look like this]] (50720)
  • Changing a reference in a template should no longer produce the bright red "you don't have a references block!" error (bugzilla:50423)
  • Notices are now shown if you're editing a protected or semi-protected page (bugzilla:50415)
  • The template inspector will no longer invite you to insert parameters that are already being used (50715)
  • Same as above, but with aliases (50717)
  • Parameter names in the template dialogue now word-wrap (50800)
  • The link inspector will not show in the top left if you hit the return key while opening it (49941)
  • Hitting return twice in the link editor will no longer introduce a new line that overwrites the link (51075)
  • Oddly-named categories no longer cause corruption (50702)
  • The toolbar no longer occasionally covers the cursor (48787)
  • Changing the formatting of text no longer occasionally scrolls you upwards (50792)

Not specific bugs, but other things; cacheing is now improved, so people should stop seeing temporary breaking when the VisualEditor updates, and RTL support has received some patches. I hope this newsletter is helpful to people; I'll send out another one with the next deployment :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Come celebrate IdeaLab’s (re)Launch!

Idea Lab
Idea Lab
Idea Lab
Idea Lab

We’ve redesigned IdeaLab to make awesome collaborators and shiny new ideas easier to find.
You’re invited to the (re)Launch party!

Come visit and create a profile, share or join an idea, and tell us what you think about the updates!

Hope to see you there! Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 July 2013

VE newsletter

Hey Ocaasi! Another set of patches :). Today we have:

  • Required template parameters are now automatically added to new templates (50747)
  • Templates with piped links now display correctly when you alter them (50801)
  • If your edit token expires, you're now informed of it (50424).
    You still won't be able to save - that's due to be fixed on Monday :).

More on Monday, I suspect. Hope you have a good weekend :). I should also have some news about the IP launch pretty soon. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

(if you're seeing this and aren't the newsletter recipient - please do sign up here)

about Cochrane,...

thanks so, so much for let me knows about the offering of Cochrane (in Wikipedia Library),... for medical editors here,... hoping also can reach the requested minimum of 1000 edits during the following month, or 2,...
...saying also that i really sorry cannot be here the previous weeks, and months, for external situations (in ways of solution),...
...thanking you again,... and congratulating you also for your new position here, as admin,... sending you my regards,... --Cpant23 (talk) 13:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


research on Wikipedia and the news media

Hi,

I've been doing some research on how Wikipedia uses the news media. Specifically, I've compiled a dataset of about 250 news websites and the number of times Wikipedia links to each of them. Given your experience with providing Wikipedians with access to sources, I wanted to share my preliminary findings with you to get your thoughts and feedback.

Here is my (very preliminary) writeup: User:GabrielF/NewsCitations

I'm still working on this, but I would greatly appreciate any thoughts that you might have on either the methodology or the results before I present it to the Wikipedia community at large.

Best wishes, GabrielF (talk) 17:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Start Snuggle
GabrielF. This is excellent work. It instantly gave me a way to approach the New York Times, as well as the 'underrepresented' news sources. It's very useful work for me to have. Do you think it's safe to say that New York Times is the most cited source on Wikipedia, or is that overbroad? You also might ping Johnuniq, who has done fantastic analysis of links dumps for participating Wikipedia Library partners. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! The BBC appears to be the most cited source, with the NYT coming in second. I'll definitely drop User:Johnuniq a note - I just bumped into him at an AfD discussion. GabrielF (talk) 22:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

IRC office hours for wiki-mentors and Snuggle users

Hi. We're organizing an office hours session with the Teahouse to bring in mentors from across the wiki to try out Snuggle and discuss it's potential to support mentorship broadly. The Snuggle team would appreciate it if you would come and participate in the discussion. We'll be having it in #wikimedia-office connect on Wed. July 17th @ 1600 UTC. See the agenda for more info. --EpochFail(talk • work), Technical 13 (talk), TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi! I just wanted to post a reminder that this discussion will be happening in about 24 hours. I'll be in #wikimedia-office connect a half hour early answering questions. Now would be a good time to update the agenda if there's something specific you'd like to discuss. --EpochFail(talk • work) 15:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Hey Epoch, I think the agenda looks great. I'll try and come early to help ping people from the irc channels and do any last minute planning. See you then! Ocaasi t | c 17:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. The thread is "Talk:Aesthetic Realism". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot operator / talk 18:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Just wondering if you had any news to share about the renewal. The Banner talk 17:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi The Banner. I'm in contact with HighBeam and trying to set up a meeting ASAP. They have approved 1000 new accounts, we just need to do the password handover. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 17:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Great work!

The Banner talk 17:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Ocaasi; hope you had a decent weekend :). We've got a pile of patches, some of which went out on Monday, some yesterday:

  • If you insert wikitext such as links or section headers, you get a notice in the top right corner (over the save button). It doesn't go away until click, though once dismissed you don't get another one that edit. (49820)
  • If your edit token expires, VE fetches a new one for you so you can save. (50424)
  • If the page is empty of content but does have something non-content (like a category or an HTML comment), VE no longer crashes on load - (50289)
  • sub tags are no longer removed ((49873)
  • If you type at the end of links, they now extend
  • Templates now only take a single click to insert
  • Clear annotations clears links (50461)
  • The link inspector stays open when you click to another item (50895)
  • Typing after multi-byte characters no longer creats pawn icons (51140)
  • Resizing thumbnails that have a default size set now works (50645)
  • References made by tag:ref now display properly (bugzilla:50978)
  • The VE is integrated with the spam blacklist (50826)
  • Feedbacl link goes to the right language (bugzilla:47730)

There are a lot more improvements coming, but that's it for Monday and Tuesday. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 08:26, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

A minor change to DRN

Hi there, you're getting this message as you are involved in a case at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard which is currently open. Today DRN has undergone a big move resulting in individual cases on subpages as opposed to all the content on one page. This is to inform you that your case is now back on the DRN board and you will be able to 'watch' the subpage it's located on. Thanks, Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign) 13:19, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 July 2013

Ocaasi, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Ocaasi! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi t | c 03:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ocaasi t | c 03:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nischayn22 (talk • contribs)
Hi Ocaasi t | c 03:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nischayn22 (talk • contribs)
Hi Ocaasi t | c 03:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nischayn22 (talk • contribs)

The Wikipedia Library

Hi Ocaasi. I've been looking for places that I can get free research accounts for a while now on Wikipedia and came across the Wikipedia Library. After reading the page a few times I still have no idea how it works but decided to give a helping hand. I live in Toronto and submitted a request for 5-10 (I know, its nothing, but still may help some users) free one-year research accounts for the Toronto Public Library's online database. I got an email today saying that management will be looking into the request soon and I should get a response in a short while.

IF they do agree to donate some memberships, what do I do?--Dom497 (talk) 23:07, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Cochrane?

