User talk:John Broughton/Archive 17 2013

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James Goodnight

Hi John. I've pinged a good 4-5 people to try to get someone to fulfill the request edit with no dice. Since you have already evaluated the article's sourcing, would you be comfortable doing the merge? SlimVirgin said she would try to take a look (but no promises) and a couple others who had edited the article in the past didn't respond. The Request Edit is about one-month old now. CorporateM (Talk) 20:19, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi John. You mentioned I could ping you for Request Edits that are over a week old. I would actually be happy to wait a month per WP:NORUSH, but I have one case where the non-free image in draft space is going to get deleted Wednesday and I think I might get in trouble if I keep uploading it for a third or fourth time. I wonder if you could take a look if no one responds tomorrow. We actually trimmed the promotionalism substantially here and there is nothing controversial where our COI is compelling except that it is always hard to write neutral product articles, but I did point out some of the sourcing for its version history is not exactly mainstream. It could use some editorial smoothing, but a GA reviewer might help with that. CorporateM (Talk) 14:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi John. Appreciate you following me around with B and C class tags. Sort of gives me a score to chase after, so I can work up to GA incrementally. I got my first two GAs, but on a volunteer basis (which is much easier).
It hasn't been a month yet (2 weeks), but all the relevant editors have been notified of my JMP (statistical software) article without response. My proposed edits are pretty non-controversial considering they are mostly based on the feedback of other editors. I was wondering if you were comfortable doing the merge and/or providing feedback on what it still needs to hit the GA mark. CorporateM (Talk) 22:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi John. Just wanted to see if you were going to get a chance to take a look. No big deal if I need to wait another week or two ;-) CorporateM (Talk) 01:16, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

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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) 19:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Facebook

I was waltzing by some archives and found this. I chuckled on how you told me you weren't familiar with Facebook. Have you heard about it by now? LOL Feedback ☎ 02:52, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Assistance with COI request

Hi John, I have a couple of small requests I wonder if you would be able to help with, creating a couple of redirects and adding a logo for a new article I wrote for Rally.org. As I wrote this on behalf of the company, I have a COI so I'd prefer not to make these edits myself. I hope you don't mind me asking, as I noticed that you're a member of WikiProject Cooperation. For background: the article passed through AfC, and an editor at there reviewed it, as did an editor from WikiProject Cooperation. Both these editors are now busy, so I'm looking for an editor to wrap up some loose ends on the article. The full details are in my request at Paid Editor Help. Can you help? Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 19:42, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to the "All Things GW" editathon on Saturday, April 20

The "All Things GW" editathon on Saturday, April 20, 2013 from 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. is a rare chance to go behind the scenes in the University Archives of the GW Libraries and use their unique resources to research and update Wikipedia pages related to The George Washington University and the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Did you miss our last D.C. history editathon? This is your is your chance to come edit with wiki-friends using different great collection! The event includes a behind-the-scenes tour of the University Archives and a show-and-tell of some of its most interesting treasures, snacks, and the editathon.

Participation is limited to 30 volunteers, so RSVP today! Dominic·t 07:22, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Input request

Hello John Broughton,

I am requesting input from all participants in the discussion from the recent Signpost article on sexism in Wikipedia for a proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/National teams#Proposed change: consistency in article title gendering. Thank you in advance for any contributions to the discussion. Dkreisst (talk) 21:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, John Broughton. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:Video_and_Interactive_Tutorials.
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Jackson Peebles (talk) 16:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

NIH

I am going to be meeting with the NIH next week. I remember that you and Tim organized an event there a few years ago [1]. Wondering how it went and if there was interest to build upon things when you were there? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Josh Urbiztondo

Thanks for helping to replace the stuff his daddy was putting in. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:General sanctions

Hello John. Regarding this change. The two header items you removed are presumably intended to explain the entries in the 'Type' column of the table below. Both general restrictions and revert restrictions are currently mentioned in the Type column. Those are the two things you removed. So the rationale for your change is unclear. Do you really want to insert in GS a pointer to WP:RESTRICT so people can see the full enumeration of sanction types? Even so, that would not cover the complete set of sanction types that are currently in use in in GS. I have always found the GS page rather confusing, so improvements are surely possible. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 04:21, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

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jcc (tea and biscuits) 19:44, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Hi John.

