User talk:Ben MacDui/Archive 20

Three years ago ...
wild and lonely places; of North Britain
	... you were recipient; no. 374 of Precious,; a prize of QAI!

Churches in Scotland[edit]

Hi, I was wondering if you'd be interested in creating a few lists for Template:Lists of churches in Scotland by council area? I've started a basic one for Highland. Eventually it would be good to have detailed tabled lists by sub area with pretty pictures! It's a huge task though but worth starting.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see what I can do for Shetland and maybe the Outer Limits. Ben Mac Dui 17:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And I say céile-dé :b But that's just a tangent. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's all Greek to me mate.

The above two lists are now available in colour etc. I am not over familiar with the labyrinth of Free Churches, continuing or otherwise and I hope I have not committed some dreadful sin by mis-allocating any. Ben Mac Dui 18:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality[edit]

Hi, I see your comment at the nationality discussion at the Village Pump. Did ye ken that the originator of that is edit warring at James Clerk Maxwell? The discussion started there. 71.228.66.131 (talk) 18:39, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saxons[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui -- Happy holidays to you! I just thought you might be able to address the concerns of two different editors at Talk:Saxons#Sassenach - What was it before 1771? and the comment right before it. CorinneSD (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness - I can't add anything to Brianann's reply but I know someone who may. Any ideas @Akerbeltz:? Ben Mac Dui 17:08, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seasonal greetings[edit]

	Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive 2015!
	Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:41, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Auld Lang Syne to 2014 and Happy New Year! Always a pleasure to hear from you too! Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reference Errors on 29 December[edit]

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

On the Thorfinn the Mighty page, your edit caused a broken reference name (help) and a cite error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Global account[edit]

Hi Ben MacDui! As a Steward I'm involved in the upcoming unification of all accounts organized by the Wikimedia Foundation (see m:Single User Login finalisation announcement). By looking at your your account, I realized that you don't have a global account yet. In order to secure your name, I recommend you to create such account on your own by submitting your password on Special:MergeAccount and unifying your local accounts. If you have any problems with doing that or further questions, please don't hesitate to ping me with {{ping|DerHexer}}. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:03, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@DerHexer: Thanks for your message - and please forgive my lack of enthusiasm for figuring all this out. It is a regretable feature of the IT world that clever people are continually thinking up new ways to help that turn out to be an inconvenience. I have a Commons presence here that I stopped using some time ago. This was mostly because when I logged in there and then went back to en:wikipedia, this wonderful new system assumed that I was this person, so creating a nice new sock for me. No great harm done I suppose, but I am not sure how this is supposed to benefit me. Furthermore, I had a perfectly sensible presence on Commons and have no particular wish to be known by my en:Wiki nom de plume there (or vice versa). What do you advise? Yours etc. with several names, one of which is W. L. Tarbert (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2014 (UTC) (See, it's done it again).[reply]

If you don't want to have your accounts merged (which can be done from late January when an account merge tool will be available for Stewards), I recommend you to create two global accounts that you had to use in two independent browsers. Whether or not both accounts will be unified somehow and I recommend you to do that on your own instead of leaving that to the Wikimedia Foundation. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 22:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Login unification complete!" Hurrah you may say - but forgive me for being unimpressed. This took me about 30 minutes, including interludes in which the computer demanded upgrades to go with an almost never-used second brower and someone called Lara Grace interrupted my musings with some sort of gift-cum-questionnaire that demands more upgrades. Net benefit to me, so far as I can see, none whatever. Signature to follow from whoever it is the computer thinks I am today. Ben Mac Dui 15:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC) PS Very spammy Commons survey with additional unrequested ads thrown in. Very, very dubious.[reply]

Using font tags in your signature[edit]

Hello there! I'm working on a project trying to bring most of the coding on Wikipedia up to the most current standards (HTML5), and I noticed that your signature is using <font>...</font> tags which were deprecated in HTML 4.0 Transitional, marked as invalid in 4.0 Strict, and are not part of HTML5 at all. I'd love to help you update your signature to use newer code, and if you're interested, I suggest replacing:

[[User:Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#6495ED;">Ben</span>]] [[User talk:Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#C154C1;">Mac</span>]][[Special:Contributions/Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#228B22;">Dui</span>]]

with:

[[User:Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#6495ED">Ben</span>]] [[User talk:Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#C154C1">Mac</span>]][[Special:Contributions/Ben MacDui|<span style="color:#228B22">Dui</span>]]

which will result in a 197 character long signature with an appearance of: Ben Mac Duicompared to your existing 179 character long signature of: Ben Mac Dui — Either way. Happy editing! Darylgolden^(talk) 09:48, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Ben Mac Dui 13:16, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year![edit]

Dear Ben MacDui,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
--FWiW Bzuk (talk)

This message promotes WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4 (see "invisible note").