Hi Ocaasi, any idea how long before Cochrane receives and processes account requests? I really could use that access right now. I know, they're free and I am in no position to argue, but still.... would be really helpful to have, sooner rather than later!! Any info updating us on the status would be great. Thanks again for co-ordinating. Zad68 18:59, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

VE newsletter

Hey Ocaasi. The newest updates:

  • Links now don't extend over space/punctuation/workbreaks when you type (bugzilla:51463)
  • Users with the "minoredit" preference set get working functionality (bugzilla:51515)
  • You can tab to buttons in dialogs, including the save dialog (bugzilla:50047)
  • We now show the <newarticletext> (or <newarticletextanon>) message as an edit notice (bugzilla:51459)
  • You can scroll dialog panels like in transclusions' templates' parameter listings (bugzilla:51739)
  • Templates that only create meta-data and no display content at all (like Template:Use dmy dates) now can't be deleted accidentally or deliberately, but still don't show up (bugzilla:51322)
  • FlaggedRevisions integration (bugzilla:49699)
  • Edit summary will get the section title pre-added if you launched from a section edit link (bugzilla:50872)

Along with some miscellaneous language support fixes. That's all for today; as always, let us know if you spot more bugs. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 July 2013

Gamification

Hi Occassi,

  1. would you be interested in catching up & chatting on gamification this weekend?
  2. do you still keep a list of gamification in wikipedia?

BO | Talk 08:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Articles deletion

Dear Ocaasi,

I apologize for the inconvenience, but have no other way than appealing for administrators’ help recover a deleted article.

I published a film article entitled Drits (Derivas), a film by Portuguese director Ricardo Costa. It is the second film from an autobiographic trilogy, Faraways. The article was kept untouched by several months. To my surprise, it was recently eliminated and redirected to the director’s page with no discussion. I undid the redirection, but saw the article was proposed to deletion. Reason: independent, verifiable, secondary resources. I argued that the article couldn’t have but primary sources (the producer’s ones) as it is an upcoming film, like many others listed at upcoming films. A film that has not yet been premiered or distributed may not be commented. Besides, none of the films so listed has ever been deleted or even contested.

At last, in discussion, user User:reddogsix proposed that the article should be renamed to Drifts (film) or similar, and at the same time put at the disambiguation page of Dritf this reference «Drifs, unreleased film by Ricardo Costa (filmmaker). I created a new page for the same article entitled Drifts (Portuguese film). As the semantic root “drift” seemed to be the problem, I replaced the article name to Derivas (Drifts) and published it once more with some improvements. As a result, the article was fast deleted and I blocked for three days.

In the meantime, a new article about the trilogy was published: Faraways, which was proposed to fast deletion as well by the same user, User:reddogsix.

Although unreleased, although having no reliable secondary sources, Drifts is unquestionably an outstanding film for its uniqueness and characteristics: autobiography, comedy, docufiction, metafiction in one. I guess that “outstanding” may be a synonym for “notable” in such cases and that articles like this shouldn’t be deleted without previous cared analyses: important information may be lost.

This sequence of interventions is clearly a personal attack by User:reddogsix, supported by two or three user friend. It has no other explanation. It contributes in nothing to improve articles quality. Mists article, which I created on 10 September 2010, is the latest example. The article structure was unreasonably modified, loosing clarity and useful content.

NOTE: sent to 30 administrators.

Thanks for your attention, User:Tertulius 22:06, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Forged messages

Are you somehow involved with this and this. It's been brought up at WP:ANI#Message forgery.—Kww(talk) 17:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I've replied there Kww. I'm sorry for any confusion and I just added a clear, bold, opt-in disclaimer to the first step of the onboarding tour. Let me know if/how I can make it more clear. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 18:12, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure

Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:54, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

TWA bug

On step seven of the "Earth" mission, the link points to Special:MyPage:TWA/Earth?tour=twa7&step=8, when it should point to Special:MyPage/TWA/Earth?tour=twa7&step=8. I know the project is obviously not ready for prime time, and there are plenty of bugs/typos just waiting to be discovered, but from a development point of view (at least in my experience) sometimes it helps to have easy-to-fix specifics. Cheers, Theopolisme (talk) 04:48, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Theopolisme, Thanks! Great catch. Fixing ASAP. Keep the bug reports coming! :) Ocaasi t | c 06:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2013

Talkback

Hello, Ocaasi. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Message_forgery.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Pine✉ 05:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Adventure

Visual Editor must be enabled to experience The Wikipedia Adventure. I do not have it disabled. I went through parts of The Wikipedia Adventure! I am using Internet Explorer 10 (Windows 8). Earlier today I read that Internet Explorer is not yet supported by Visual Editor. I wonder how I managed to do that. I did not save any of the pages it created. It was unusual and you should know about it because you wrote The Wikipedia Adventure (most of it). As an aside, the sentence about non-technical editors, women and old people mostly applies to me, except my profession was copy-editing technical and scientific educational material. I am a Pennsylvania Dutchman from Union County. From an old (73) person's perspective: Why focus on recruiting and retaining high school and college students when there are so many older people available? That's all. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 06:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Tiyang. Thanks much for the feedback. Visual editor does not support IE (to my knowledge) yet. You can go through The Wikipedia Adventure using visual editor up until the parts where it requires you to edit. Then the game doesn't function smoothly, although it may work somewhat. It's a weird time for everyone right now with two editors going simulataneously and one of them still in beta. It will take a little while for the bugs to be fixed...
I'm particularly interested in your comment about age. Here's the secret: the game was designed for everybody. Picking college-aged demographics as a target was just an organizing principle. But the deep belief is that playful, engaging design and clear, constructive guidance appeals to everyone. So I sincerely hope that old folks enjoy the game as well. At heart, I built it with them (and you!) in mind too, even though it was not explicity. Please keep sharing any thoughts you have on how I can make the experience better for all ages. And if you have other ideas about what might appeal to an older demographic, I'd love to hear. The neat part about guided tours is they can be remixed for different audiences. Think about what you'd like to see and maybe it can be built! Best, Ocaasi t | c 06:11, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts on The Wikipedia Adventure

Hi Ocaasi.

Been a while, sorry I didn't help out that much with the Wikipedia Adventure. I personally think you've done a great job and should be really proud of the work you've done. What's more, the interface is extraordinary, I had no idea something like that could be integrated into the encyclopedia.

Looking at the MfD, the biggest issue people seem to be coming up with is the MMORPG issues (something I mentioned when we were thinking about names). Similarly, the character and the "space" theme are very cartoony, and seem to appeal primarily to demographics that we already have. I know I preferred the owl back when that was suggested, because it was "cute enough" but still looked professional.