I thought I'd let you know that I created the article infobox and used your book Wikipedia – The Missing Manual as one of the sources. Mindmatrix 23:21, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

June 2013

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Thanks re: Reverse T3

Dear John;

Thanks so much for your note! I appreciate your concerns about the appropriateness of the content.

I will, as you have suggested (thanks, didn't know that!), create a sandbox and get my article into it as quickly as my learning curve permits.

Your offer was wonderful: I'd really appreciate your taking a read-through and sharing your opinions with me.

Oh, my wife Natalie and I left Santa Rosa just a year ago - small world!

Thanks again! Alan McDaniel. Njmcdaniel (talk) 19:39, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hello again!
John, I hate to bother you. I've run into a snag, it seems and I wonder if you might know the solution.
In following the suggestions you sent, I've tried to download the file given at Help:WordToWiki but it isn't working.
My computer-savvy nephew wrote: "I'm having a Word 2007 issue. I've corrected the "normal.dot" to "normal.dotm" but it still won't debug to upload. Also tried the normal1.dotm and that didn't work, either."
Have you any suggestions? Thanks again! Alan. Njmcdaniel (talk) 17:47, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear John; Thanks for your speedy response. As it happens, I just started to muddle away and have made decent progress in my own sandbox, as you'd suggested. I will treasure away your suggestions and with my nephew's benign oversight, will try to apply them later on. For now, slow and steady! I'll drop you a line when I've gotten the job done to a degree of satisfaction and I'm very anxious to find out how suitable it seems for Wiki! Thanks again - Alan. Njmcdaniel (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

don't judge a wikiproject by edits to the project page

Re WP:ENLANG: You neglect to consider the possibility that people are working on the actual articles. Which is what everyone should be doing. • Serviceable†Villain 02:43, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

@ServiceableVillain: If you have any data that suggests that WP:ENLANG is an active project - one that somehow coordinates its work and has lots of interested editors who connect with each other without many posts on the project and project talk pages - then I highly recommend that you post that information at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-05/News and notes. That page is where some other editors actually offered data that you appear to believe misrepresents the situation.
You're entitled to your opinion, but without any data, I do question how informed it actually is. In any case, posting here and User talk:Chris troutman doesn't seem as effective use of your time as working on articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:52, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

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Help on IRC

I saw you helping at the Help Desk and wondered if you helped in #wikipedia-en-help connect. We get lots of questions relating to both images and AfC drafts there, so if either of those are your forte then we'd appreciate the help :) Charmlet (talk) 01:05, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 13. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 17, and on all Wikipedias on June 20. [2]
  • The Narayam and WebFonts extensions were successfully replaced by Universal Language Selector on June 11. [3]
  • VisualEditor news:
    • VisualEditor was temporarily disabled on Wikipedia sites on June 14 due to an issue that inserted a lot of HTML code. The issue is now fixed and VisualEditor works as before.
    • Users can now use VisualEditor to add images and other media items from their local wikis and Wikimedia Commons. [4].
    • VisualEditor also allows editing references. [5]
  • The new Disambiguator extension, which was previously part of MediaWiki itself, was enabled on test wikis. It adds the magic word __DISAMBIG__ to mark disambiguation pages. [6]
  • The newly enabled Campaigns extension allows Wikimedia Foundation data analysts to track account creations that result from a specific outreach campaign.
Future software changes
  • Universal Language Selector will be added to the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias on June 18. [7]
  • Starting on June 18, VisualEditor will be randomly enabled by default for half of newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia to test stability, performance and features. [8]
  • Two new webfonts (UnifrakturMaguntia and Linux Libertine) will be added to wikis that use Universal Language Selector. [9] [10]
  • It will now be possible to hide the sidebar while using the Translate extension to reduce distractions (bug #45836). [11]
  • A patrolling link will now be visible for un-patrolled pages, even if users don't visit it from Special:NewPages or Special:RecentChanges (bug #49123). [12]
  • A request for comments on enabling a new search engine for MediaWiki was started.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe. 00:26, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

My Reverse T3 article is ready for you in my sandbox.

Dear John;

I am so happy to be finished downloading my article. I am sure you know this already, but it is up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Njmcdaniel/sandbox. I think the content justifies, actually requires the length - and I'm looking forward to your opinion.