The Waterboys' Paul Brown[edit]

Hello! I see you may have an interest for The Waterboys' Paul Brown article. The artist requested help on the IRC channel recently to develop this article, and made a copy and paste copyvio draft on the talk page (which has already been taken care of and deleted). As a result of this, I talk to them a bit and got them to post a list of possible sources on the talk page instead. I've copied the WikiProject banners from the band's talk page, and this page will need to have each WikiProject assess their own importance and ratings on the topic. Thank you for your assistance. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Torf-Einarr[edit]

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Torf-Einarr you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Seattle -- Seattle (talk) 08:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Torf-Einarr[edit]

The article Torf-Einarr you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Torf-Einarr for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Seattle -- Seattle (talk) 07:40, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your GA nomination of Torf-Einarr[edit]

The article Torf-Einarr you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Torf-Einarr for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Seattle -- Seattle (talk) 18:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Precious again[edit]

wild and lonely places of North Britain
Thank you for quality articles on the Scottish islands, such as Skye, and people such as Rachel Chiesley, Lady Grange, for your recipe against wikistress, and for quoting "the mutual creation of capacity, building the ability of the other person or group to become, in turn, a giver of life and responsibility", - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (16 August 2010)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Two years ago, you were the 374th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:50, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Block extended[edit]

Wsnewspublishers overwrote your block notice and went on filling their talk page with spam, so I have converted their block to an indef spam-username block. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. Ben Mac Dui 12:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Haakon Sigurdsson[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui! I hope you are well – haven't seen many edits from you in a while. Do you agree with this edit to Haakon Sigurdsson? [1] CorinneSD (talk) 22:57, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am well - and thank-you for asking. You are right that I have been absent of late: a combination of a busy life off-wiki and ennui with the daily grind of fending off the ill-informed on-wiki. Re Haakon, I have become very tolerant of varied orthographies - the Rulers of the Kingdom of the Isles is almost impossible to make consistent and I have toyed with the idea of listing everyone with English, Norse, Gaelic and Latin names just for the hell of it. I have no doubt that the edit you mention will annoy Norse enthusiasts and modern scholars alike, but I can't think of any wiki-policy to contest it. "You say Yrric, I say Eiríkr, (let's call the whole thing off)..." Ben Mac Dui

O.K., and it's good to see you back. CorinneSD (talk) 00:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello from the team at Featured article review![edit]

We are preparing to take a closer look at Featured articles promoted in 2004–2010 that may need a review. We started with a script-compiled list of older FAs that have not had a recent formal review. The next step is to prune the list by removing articles that are still actively maintained, up-to-date, and believed to meet current standards. We know that many of you personally maintain articles that you nominated, so we'd appreciate your help in winnowing the list where appropriate.

Please take a look at the sandbox list, check over the FAs listed by your name, and indicate on the sandbox talk page your assessment of their current status. Likewise, if you have taken on the maintenance of any listed FAs that were originally nominated by a departed editor, please indicate their status. BLPs should be given especially careful consideration.

Thanks for your help! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/sandbox#Pinging next round; thanks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

High Pasture Cave[edit]

Hi. Some time ago you suggested adding in the High Pasture Cave lyre find to Prehistoric art in Scotland. I am a bit confused about the date of this artefact. The only sources I can get to online seem to suggest a date of 2000 BCE or more, but you changed the date on the High Pasture Cave article to 300 BCE. Do you have access to a source that indicates that it has been carbon dated? I also suppose if it dates from only 300 BCE it is not as significant. I hope you can clarify. All the best.--SabreBD (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Highland Council and BBC online soruces say c. 2,300 years ago and http://www.high-pasture-cave.org/ just refers to Iron Age finds and c 2,000 years ago. Historic Scotland have the same. I am not aware of any carbon dating. Cheers. Ben Mac Dui 08:17, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for that and those sources. All the best.--SabreBD (talk) 08:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mull[edit]

See User_talk:Anthony_Appleyard#Mull re recent page moves. PamD 08:59, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. Ben Mac Dui 18:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Saxons 2[edit]

I was looking at this edit to Saxons [2], and, wondering why the phrase had been de-linked, I typed it into the search box. It led to a "Did you mean...?" page with a different spelling. Is this a spelling error or a different term entirely? If there is an article to which this can be linked, it would be nice to create the correct link. CorinneSD (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest I have no idea - I am quite unfamiliar with this work. My excuse, predictably enough, is that I am not a "Sassenach" myself. Ben Mac Dui 15:05, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Orkneyjar[edit]

Hey, MacDui, I hope all is well and you're enjoying your semi-retirement? Selfishly, I miss having you around! I have just pinged you at the FAC for Nuckelavee but I noticed somewhere you said to leave a message on your talk page, so here I am! SagaciousPhil - Chat 10:00, 27 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library needs you![edit]

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Request for comment[edit]