I was just wondering how hard a rebrand would be at this point in time? Looking at some non-MMOPRG names (dropping things like "adventure" or "quest" and most importantly "play")? WormTT(talk) 10:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh... and I really don't like the fictional character's name. User:WillKomen. I read it instantly as a spoonerism for KillWomen. WormTT(talk) 10:16, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
WTT, hey, been a while! Thanks for your feedback, it's really heartwarming.
As for the MMORPG issue and the theme, I have a few thoughts. First off is that this approach is not going to work for everyone. Second, we don't know who it will work for or won't because no one has tested it and we have no data.
It's entirely possible that the owl would be a better guide than the astronaut , or that a library different theme would be more conducive to the editors we want to attract than a space theme. I do want to say that the design is not space as in star trek, but space as in the vast cosmos, reflective of our inspiringly ambitious mission. I do hope the design will appeal to non-gamer types because it's friendly and inviting; my hunch is also that it will not turn off serious thinkers because the content in the game is very much consistent with our other help/introductory/onboarding materials. So it's a tone issue, and tone issues are going to be subjective, at least until we have some data and can test variations.
At this point the design is set for round 1. A good amount of work went into the them and it wouldn't be possible to change course. However that's not to say that there couldn't be many iterations on tour content and design. Indeed, that's one of the great aspects of Guided Tours--it's completely rebrandable and recyclable.
User:WillKomen is just a play on wilkomen, the german word for Welcome. I see your point that people could switch letters and read something dark into it, and will see if this is a concern others have. It'd be a very easy fix.
Please keep sharing your feedback, it's great to hear. Ocaasi t | c 10:20, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I'll keep watching with interest! WormTT(talk) 10:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Gilderien... that's a much better idea! This is my bug to fix of course, but if you would be willing to help I would certainly appreciate it. Thank you. Ocaasi t | c 13:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem, I'll do it when I've finished my current AWB run (adding </div> tags for WP:X). --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 13:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Thank you resident AWB guru :) Ocaasi t | c 14:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought I'd done it yesterday, but I must have been your normal signature to find and replace. I've fixed the last couple.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 16:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Ocaasi, we moved your Teahouse host profile

Hello Ocaasi! Thank you for being a host at the Teahouse. However, we haven't heard from you lately, so our bot has moved your Host profile from the host landing page to the host breakroom. No worries; you can always just Check in and our bot will move your profile back. Editing any Teahouse-related page will do the same thing for you. If you would prefer not to receive reminders like this, you can unsubscribe here. Thanks for your help at the Teahouse! HostBot (talk) 03:50, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

VisualEditor newsletter for 06 August 2013

Quick tip: Need to wikilink a word in VisualEditor? Select the word and type Control+k or ⌘ Command+k to enter VisualEditor's link tool without taking your hands off the keyboard. See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Keyboard shortcuts for more time-saving keyboard shortcuts.

It's been almost two weeks since the last newsletter, and a lot of improvements have been made during that time. The main things that people have noticed are significant improvements to speed for typing into long pages (T54012), scrolling (T54014) and deleting (T54013) on large pages. There have also been improvements to references, with the latest being support for list-defined references, which are <ref>s defined inside a <references> block (T53741). Users of Opera 12 and higher have had their web browser removed from the browser black-list, mostly as a result of work by a volunteer developer (T38000). Opera has not been fully white-listed yet, so these users will get an additional warning and request to report problems.

Significant changes were made to the user interface to de-emphasize VisualEditor. This has cut the use of VisualEditor by approximately one-third. You can read about these at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Updates/August 1, 2013, but they include:

  • Re-ordering links to the editors to put "Edit source" first and VisualEditor second
  • Renaming the link for VisualEditor to "Editbeta"
  • Disabling the animation for section editing.
  • Changing all labels for the classic wikitext editor to say "Edit source", regardless of namespace.

There have also been many smaller fixes, including these:

  • Horizontal alignment of images working correctly on more pages (T53995)
  • Categories with ':'s in their names (like Category:Wikipedia:Privacy) now work correctly (T53902)
  • Magic JavaScript gadgets and tools like sortable tables will now work once the page is saved (T53565)
  • Keyboard shortcut for "clear annotations" - now Control+\ or ⌘ Command+\ (T53507)
  • Fixed corruption bugs that led to duplicate categories (T54238) and improper collapsing when multiple new references were added in a row (T54228).
  • Improvements to display elements: The save dialog in Monobook is restored to normal size (T52058), pop-up notices on save now look the same in VisualEditor as in wikitext editor (T41632), and the popup about using wikitext has a link to the definition of wikitext that now opens in a new window (T54093)

Most of the Wikimedia Foundation staff is traveling this week and next, so no updates are expected until at least August 15th. If you're going to be in Hong Kong for Wikimania 2013, say hello to James Forrester, Philippe Beaudette, and the other members of the VisualEditor team.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 23:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Help Project newsletter : Issue 7

The Help Project Newsletter
Issue VII - August 2013

Hello from Hong Kong, and the Wikimania DevCamp! Just a quick bulletin to update everyone on recent goings-on:

Suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter.

If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name.

-- EdwardsBot (talk) 06:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: July 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 02:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Notes about wikiArs, GuideTour and so in IdeaLab

I've wrotten some notes in meta:Grants:IdeaLab/facilitate some actions on Commons for wikiArS participants. Have a look, drop your ideas about and join if you want. --Dvdgmz (talk) 07:49, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to WIKISOO!

Welcome to the School of Open Writing Wikipedia Articles Class (#WIKISOO)! You look like a very experienced user ;) so please help out anytime. Our main course page here should be your home page. Post questions at any time on our class TALK page. So glad you signed up - feel free to contact me with questions. - Sara FB (talk) 15:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Joke for you

Two hydrogen atoms bumped into each other. One said: "Why do you look so sad?"

Frowning, the other responded: "I lost an electron."

Concerned, the first one asked, "Are you sure?"

The other replied ... (I'll tell you the punchline of this joke if you tell me what the status is on the WP:COCHRANE accounts! Pleeease!!)... Zad68 13:51, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

Highbeam

Hi, I can't remember if I requested this again, can you see to it that I have my subscription renewed, I've badly missed it the last 3 months.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 11:42, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam and Questia

Hello Ocaasi,

I had been approved in 2012 for the 1-year subscription to HighBeam and Questia; unfortunately, circumstances in RL forced me to take an extended on-and-off vacation from Wikipedia for the past year, and so I never was able to utilize the subscriptions. I have now returned to active editing once more, and would like to return my focus to content creation, and I would like to inquire whether it might be possible to obtain the subscriptions at this time. I located no login information in my e-mail inbox, and so I don't think that I ever activated the subscriptions at all.

Thank you in advance for your assistance, -- Black Falcon (talk) 18:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2013

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Liability for loss of personal data concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Liability for loss of personal data, a page you created has not been edited in at least 180 days. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace. If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it. You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements. If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13. Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Vandry concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Vandry, a page you created has not been edited in at least 180 days. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace. If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it. You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements. If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13. Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 02:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for 21 August 2013

Did you know? Parsoid is a tool that translates between the raw wikitext that Wikipedia articles are stored in, and the HTML/RDFa that VisualEditor uses on your screen. If you see chess pawn (♙) or snowman (☃) icons in an article, it usually means that Parsoid has encountered something confusing in the wikitext markup. Please report these problems to Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Both VisualEditor and MediaWiki were upgraded recently. For VisualEditor, this is the long-awaited post-Wikimania update with many bug fixes and enhancements. Work also continues on speed at opening and during use, as well as on the bugs reported here and at other Wikipedias. The full report is at Mediawiki.