As another thought, should I post a note like this somewhere on the existing rT3 "stub" site and solicit other advice - or shall your and Maproom's opinions suffice? I'm in your hands.

Thanks again, ever so much! Alan. Njmcdaniel (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Dear John;
Thank you so very much! I compliment you on your editor's eye - I'll admit to feeling a wee pang or two on first seeing your advice and own that you've been spot-on. No, I'm not finished applying your good - and generous advice (what a lot of work you did!) - and please, in no way take that as lack of appreciation, just lack of time. I had to be absolutely sure my references were in line and indeed, I found a few rough spots... and so-doing ran myself past my bedtime.
I'll be off on a road trip for 2 days, then will get back to work on your recommendations. Thanks again for your kind words and all the time you spent helping me get this out! I'll keep in touch.
Alan. Njmcdaniel (talk) 01:46, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear John;
Thanks again for all your help. I've left a posting at both Talk:Reverse triiodothyronine and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, as you'd suggested. Unsure of how, exactly, to give them the revised paper, I gave them my sandbox address - hope that's OK. I'll wait for comments. Should I expect someone there to tell me the next step needed for submission? What time-frame should I anticipate?
Thanks again for your excellent advice and generous sharing of time and expertise. Alan. Njmcdaniel (talk) 00:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
@Njmcdaniel: - Yes, giving them a link to your draft article is exactly what you should have done. As for the timeframe, you should be prepared to wait at least a week. If you've not heard anything from anybody in two weeks (or you're not happy with the process as it plays out, or if you absolutely don't want to wait beyond a week), drop me a line, and I'll see if I can find another editor to get involved.
Overall, as hard as it may be to believe, there isn't anyone in charge, here. And, since we're all volunteers, YMMV when an editor does respond. You absolutely don't have to do what he/she says - if it doesn't make sense, say so, and see whether other editors join the conversation, and what they say. Ideally you'll get an expert who will give you good advice, review your further edits, do some editing him/herself, and move the draft so that it becomes a real Wikipedia article. Worst case, you'll either get no response, or a response from someone saying that he/she likes the current article as is, or maybe with 5% of your text added. In short, let's see what happens in the next week or two, and then we/you can assess what (if anything) should be done next. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 June 2013

Lyle Goodhue

John:

Re: Lyle Goodhue article: Thanks for your comment. I am 78 years old, and new to all of this. I was not sure that my name (rather than "writer") would show up unless I mentioned it in my comment. I am a professioal writer with more that 230 articles published during the last 20 years, and am used to speaking in the editorial "we" in my monthly magazine columns. By the way, it was no secret when the biography was accepted by Wikipedia that I am a relative. I did read the Wikipedia "conflict of interest" policy carefully, and have been guided by it. There should be no problems there; everything in the article can be substantiated. Later edits (links, spelling, spacing, punctuation corrections, clarifications, etc.) were to finalize and polish the initial submission. I am through with them now. Maybe I've been too much of a perfectionist. Writer (talk) 16:05, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The above was also posted at Talk:Lyle Goodhue; I'm going to respond there. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 20. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 24, and on all Wikipedias on June 27. [13]
  • Universal Language Selector was successfully enabled on the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias. [14]
  • The new interface for account creation and log–in is now the default on all Wikimedia wikis. The old look is no longer available (bug #46333). [15]
  • The TimedMediaHandler extension now supports native FLAC files. A discussion to allow this file type is taking place on Commons (bug #49505). [16]
  • After a test period, the Disambiguator extension was enabled on the English Wikipedia on June 18. [17]
  • VisualEditor news:
    • A VisualEditor bug temporarily made all new accounts unusable. The issue is now fixed and account creation works as before (bug #49727).
    • A high importance file insertion bug has been fixed, but the feature does not work perfectly yet. [18]
  • It is now possible to synchronise local CSS and JavaScript files with the beta cluster. This should make it easier to test software features before they are enabled on live wikis. [19]
Future software changes
  • The default link to a help page on editing, visible below the editing window, will change on almost 600 Wikimedia wikis and will now link to MediaWiki.org (bug #45977). [20]
  • Universal Language Selector will be enabled on wikis without language versions (such as Wikisource and Wikispecies) on June 25. [21]
  • The AbuseFilter extension will allow filtering links and HTML code for page creations. [22]
  • The related changes special page will now include upload log entries. [23]
  • It will soon be possible to choose the language of SVG files that contain translations. [24]
  • MediaWiki will now allow converting audio files from one format to another. [25]
  • The Wikidata technical team has started a discussion about how Wikidata can support Wiktionary. [26]
  • The search feature on Wikimedia sites is planned to be modified to use Solr on all wikis by the end of 2013. [27]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Dear Mr. Broughton, 