An editor has asked for a discussion on the deprecation of Template:English variant notice. Since you've had some involvement with the English variant notice template, you might want to participate in the discussion if you have not already done so.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 07:17, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Killua Castle[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui! I hope you will visit your talk page now and then and continue occasionally to make edits. I'd like to ask you for your opinion. I was looking at the article on Killua Castle, and I made a few minor copy-edits to the captions. Then I really looked at the second image in the article, showing Killua Castle in the distance with what looks like scaffolding around it. I'm wondering whether this image should just be deleted. It doesn't show the castle clearly, and the image just above it is a very nice photo of the castle. Corinne (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words. I don't know about deletion but it appears to add nothing to the article and IMHO could be removed. All the best. Ben Mac Dui 18:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. I meant "removed". I guess "delete" is better for text. I'll remove that image. Corinne (talk) 19:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New pages feed[edit]

Hi MacDui, What is the latest thinking on these Disamg. pages regarding citations. I see a lot of these types of dis page in the New Page Feed and it reports on the generated page, that it has no No Citations, yet the Metadata Info page reports that the page is fine no problem. {[Chacon|Chacon]] is a classic example. Do these pages normally need to have citation or is it some bad reporting bug? I know you love that IT!! lol. scope_creep (talk 08:52, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DAB is quite clear: "Do not include references in disambiguation pages." There are no exceptions as such although 'set index' articles (e.g. Category:Scottish Island set index articles) are a sort of special dab page that allow for discussion and refs. I know nothing of 'Metadata Info page reports' I'm afraid. Ben Mac Dui 09:07, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Email[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui. 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.

Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Scottish English[edit]

Template:Scottish English has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. AusLondonder (talk) 01:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary[edit]

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:33, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Four years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

... and five! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Six Nations[edit]

Hi Ben, thought this might interest you, see the bottom of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wales. If you see the content for WP:Atdrag at the bottom, the idea would be to get that coming in from each of the nations, including Scotland and an overall winner. Feel free to comment on the Wales page if you see potential, cheers.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:26, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for external resources[edit]

Hi Ben, several months ago I saw a WP drive to list all those external resources, like magazines, news databases, other digital libraries, JSTOR etc, and the mechanism to request access those resources by WP editors. It was a fairly big list by the time everybody added their entries for their own particular interests. I was looking for it on WP, and can't seem to locate it. I want to get access to a couple of places, and Cryptologia magazine particularly and a logic mag, which may be in JSTOR, I don't know. Do you have any idea where I can find it. scope_creep 12:36, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't know, but it might be connected to The Library. Good luck. Ben Mac Dui

Thanks Ben, that it. I've applied for and got jstor login as a start. Hope it's useful. Thanks. Bob. scope_creep 11:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended confirmed protection[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge[edit]

Hi, at Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge we're striving to bring about 10,000 article improvements and creations for the UK and Ireland and inspire others to create more content. In order to achieve this we need diversity of content, in all parts of the UK and Ireland on all topics. Eventually a regional contest will be held for all parts of the British Isles, like they were for Wales and the Wedt Country. We currently have just over 1900 articles and need contributors! If you think you'd be interested in collaborating on this and helping reach the target quicker, please sign up and begin listing your entries there as soon as possible! Thanks.♦ --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:40, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

St Kilda[edit]

I've moved my quote to a new "Other" section at the end of the page $Brookie :) { - like the mist - there one moment and then gone!} (Whisper...)$ 16:20, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure where it might fit tbh. Is it a contemporary remark? Ben Mac Dui

Torsa[edit]

Thank you for cleaning up the mess I made with Torsa disambiguation. I suspected even while I was making it, that there must be a better way. Maproom (talk) 21:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome. There is actually a case for 'Torsa' being the dab but given all the links to the island it seemed like the path of least resistance to keep it there. Ben Mac Dui 16:00, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Europe 10,000 Challenge invite[edit]

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 02:28, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins[edit]

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A new user right for New Page Patrollers[edit]

Hi Ben MacDui.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New Page Patroller[edit]

Hi Ben, I seem to have lost the New Page Patroller/New Page Reviewer permission and I can no longer review new pages. I wasn't informed the permission was removed, there was no announcement or email, which was bit shabby. I noticed it today. It seems to have happened several weeks ago without me noticing it. Can you find out why it's been removed and if possible get it restored. I really enjoy doing it. scope_creep (talk) 17:34, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest[edit]

Hi. This month The Women in Red World Contest is being held to try to produce new articles for as many countries worldwide and occupations as possible. There is over £3000 in prizes to win, including Amazon vouchers and paid subscriptions. Wikimedia UK is putting up £250 specifically for editors who produce the most quality new women bios for British women, with special consideration given to missing notable biographies from the Oxford Dictionary of Biography and Welsh Dictionary of Biography. If you're not interested in prize money yourself but are willing to participate independently this is also fine, but please add any articles created to the bottom of the main contest page even if not competing. Your participation in the contest and contributing articles on British women from your area or wherever would we much appreciated. Thanks.

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017[edit]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Ben MacDui. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]