References are displaying properly, even when nested (T52749) or in image captions (T2000. Reference lists are now always fully populated with references (bug 50094). Firefox users can insert an existing reference in the first paragraph (T54159). Opera users no longer see corruption of categories when a reference was added (bug 50385).

Stray spaces are being stripped from the start of paragraphs to end one of the common <nowiki> problems (T53462). We also fixed a round-tripping bug that caused desirable whitespace in templates (used to make templates more legible, e.g., by putting each parameter in an infobox on a separate line) to get corrupted (bug 51150).

Wikilink handling was improved. Users are not allowed to create internal links to invalid titles (titles that are actually impossible due to limits on acceptable character combinations in titles, not redlinks) (T35094). You can extend wikilinks, but it won't do so over a wordbreak (like a space) (bugs 49931 and 51463).

A handful of fixes to the user interface were made. The toolbar doesn't float over personal tools after opening a dialog or the inspector (T54441). Toolbars were also re-written to be collapsible/expandable, with room for more icons. Buttons in dialogs can now be activated using the Tab ↹ and ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ key commands (bug 50047). This saves time for editors, because you don't need to take your hands off the keyboard to click a button. We fixed a handful of bugs that affected only certain articles or certain browsers, including toolbar buttons in Firefox (bug 51986) and dialog panels that didn't always scroll correctly (bug 51739). Bugs with undo/redo getting confused have been fixed (T54113).

Images, in addition to getting references displaying correctly, also saw improvements with a set-empty |link= parameter no longer corrupted (51963). We corrected thumbnail images' display so that they look don't wrong in some contexts (bug 51995). Inserted images no longer explicitly set their alignment, but instead inherit the default position in compliance with the Manual of Style (bug 51851).

More edit notices, warnings, and metadata like information about Pending Changes on an article now appear as appropriate (bug 49699). When new articles are created, users are now shown the <newarticletext> message (bug 51459). VisualEditor now handles templates that set "meta" items (like a category) and nothing else better (bug 51322). If the database is locked when a user tries to save with VisualEditor, they now get a message telling them as such and an opportunity to try again, rather than a silent failure (bug 51636).

When you save the page, having the default preference set to "mark all my edits as minor by default" no longer overrides the setting in the save dialog (bug 51515). If you open VisualEditor from a section edit link, the section's title will be pre-filled in in the edit summary box when you go to save it (bug 50872). The size of the save dialog box in the Monobook skin has been fixed (bug 50058). Also, wikipage content handlers like sortable tables are re-run automatically after saving (T53565).

A very early version of the mathematics equation editor is now available for testing on mw:Mediawiki. If you would like to help improve the user interface for math editor, please test out the extension at mw:Mediawiki:Sandbox and leave your comments directly at the discussion page for the Math Node User Interface at Mediawiki. You should be able to use your regular username and password should to login to Mediawiki.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 17:49, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library

Hey Fred! So glad you signed up. Two things:

  • The image you chose for your profile isn't working. Does File:wikiowl.gif exist?
  • I would love to chat about how best to put your strengths towards the library. Would you be open to email or a brief skype/hangout? I want to share the projects that are ongoing, hear your thoughts about how to best direct our energies, and find some spots where you can easily pitch in.

Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 13:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikiowl.gif is Wikinfo's logo, however, I gave up on uploading it here due to ambiguities regarding its origin. Email at will using Wikipedia email. I don't have a microphone so don't use Skype. I contacted JSTOR in the past and tried to set up negotiations, but got no response on this side. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:44, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

Real name as username

At least two participants have real name as username (such as: Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/People#Titodutta). So, it is getting duplicated. --Tito☸Dutta 11:42, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey Tito. I'll look into that. I don't think it's a big problem, but maybe there's an easy fix if they're the same. Thanks for getting involved, really happy to have you on board. Ocaasi t | c 11:44, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 August 2013

Consider Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Libraries

Consider Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Libraries for the fall. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Dthomsen, this is a great idea. I've added WLL as an Outreach component to The Wikipedia Library. I'll look into better integrating WLL activities for the fall. I know OCLC wants to help with our library outreach and already has a lot of good connections with member institutions. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 15:55, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
I know a staff member at the FLP Central Library who can help us with an event there. --DThomsen8 (talk) 17:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Free Cochrane account

I have filled out the short form for the free access to Cochrane Collaboration as you suggested in my talk page. But haven't received any username and password yet. May be it takes some time, I donno. can you please put a note regarding this in my talk page. Thanks..--Kalaiarasy (talk)

Thanks for the info.--Kalaiarasy (talk) 13:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library provider agreement - attribution requirement?

In the agreements with Credo, HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, and Cochrane, did any of them request/suggest/invite/wish for attribution in citations? I see in all the citation examples for Credo, HighBeam and Questia (no examples yet for JSTOR or Cochrane) that the provider is always mentioned, either with the |via= or {{subscription required}} with via= option. We've been discussing this over at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Resolution?, and I'd appreciate your take on how much, if any, emphasis should be placed on this in the Help documentation Help:Citation Style 1#Work and publisher. Please join the discussion there. --Lexein (talk) 14:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Questia account

Hi, I was trying to register my Questia-account as followed up to your mail from 29/8/2013. Strange enough I get a message "We could not find a promotion matching the promotion code you provided." Promo already expired? The Banner talk 10:27, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, try typing your OFFERIDPROMOCODE together with no spaces. It should work. Let me know if it doesn't... cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:08, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Hay back! Yes, that was the trick! I am in and looking around for goodies! Thanks a lot. The Banner talk 16:37, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 August 2013