    Thanks for your prompt and helpful advice, which I will follow. Best wishes,
                               Frank Popper

Rutgers and Princeton Universities — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fpopper (talk • contribs) 15:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

July 2013

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  • ] [[Carnivora]]. There are twelve species of mephitids, in four [[genera]]: ''[[Conepatus]]'' ([[hog-nosed skunk]]s, four species; ''[[Mephitis (genus)|Mephitis]]'' (the [[hooded skunk|hooded]]

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  • at wacky 'Robin Hood' |work=Bakersfield Californian|author=Camille Gavin|date = February 10, 2006] |accessdate=July 29, 2013}}</ref> She focused on ceramic sculpture, graduating with an [[Associate

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 18:16, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-27

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes
(Not all changes will affect you.)
  • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf9) was added to test wikis on June 27. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 8, and on all Wikipedias on July 11.
  • On Wikisource, the canonical names of the "Index" and "Page" namespaces in the Proofread Page extension are no longer localized (bug #47596). Please check scripts that depend on $wgCanonicalNamespace. [28]
  • A JavaScript problem caused the "View history" and "New section" tabs in the Vector skin to be moved into the drop-down menu on right-to-left wikis. The issue is now fixed and links are visible as before (bug #50196). [29]
  • There was a short site outage on June 28.
  • The automated Category:Pages with missing files now includes broken file links inserted inside the <gallery /> tag (bug #50119). [30]
  • The Nearby feature is now enabled on Commons and shows images in a user's area. [31]
  • There is now a special page listing disambiguation pages for wikis that use the Disambiguator extension (bug #44040). [32]
  • The old version of the Article feedback tool (version 4) was removed from wikis that still used it. [33]
  • VisualEditor news:
    • Many bugs that caused text to be removed or damaged have been fixed, including one related to copy-paste (bug #49816).
    • VisualEditor now offers a visual interface to edit references.
    • In preparation for enabling the VisualEditor on a wider scale, new documentation has been created, including a list of frequently-asked questions and a user guide with many images. Please help with translations.
    • Several problems related to overlapping of elements with the VisualEditor toolbar have been fixed (bug #50096, #50159, #50324).
    • TemplateData information is now displayed for templates that are added to a page (bug #49778).
    • Section edit links now show links to both VisualEditor and the old (source) editor (bug #49666).
    • Images are now loaded securely when using HTTPS (bug #43015). [34]
Future software changes
  • VisualEditor will be enabled for all logged-in English Wikipedia users on July 1, and for all users on July 8.
  • From July 8, it will be possible to upload WAV and native FLAC files to Commons, and use them directly on wiki pages ([[<tvar|bug-49505>bugzilla:49505</>|bug #49505]]). [35]
  • The Universal Language Selector will be added to the English Wikipedia on July 2, and to remaining wikis on July 9. [36]
Erratum

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14:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ironshore

I've fallen across this, and I've done some more cleaning up. Now then, do you think it is now despamified enough to move into mainspace? (I have no faith in the AfC system, and have never used it) I'm not exactly familiar with this type of topic. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 20:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Lukeno94: Yes, I think it should go into mainspace. It fills a gap in our coverage, and taking it out of AFC means that other editors can start improving it. (No guarantees, of course, but at least the possibility.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Done. If you could add some more appropriate categories, and the relevant WikiProjects on the talkpage, I would be much obliged :) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 20:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
    • @Lukeno94: Thanks. I've added a category (not exactly my speciality) and a WikiProject with an assessment. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 July 2013

Tech news: 2013-28

Latest [[<tvar|technews>m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News</>|tech news]] from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. [[<tvar|more-transl>m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2013/28</>|Translations]] are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