Insert AOL soundbyte here

Hello, Ocaasi. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Hey Ocaasi-- sorry if this e-mail is kind of long. Is it something that you think you can help me with? If not, that's fine, just let me know. Keilana (talk · contribs) and I are scrambling to figure how to make GLAM project work out. I, JethroBT drop me a line 20:03, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Hey Jethro. I got your email and am looking at it... will try to reply today. While I feel comfortable drafting partnership agreements/plans, I'm less used to doing them with Museums. All the partnerships I've worked on have been verbal, good faith, informal agreements. It's different if there's a period of employment with compensation; in that case I'd recommend a basic contract. For partnerships generally, to my knowledge there's no body which can approve an agreement; you're just free to draft one up as an individual and share it with the institution you're working with. I think you're very much on the right track with making explicit what your expectations are. I'd put that agreement up on ENWP or outreach wiki (see Wikipedia:HighBeam/Plan or Wikipedia:Turnitin for examples and Wikipedia:GLAM/Philadelphia_Museum_of_Art for a GLAM specific example). Document as much as you can in simple language, as you've already started doing. If you're on a tight deadline or looking for more guidance, I'd also post to the GLAM mailing list. You might also ping folks on this list like Lori Byrd Phillips, Dominic McDevitt-Parks, or Sarah Stierch. Outreach Wiki has some good general information as well. Ocaasi t | c 20:59, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Got, thanks. We'll probably just stick to an informal agreement-- we're actually not being paid, though (in fact, we specifically asked not be!) Thanks for sending those resources my way, and I'll be sure to contribute our agreement (even if this doesn't work out for whatever reason). Thanks. (Pinging @Keilana: again for good measure). I, JethroBT drop me a line 21:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Ping, https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Mailing_lists. Good luck, ping me when you have a draft up on wiki. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 23:33, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
Thank you for your continued contributions especially the High Beam subscription project which has been of immense value to so many editors!! — Keithbob • Talk • 20:01, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
:) Ocaasi t | c 20:38, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject India invitation

Namaste! Ocaasi,

Behalf of WikiProject India I am inviting you to join our WikiProject.

Please note

If you join WikiProject India, we will happily give you—

  • Lifetime free access to JSTOR.
  • Support in any dispute (merit of your arguments etc don't matter. We'll just go and support).
  • Guaranteed Adminship in next six months.
  • 50 Barnstars per month.

And
If you become one of the selected editors of the year, you will win—

Or,
We can give you none of these things. Truly, we can give you almost nothing. WikiProject India is a Wikiproject who are attempting to improve everyday and YOU can help us. Now, you have to decide whether you'll join or not.

Thank you. -- Tito☸Dutta 21:16, 31 August 2013 (UTC).


Note
This invitation contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous. Please use this invitation template carefully and avoid using it for new editors.

Cochrane account

Hi Ocaasi, I got the message of approval of my Cochrane account through Edwordsbot carrying your signature. It directed me to a a SurveyMonkey form, but inspite of filling the form and submitting it, no account seems to be forthcoming. Could you plz help me. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 11:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC).

Hi, Sorry for the confusion. Cochrane still needs to set up the access with your information and then email it out to you. I'm aiming for Sept 15 delivery. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 13:37, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the update.Hindustanilanguage (talk) 14:54, 1 September 2013 (UTC).

HighBeam

Hi Ocaasi, I have used HighBeam profusely over the past year but now my subscription seems to have expired and I am once again handicapped in my research and ability to contribute to content creation. I've listed for the January group but if there are any cancellations from the August group I could really use a HB renewal right away. Thanks so much !! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:53, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey Keithbob. I'm working on it... i have written confirmation that the account renewal is happening and am just waiting to receive the new codes. You'll have them as soon as I do. I'm glad HighBeam is useful enough that you don't want to be without it, even for a day. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 19:56, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks!!!!!!!! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:58, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Another waiting for renewal… --Smkolins (talk) 23:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam and Questia

Hi there! I just wanted to follow up regarding this. Can anything be done? Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Re: The Wikipedia Library

I went to check up on those links you pointed me to in our earlier discussion, and saw JSTOR on the list - a place I remember seeing several journal articles linked to. But they take 100 people and the waiting list is 273 people, the oldest since April last year. That's why I'm entirely dissuaded from applying - I've no idea what, if anything, I'm going to be looking up at JSTOR in 2015 or whenever. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:57, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Joy, Hi yes, that backlog is long. I'd still recommend you apply. It helps us demonstrate demand to JSTOR. We're working on expanding the pilot program with them, although admittedly these partnerships can take time and are not guarantees. Best, Ocaasi t | c 16:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Got it. Thank you for the interest in any case :) --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:59, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for September 5

Did you know?

You can search for images directly in VisualEditor. Click the media icon, which looks like this:

Then type a few keywords into the search box. VisualEditor will search Commons for images or other files whose titles or descriptions contain those words, and will display thumbnail pictures of them for your review. Click one time on the image you want to insert in the article.

For more details, read VisualEditor's user guide.

This Thursday's VisualEditor update was mostly about stability and performance improvements, and some preparatory work for major planned improvements, along with bug fixes for non-English language support and right-to-left text. Everything that the English Wikipedia received today has been running on Mediawiki for a week already.

Officially, the problem with the link inspector not linking to a specific section on a page (bug 53219) was fixed in this release, although that critical patch actually appeared here earlier.

A number of bugs related to copy-and-paste functionality were fixed (48604, bug 50043, bug 53362, bug 51538, among others). Full rich copy-and-paste from external sources into VisualEditor is expected "soon".

In other fixes, you can no longer add empty ref tags (<ref/>) (bug 53345). Selecting both an image and some text, and then trying to add a link, previously deleted the selected image and the text. This was fixed in bug 50127. There was another problem related to using arrow keys to move the cursor next to an inline image that was fixed (bug 53507).

Looking ahead: The next planned upgrade is scheduled for next Thursday, and you should expect to find a redesigned toolbar with drop-down menus that include room for references, templates, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript, and code formatting. There will also be keyboard shortcuts for setting the format (paragraph vs section headings).

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being determined at this time. Generally speaking, languages that depend on the input method editor are not going to receive VisualEditor this month. The current target date is Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 September 2013

This Month in GLAM: August 2013



Headlines
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 08:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Warning!!!

Please don't delete things on the Wikipedia,like on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TWA/Badge. ==WIKIGEEK4970== 06:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikigeek4970 (talk • contribs)

Hi Wikigeek, that was a page I created and needed to clean up. Welcome to Wikipedia. You might want to drop by the Teahouse to meet some other new editors and folks who can help with getting familiar with the community. Consider yourself invited. Also, please sign your posts with ~~~~, that way we know who is sending messages. Cheers and see you around! Ocaasi t | c 20:02, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!!==WIKIGEEK4970== 06:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikigeek4970 (talk • contribs)

A barnstar for you!

The Admin's Barnstar
Thanks to you for your good work!!! ==WIKIGEEK4970== 06:24, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 September 2013

ThatCampPhilly Edit-a-thon Invitation

CHF small logo
 Please join the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at THATCamp Philly, September 27, 2013, held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Bring your own content to work on, or get an early start on Ada Lovelace Day with our resources about women in science, chemistry and the history of science.

Looking forward to seeing you! Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 16:48, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for September 19, 2013

Did you know?

You can edit a page's categories in VisualEditor. Click the "Page settings" button (next to Cancel/Save) in the toolbar to open the category tool. It will show you a list of the current categories for that page.

To add a category, type the name of the category you want to add in the search field. To remove an existing category, click on the category in the list and then, in the dialog that opens, click on the "Remove" icon (trash can). "Options" will allow you to set a default sorting key.

For more details, read VisualEditor's user guide.

VisualEditor has been updated twice in the last two weeks. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week.