  • VisualEditor news:
    • VisualEditor deployment has been delayed by a week. It is now planned to enable the editor for logged–in editors on chosen Wikipedias on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 29.
    • A bug that made it impossible to save VisualEditor edits that triggered a CAPTCHA has been fixed. [38]
    • Several bugs that occurred on right–to–left wikis have been fixed last week (bug #49416, bug #49613, bug #50543).
  • Uploading files has been restricted on Meta Wiki to administrators and the newly created uploader group. An exemption doctrine policy is being developed (bug #50287). [39]
  • Emergency priority CentralNotice banners will always be shown unless users have hidden them, ignoring cookies set for lower priority banners. [40]

Future software changes

  • MediaWiki will allow choosing a specific page of a PDF document or a thumbnail of a video file to show up inside the
    tag (bug #8480). [41]
    • It will now be possible to create empty MediaWiki: messages, for instance in order to disable them (bug #50124). [42]
    • The Nearby feature will soon be enabled on Wikivoyage wikis again. [43]
    • The Notifications extension messages will now include a direct link to diffs on wiki as well as in notification e-mails (bug #48183). [44]
    • Table of contents will now use the HTML <div /> element instead of <table />, fixing a nine–year–old bug #658. [45]
    • First mock–ups of a mobile Wikidata application have been published by Pragun Bhutani as part of his Google Summer of Code project. [46]
    • A discussion on minimum documentation practices in MediaWiki code has been started and awaits comments from the community.

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    18:30, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

    Disambiguation link notification for July 10

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    Accellion, Inc.

    Hi John. One of the things I do is patrol for articles mentioning "Network Products Guide," because this is a pay for play award and it usually brings up some easy AfDs, chops, etc. Over the past few months, several users and IPs (probably from the company) have maintained an extensive awards section in this article, removed the advert tag, and added overt promotion.

    I didn't realize until just now after reading the article a bit more closely, that they are a likely competitor to YouSendIt, who I support in a PR capacity and created a GA article for, making my edits potentially inappropriate. Trouble being in my position is there is the potential appearance for COI everywhere, even where non exists. Anyways, not sure what to do about it in this circumstance. CorporateM (Talk) 20:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: I think you ought to continue to do good for Wikipedia by removing promotional stuff, post top template/tags, etc.. You should, of course, avoid triggering WP:3RR, so a suggested protocol for interacting with a specific IP or brand new editor would be (a) initial revert - explain in edit summary; (b) second revert - ask, in edit summary, that editor not repost the deleted content without first starting a discussion on the talk page; (c) third revert - post an explanation on the article talk page of what you did, cross-reference that in the edit summary, and let me know that you're dealing with a persistent problematical editor. For a more established editor (unlikely), I suggest advancing things by one step, so, for example, at the first revert, ask the editor to start a discussion on the article talk page.
    As far as a WP:COI issue goes, I think that becomes an issue if (a) you're posting negative stuff, even if well-sourced, on competitor pages, or (b) you're removing good stuff (which I define as text supported by a good reliable source) from pages. Otherwise, have at it. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
    Thanks. I did the most necessary cleanup, while staying on the conservative side to avoid the appearance of COI and I will leave a detailed note on Talk. CorporateM (Talk) 22:09, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