As announced, the toolbar was redesigned to be simpler, shorter, and to have the ability to have drop-down groups with descriptions. What you see now is the initial configuration and is expected to change in response to feedback from the English Wikipedia and other Wikipedias. The controls to add <u> (underline), <sub> (subscript), and <sup> (superscript), <s> (strikethrough) and <code> (computer code/monospace font) annotations to text are available to all users in the drop-down menu. At the moment, all but the most basic tools have been moved into a single drop-down menu, including the tools for inserting media, references, reference lists, and templates. The current location of all of the items in the toolbar is temporary, and your opinions about the best order are needed! Please offer suggestions at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Toolbar.

In an eagerly anticipated upgrade to the reference dialog, newly added references or reference groups no longer need the page to be saved before they can be re-used (bugs 51689 and 52000). The 'Use existing reference' button is now disabled on pages which don't yet have any references (bug 51848). The template parameter filter in the transclusion dialog now searches both parameter name and label (bug 51670).

In response to several requests, there are some new keyboard shortcuts. You can now set the block/paragraph formatting from the keyboard: Ctrl+0 sets a block as a regular paragraph; Ctrl+1 up to Ctrl+6 sets it as a Heading 1 ("Page title") to Heading 6 ("Sub-heading 4"); Ctrl+7 sets it as pre-formatted (bug 33512). Ctrl+2, which creates level 2 section headings, may be the most useful.

Some improvements were made to capitalization for links, so typing in "iPhone" will offer a link to "iPhone" as well as "IPhone" (bug 50452).

Copying and pasting within the same document should work better as of today's update, as should copying from VisualEditor into a third-party application (bug 53364, bug 52271, bug 52460). Work on copying and pasting between VisualEditor instances (for example, between two articles) and retaining formatting when copying from an external source into VisualEditor is progressing.

Major improvements to editing with input method editors (IMEs; mostly used for Indic and East Asian languages) are being deployed today. This is a complex change, so it may produce unexpected errors. On a related point, the names of languages listed in the "languages" (langlinks) panel in the Page settings dialog now display as RTL when appropriate (bug 53503).

Looking ahead: The help/'beta' menu will soon expose the build number next to the "Leave feedback" link, so users can give more specific reports about issues they encounter (bug 53050). This change will make it easier for developers to identify any cacheing issues, once it starts reporting the build number (currently, it says "Version false"). Also, inserting a link, reference or media file will put the cursor after the new content again (bug 53560). Next week’s update will likely improve how dropdowns and other selection menus behave when they do not fit on the screen, with things scrolling so the selected item is always in view.

If you are active at other Wikipedias, the next group of Wikipedias to have VisualEditor offered to all users is being finalized. About two dozen Wikipedias are on the list for Tuesday, September 24 for logged-in users only, and on Monday, September 30 for unregistered editors. You can help with translating the documentation. In several cases, most of the translation is already done, and it only needs to be copied over to the relevant Wikipedia. If you are interested in finding out whether a particular Wikipedia is currently on the list, you can leave a message for me at my talk page.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 September 2013

Cochrane Collaboration's library of medical reviews

Hello, I filled the short form on the 30.8 but still did not get my mail about the access. Could you please check? --Yoavd (talk) 09:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Yoavd, I will check today. I'm actually meeting Cochrane folks in Quebec all this week. Also, be sure to check the Spam folder in your email; maybe it got caught. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 13:34, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! I got it 3 days ago.... thanks a lot --Yoavd (talk) 13:50, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I responded a month ago, and still don't seem to have anything. I checked my spam folder ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Redlinks!

Hey Ocaasi. I noticed at sq:WP:Kuvendi#Free_Research_Accounts_from_Leading_Medical_Publisher._Come_and_Sign_up.21 your post generated red links. It's not a very active project (their main page has been going down lately), but I thought whatever it is that caused this might be affecting other inter-language links you've been posting. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Biosthmors, I royally screwed up the messaging with Edwards bot a while back. I have fixed that page, and I know some of the others were fixed locally. Will keep an eye on them and be more careful next time! Ocaasi t | c 14:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 September 2013

Cochrane

Hi, Ocaasi ... I responded to the survey, and have checked my spam folder ... but do not have any notice on Cochrane. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi, SandyGeorgia, I'm going to contact Cochrane today and see what's up. Will get your code to you asap. Best, Ocaasi t | c 15:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

HighBeam renewal

Hi Ocaasi, Wikipedia:HighBeam/Approved shows that my account has been renewed but I'm still unable to access complete articles. — Bill william comptonTalk 12:27, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey Bill william compton, a new code will be emailed to you, hopefully this week. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:07, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you :) — Bill william comptonTalk 06:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Hello Ocassi, I wrote you a few months ago about the renewal ([6], [7]), but I never got a new code :( Could you help me? Tnx! --Delfort (talk) 21:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Hey Delfort, sorry if I missed your messages. It actually took several months to renew the donation from HighBeam. They just got finally approved and should go out this week. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 00:50, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much Ocaasi, you are so kind. Should I do something to get the renewal? Thank you again, --Delfort (talk) 06:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Ocaasi. You have new messages at Trevj's talk page.
Message added 08:32, 3 October 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Just activated my renewed HighBeam account. Thank you very much for your efforts! The Banner talk 15:09, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ocaasi, thanks for my HighBeam renewal code, and for all your hard work. —Bruce1eetalk 06:16, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
+1. Thanks, — Racconish Tk 18:39, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

You're mentioned elsewhere

Hi Ocaasi. Just a quick note as a matter or courtesy to let you know I'm mentioning you at User_talk:Merrilee#Displaying_Dewey_numbers_on_Wikipedia_pages Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

E-mail

I have E-mail enabled now, I changed usernames but it should work now. Seattle (talk) 13:15, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 October 2013

Grant / research involving User:Anne Delong

What's the grant/research you are working on/proposing that involves/involved User:Anne Delong? See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#Reviewing the Anne Delong phenomena. It is imperative that this moves forward. I'm told you have proposed something similar? Please enlighten me so that I can give my formal support. (Reply on my Talk page or I won't remember shit.) —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 03:20, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ahnoneemoos. I interviewed Anne for background research to inform my work on an onboarding project called The Wikipedia Adventure, but I'm not doing any formal research around her trajectory. I completely agree that she's a superstar and if I knew how to bottle what she has I would give it to all of our newcomers (and most of our old hands). If you have a proposal idea, why don't you write something up. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 03:52, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
I think we should research what compels someone to contribute to Wikipedia and REMAIN contributing. If we can crack that code then we can build programs that nurture that. I'm too busy in real life to dedicate myself to that but perhaps you can point me in the right direction on whom should I contact to make this a reality? Considering that WP:WMF is headquartered in San Francisco perhaps we can do a joint research with San Francisco State University? —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 14:38, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi Ahnoneemoos. There has indeed been a lot of research into this very question. I recommend for your reading:
What you might want to consider is the way these fit together. There is Getting Started, Teahouse, Wikipedia Adventure, Mentorship, WikiProjects, Education Program, and GLAM and other offline Outreach, among others. All of these play a role in creating an editor engagement and retention ecosystem that makes people want to contribute. I'm not sure a singe research program would be as effective as a targeted pilot program which addresses improving one of these areas. If you have an idea, I strongly recommend you write it up in the Meta:IdeaLab where you can get some community feedback and support on it. Let me know if you have anything you'd like me to take a look at. Best, Ocaasi t | c 21:43, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Please join the discussion taking place at User talk:Maryana (WMF)#Motivations behind editing Wikipedia. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: September 2013



Headlines
  • Belgium report: Europeana Fashion Fashion edit-a-thon; Wiki Loves Monuments
  • France report: Aerial pictures of Versailles; In Brief
  • Germany report: Reaching out for new partners
  • India report: Wiki Loves Monuments in India
  • Italy report: Italian Wikipedia takes libraries
  • Mexico report: Wiki Loves Monuments 2013; edit-a-thon in La Merced historical neighborhood
  • Netherlands report: Wiki Loves Monuments; ECNC photo competition; Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thon Antwerp; Fourth Dutch Wikipedian in Residence; Wiki loves libraries workshop; 10 years of CC licenses
  • Spain report: Amical projects: Catalan Culture; Wiki Loves Monuments
  • Sweden report: Sign language and case studies
  • Switzerland report: New cooperation with Botanical Garden; History of Alps update; OpenGLAM workshop at OKCon
  • UK report: The Morning After the Month Before
  • USA report: Wikipedia at the Metropolitan New York Library Council in New York
  • Wiki Loves Monuments report: The world's largest photography contest has struck again, but missed many countries
  • Open Access report: Thanks, OKCon, featured content, stats and a final
  • Calendar: October's GLAM events
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 07:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations

You're an Ambassador. That is, unless you remove your name. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 October 2013

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

LexisNexis

You did wonderful work with so far. Is LexisNexis also on the radar to become a partner? You would make me really, really happy when you could achieve that! They offer a lot of Dutch sources that at present are out of my (financial) reach... The Banner talk 22:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey The Banner. LexisNexis is definitely on my radar. Working on it... Thanks for the tip! Ocaasi t | c 12:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks in advance! The Banner talk 12:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam Renewal Code

Hi Ocaasi,

I saw that my name got moved to the "completed" page, and I think I saw an email flash through my inbox about it, but I can't find my new Highbeam code in any of my mail folders. Can you resend my code, I seem to have lost it. Thanks! Livit⇑Eh?/What? 16:34, 15 October 2013 (UTC) Livitup, sent! Ocaasi t | c 17:14, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Flow Newsletter

Hey Ocaasi. I'm dropping you a note to let you know (or remind you) about Flow, the structured discussion system for Wikipedia that we're building. You may have heard about some of the longer-term vision for Flow in the past, but in the last two months we've been moving quickly to narrow down the short-term scope of the project, and we're keen to get feedback.

First: we've written up an explanation of the "minimum viable product" – the set of features that will be in the first, on-wiki deployment. Because discussions on Wikipedia are complex and varied, we're approaching Flow development as an incremental process of uncovering user needs for different types of discussion. The first release will be limited to a few WikiProject talkpages only, with the goal of testing out our first stab at peer-to-peer discussion functionality and improving it based on feedback from the WikiProject members who use it. If you've got any thoughts on the MVP, or on the philosophy we're trying to follow with this software, let us know on the Flow talkpage. If you know of a WikiProject that might be interested in testing this out, let Maryana know on her talkpage :)

Second: we're having a set of discussions around some experimental features we'll be trying in the first release. These include indenting and nesting of comments and comment editing. If you've got any practical thoughts on these, we'd appreciate hearing them. For background and feedback on the design, there are the ongoing set of design iteration notes, a Design FAQ, and a page for design feedback.

The software prototype is still in early development, and changing daily in small ways, with major goals updating every 2 weeks. If you've got comments about other bits of the software, we'll be holding an IRC office hours session in #wikimedia-office at 18:00 UTC on 17 November to talk about Flow as a whole, and fielding questions on the talkpage before and after then.

Third: this is a pre-newsletter announcement of a new WP:Flow/Newsletter signup page! If you'd like further updates, details, and requests for input, please add your name there.

Thanks, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Due to multiple-human-error (the best kind of error!) the Office Hours meeting was announced with the wrong month. The logs for today's (quiet) meeting, can be seen at m:IRC office hours#Office hour logs.
The updated time and date of our next IRC office hours meeting is: 18:00 UTC on 24 October. Thanks, and sorry about the mixup. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:38, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter on 16 October 2013

Did you know?

You can create and edit multi-level lists in VisualEditor. The first two icons let you set or remove list formatting.

The last two are used to increase or decrease the indentation level. This can also be done from the keyboard, by using Tab ↹ to indent the list and ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ to outdent it.

For more information, read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

VisualEditor is still being updated every Thursday. As usual, what is now running on the English Wikipedia had a test run at Mediawiki during the previous week. If you haven't done so already, you can turn on VisualEditor by going to your preferences and choosing the item, "MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-enable".

The reference dialog for all Wikipedias, especially the way it handles citation templates, is being redesigned. Please offer suggestions and opinions at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. (Use your Wikipedia username/password to login there.) You can also drag and drop references (select the reference, then hover over the selected item until your cursor turns into the drag-and-drop tool). This also works for some templates, images, and other page elements (but not yet for text or floated items). References are now editable when they appear inside a media item's caption (bug 50459).

There were a number of miscellaneous fixes made: Firstly, there was a bug that meant that it was impossible to move the cursor using the keyboard away from a selected node (like a reference or template) once it had been selected (bug 54443). Several improvements have been made to scrollable windows, panels, and menus when they don't fit on the screen or when the selected item moves off-screen. Editing in the "slug" at the start of a page no longer shows up a chess pawn character ("♙") in some circumstances (bug 54791). Another bug meant that links with a final punctuation character in them broke extending them in some circumstances (bug 54332). The "page settings" dialog once again allows you to remove categories (bug 54727). There have been some problems with deployment scripts, including one that resulted in VisualEditor being broken for an hour or two at all Wikipedias (bug 54935). Finally, snowmen characters ("☃") no longer appear near newly added references, templates and other nodes (bug 54712).

Looking ahead: Development work right now is on rich copy-and-paste abilities, quicker addition of citation templates in references, setting media items' options (such as being able to put images on the left), switching into wikitext mode, and simplifying the toolbar. A significant amount of work is being done on other languages during this month. If you speak a language other than English, you can help with translating the documentation.