    Hey John. I have another unrelated question regarding self-citation COI. RTI International is a non-profit contract research organization, who themselves create reliable information that is published in peer-reviewed journals and covered in the media. For example, they did a study that found that cigarette taxes were effective at reducing smoking, but also created a burden on low-income families, which would be a great source to add the article on Cigarette taxes in the United States. The benefit of course to RTI is the "According to a study by RTI International," but I don't see a "conflict" of interest unless we create undue emphasis on the work itself if I am understanding our rules correctly. Do I need to disclose? Follow the BrightLine? CorporateM (Talk) 14:30, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: I'd personally prefer that the text in the article be "A July 2013 study found ... " or "A July 2013 study concluded ... " rather than "According to a study by RTI International ... "; mentioning the source by name is only important (in my opinion) when you have dueling studies, as in "A June 2013 report by the Heritage Foundation concluded that increased immigration would cost $6 trillion more for government services over the next 100 years, but the Congressional Budget Office, in a similar analysis in July, said that there would be a net benefit, not increased costs, from more immigration." Or when a report is controversial: "A study by XYZ found ... Critics said that the organization is biased [or the study was flawed, or whatever]". More generally, I think that adding information from research reports is invaluable; too often Wikipedia articles consist only of information from the popular press (or worse, information floating around the infosphere). Of course, RTI should get mentioned in the footnote, and people should be able follow the link to the study itself, and a wikilink to RTI [see two paragraphs below for more on this], but taking this approach does, to my mind, remove most of the potential for such posts to be seen as spamming.
    One other thing, then: If you do include RTI in the text of the article, the source for that must (in my opinion) be coverage of the study, not the study itself. Otherwise, there absolutely is a WP:UNDUE issue. As I said above, my preference is to avoid this. It's why I remove "The New York Times reported" almost every time I see it in an article; it's normally just not relevant - to the reader - who reported the information, and - in fact - saying who reported it casts some doubt on its accuracy (say, for example, if you're a Fox News kind of person). If the facts aren't in dispute, then it doesn't matter who reported them; only if sources differ does it matter. On the other hand, if the coverage goes into a bit of depth about RTI (say, for example, about how the study was done, or who sponsored it), then - arguably - the reader who is interested in RTI would in fact get some benefit from looking at the source itself.
    Finally, if you do cite coverage of a study, it's perfectly fine to have two citations: cite the coverage, and also cite the study itself. And I'd advise not doing twenty or thirty of such edits in a row. I say this because several years ago I tangled with the WikiProject Spam folks (and lost) regarding someone from a small academic press who was adding external links (or further reading items) to articles, for academic books published by that press. These were on relatively obscure topics, so (I thought) the information was valuable to readers. But all the posts ended up being reverted as spam; it certainly didn't help that the only activity of this particular editor was to add such information to articles. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:08, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    Got it. That is confusing advice of course, because I'm sure - for example - there are likely other studies with conflicting results, the topic itself is somewhat controversial, and I noticed the "according to" seems to be a matter of editor preference and widely circumstantial. User:Lexein commented that he supports "strong attribution" to the source, and I think I would normally use "according to" in the case of a study, though in many cases I would remove such attribution, as it's inherit in the sourcing.
    But as an editor with a COI, it is not my place to make such nuanced decisions. So I am leaning towards sharing the sources on relevant article Talk pages as new studies come out, without adding it directly or pestering anyone to put it in. If even one-third of editors would feel uncomfortable or think I'm spamming, it would be best avoided. CorporateM (Talk) 18:13, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    • (Brought here by a disturbance in the source) To clarify my position, the voice of Wikipedia is that of the sources. We should never make statements of fact as if Wikipedia is stating them without strong, obvious attribution to the source, at least once per paragraph. "Vitamin C cures colds.(1)" has no attribution and is in my opinion unacceptable in a Wikipedia article. Strong claims require not only strong sources, but attribution in the text, IMHO. "A 1989 study stated ..." is weak attribution. "A 1989 U. Kansas study funded(1) by Smith-Kline ... " is strong attribution. I don't insist on repetition within a paragraph, but prefer to see a reminder of the source for statements in later paragraphs; this where "The 1989 study ..." is sufficient. I of course don't want to see attribution prose overwhelm the statement being made. I think you know what I mean: use common sense for an encyclopedia. I'm not a fan of "inherent in the sourcing" as a guideline for attribution of claims. "Inherent in the sourcing" may be alright for breezy advertorials or infomercial disclaimers, but not here. --Lexein (talk) 20:57, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    @Lexein and CorporateM: On second thought, let me beat a bit of a hasty retreat. I rarely edit articles about science topics, so the above advice really tends to apply to things like biographical articles and articles about history and organizations. I agree that in articles about science topics, particularly social science, and particularly where there is not (yet?) consensus about something, it's useful to let the reader know, up front, who did a study. I'd still argue that the further one goes back in time, the less controversial the results of various studies should be (hopefully), and so the less the need to identify sources. Thus, in the article electron, the sentence (which I agree with) is "An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton", not "A study by X, in 1963, found that an electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton".
    In any case, I'm happy if the consensus is, where you guys are working, to include source information within the body of the article. And I'll continue, if I see something like "A New York Times article in January 1990 reported that a 1989 U. Kansas study funded(1) by Smith-Kline ...", to remove the New York Times part of the text, unless the NYT reporting is part of the story. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:24, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    Hmmm... I'll sleep on it. The thing is, if it's an area where editors may reasonably disagree, I should abstain. I was thinking it was closer to a GLAM-like situation, where the COI is marginal. Taking a look at: Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Citing_yourself, it says to defer to the community's opinion "when in doubt" so maybe I'll do a few as Request Edits to see what kind of feedback I get, then do it directly if my "doubt" becomes less.
    At first when I saw Lexein's original comment about attribution, I was just thinking "ewww yuck" but now that he explains it, I understand. If the claim is bold, then we want to know who is making it. CorporateM (Talk) 22:07, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
    @John Broughton: I think you're on a right track, unless the NYT article is an opinion piece, or if a claim in the NYT article is not in or is not supported by the example study; in that case, the NYT should stay in the attribution, in my opinion. I know it's unwieldy if only one fact is cited, but I still think we should use obvious (and even clunky) distancing language to avoid the "Wikipedia says" trap, when it wasn't WP saying it, especially when verification is difficult or costly. --Lexein (talk) 04:08, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
    This is how I did it. For now I'll use Request Edit and see what the feedback is.
    Like User:Lexein, I would think for something this controversial, we would want to know who authored the study, how, and using what data, etc. However, I was more curious about whether I should (a) edit the article directly as long as I don't place undue emphasis on the work per WP:COI, as a self-citation COI is not that significant or (b) continue to disclose, use Talk and rely on the judgement of disinterested editors like I normally would in cases where I have a more substantial COI. CorporateM (Talk) 13:24, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: There is also an option (c), where you edit the article and then disclose, on the article talk page, your (low-level) COI. My suggestion is to start with (b), and see what happens. If you find that your proposed edits generally don't get any response (at least for less popular or controversial articles), then you might switch to (c) (at least for less popular or controversial articles). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:57, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-29