For other questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and other ideas at Wikipedia talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Ocaasi. You have new messages at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure/Feedback‎.
Message added 23:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Not sure who to notify of feedback I realize I sounded pretty critical in my feedback, but TWA is a really great initiative. Good luck! Ross Hill (talk) 23:40, 16 Oct 2013 (UTC) 23:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Ross Hill You notified the right guy :) Thanks for being honest. I will dig into all of the feedback this week and incorporate as many good suggestions as I can. I really appreciate you taking the time! Ocaasi t | c 23:54, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Logging of TWA

Enabling shouldLog: true as a part of gt.defineTour will automatically log TWA according to Schema:GuidedTour. I did the first one for you, as an example. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:50, 16 October 2013 (UTC) CC: Sbouterse (WMF)

Steven (WMF), Thanks! That's remarkably easy. I will do up the rest. Let me know if you have any sudden brainstorms about our testing dilemma. I can't wait to get some actual data. Ocaasi t | c 23:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Moved signup to WT:TH

I hope you don't mind, I've moved the signup for TWA from the Teahouse Question Forum to the Teahouse talk because WP:TH/Q should only be for Q&A. I've replaced the section with a link to the talk page. Thanks! Ross Hill (talk) 00:57, 17 Oct 2013 (UTC) 00:57, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Library

This is a kind of odd idea, but I was wondering how if at all useful it might perhaps be if we could somehow do something like I indicated at the Library talk page, and maybe, somehow, get some sort of category for pdf files at wikimedia commons set up here which would include the various generally full text public domain pdf files which people have and will upload. I have myself started with some of the religious reference sources in the PD, and have about a twenty-page list of other PD reference sources from a catalogue of reference works based on the first 300 or so pages of it. Making it easier for editors to find reference sources, even those dated ones, might be useful for some of the content which isn't quite so current, and certainly can help establishing notability of some of the topics. Unfortunately, I have no idea whether we have such categories in one WF entity for use in another WF entity, or even a really clear idea where to discuss the possible creation of such. John Carter (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment

As you previously participated in related discussions you are invited to comment at the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC for AfC reviewer permission criteria. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:36, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.
-- 19:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

TWA alpha testing

Interesting idea! I got as far as "Galactic Challenge" after selecting from the multiple-choice list of possible user pages. (I selected the "Sofy" user page.) At that point, I can't click either the "Continue on the adventure" link or the double blue arrows. I'm using Chrome 30.0.1599.101. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey Seraphimblade, thanks for the feedback! That's a screen resolution issue which causes the images in the background to overlap the text box and the link inside it making it unclickable. On my 17 inch Windows laptop running the latest Chrome, it happens below 75% zoom or above 150%. I will talk to the design guru to see if we can make that not happen, or at least much less likely. Cheers :) Ocaasi t | c 04:09, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm running Chrome at standard (100%) zoom. It is on a 28" external monitor over HDMI rather than on the main laptop screen though, resolution set to 1920x1080. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:29, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I may do it, but out of curiosity, what age range are you aiming it at? Our younger editors, or just something that appeals to everyone? Thanks, Matty.007 17:27, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi Matty.007. The target we selected was college aged men and women who would enjoy a playful, educational introduction to Wikipedia. Some editors have expressed the opinion that the informal tone reads as targeting a younger audience. This is ultimately something we want to test and will analyze once we have data in the next few months. Best, Ocaasi t | c 18:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Out of interest, did you know that it doesn't work on IE? Thanks, Matty.007 18:41, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
What version of IE are you running? It loads for me on IE 10. Cheers, Matty. --Ocaasi t | c 18:48, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Looks like I had accidentally pressed 'Compatibility view'. Sorry, Matty.007 18:56, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
These notes weren't too in depth, were they? Thanks, Matty.007 19:29, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Detailed feedback is AWESOME. I will dig throught it all. Cheers, Matty. --Ocaasi t | c 19:45, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar. Where do you want the additional help info to be put? Thanks, Matty.007 16:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome! Matty.007, @ the WP:TWA/Feedback page would be awesome. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 16:02, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the other barnstar. Do you know when TWA will go 'live' as it were? Thanks, Matty.007 14:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Matty.007, you're welcome! The game is of course 'live' now as the link is up and public. We are running an extensive beta-test in November where the several thousand new editors will be invited to play it. Then we'll analyze the data from their editing as described here: Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Adventure/Impact. After that, it depends, what the data shows. Thanks again for giving such great feedback. Feel free to try the game a third time with a brand new account. I dare you to find one more bug! :) Jake Ocaasi t | c 14:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Should the tag at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure not say 'Beta' test, or Gamma, seeing as the alpha test has been and gone? Thanks, Matty.007 14:40, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

, Matty.007, technically we're in alpha until we start inviting those thousands of new users in November. Then I'll update the tag... Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, I wasn't quite sure. Thanks, Matty.007 15:48, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Adventure symbolism interpretation

Possibly of interest --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Re: Barnstar

Hi!

I wanted to say thank you for the barnstar, but I don't know why I am an alpha-tester. When I first knew about the game, I was so excited that I wanted to play it, but I couldn't, and I am still not able to, I don't know why. So here's my questions... 1) What can I do to play it? I click on 1st Mission and it only shows the bars coloured in pink. 2) What is an alpha tester? Thanks again for the barnstar. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 14:49, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Miss Bono, Hi! You're an alpha tester for your helpful feedback at WP:TWA/Feedback. Even if the game didn't work for you it helped me to improve it. I suspect that you do not have Javascript enabled in your browser, so the game will not load the instructional guidance, which requires javascript. If you enable javascript, hopefully it will work. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 14:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Oh, cool! How can I enable Javascript in my browser. Sorry for my ignorance. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 14:57, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Miss Bono, try this site: http://www.enable-javascript.com/ Ocaasi t | c 15:08, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm at work so that means I have no access to most of the web. No prblem, thanks anyway. Miss Bono [hello, hello!] 15:12, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

You're very welcome, and thanks for the barnstar. – Ypnypn (talk) 16:23, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

About the barnstar

G'day, Ocaasi. I just wanted to say thanks for the barnstar. And that if you need anything else to be tested, I'd be happy to see what I could do. Tambelon (talk) 17:14, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank You

Hello! Thank you very much for the barnstar. I hope I was of at least some help to you, and I shall try to do more.

Perhaps this is obvious, but I had a question regarding the creation of an alternate account for testing purposes: is that the preferable thing to do? Or, to put it another way, why exactly would one do that?

Again I thank you for the barnstar! As the Crow Flies (talk) 22:02, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

As the Crow Flies, you're welcome. A known bug of the game is that if you replay it, it resends the same messages to the same pages. This breaks the formatting quite badly. So the easiest way to retest is to start from scratch with a legitimate alternate account for testing purposes only. The hope is that when people play the game 'for real', they will play it through once, as otherwise it becomes far more bug-prone. A longer term goal is making it more robust, but for now we're aiming just for it working right the first time all the way through. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 22:07, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
That makes perfect sense. I didn't even think of that. Yes, I can see how that would be helpful. Thanks!
(honestly, how could I not have thought of that?) As the Crow Flies (talk) 22:27, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
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