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

    Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

    Future software changes

    • A new version of the Single User Login system for global accounts will be enabled on July 17. Users will now automatically go back to the previous page instead of seeing the "Login success" page with logos. [50]
    • The software that resizes images on all wikis will change on July 18. Resizing of big images will be faster and more reliable, and the resolution limit for GIF, PNG and TIFF files (currently set at 50 megapixels) will be removed. [51]
    • Edit tags (mostly used by AbuseFilter) will now also be on diff pages. They include a link to Special:Tags before the edit summary. Wikis that use links in tag messages should remove them. [52] [53]
    • Global edit filters are currently in testing and will be added to wikis later. [54]
    • Wikivoyage wikis will start to use Wikidata for interwiki links on July 22. [55]
    • A new image gallery design has been proposed by Brian Wolff; comments and feedback are welcome.
    • An IRC discussion about Bugzilla is planned for July 16, at 16:00 (UTC) on the IRC channel #wikimedia-office on Freenode (time conversion). [56]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    17:29, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

    VisualEditor user guide

    Hi, John. First, I really appreciate the work you've done on the user guide. Really nice job. :) We were talking about it in our "liaison" meeting today and wondered if you would have any interest in also updating mw:Help:VisualEditor/User_guide, which is the master document from which many other languages are copying. It can be a little daunting to work around the "translation" markup (at least for me), so I certainly understand if it's not something you'd want to take on...or if you're simply working on other stuff for that matter. :) If that's the case, can I ask if you're finished on the En documentation? If so, I assume you'd be okay with us updating the MediaWiki User Guide to reflect the changes you've made? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

    @Mdennis (WMF): - In brief: no, no, and yes (of course). More detail: I'm working on finishing my editing of the En document; I hope to be done today on that. I'll drop you a line when I'm finished.
    On a side note: File:VisualEditor - Media editing 2.png has been overtaken by events - the "Insert media" button (bottom right) no longer exists in the VE dialog box. Would it be a problem for someone to reshoot this screen capture and upload a corrected version? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
    Thank you very much. I have uploaded a different screen shot that may serve - File:VE insert media 7.13.png. If not, please let me know, and I will ask Guillaume. Since he is presumably taking a well-deserved weekend, I thought it might be easier to simply create my own. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
    @Mdennis (WMF): I've finished my editing of the User guide. Final items:
    • The screenshot you took looks good; I've put that into the document.
    • File:VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png is missing the "Use an existing reference" button (bottom left corner of dialog box) - that is, the software has been changed, making this screenshot no longer accurate. I recommend redoing this.
    • File:VisualEditor - Template editing 2.png is not a particularly useful screenshot. It's supposed to show users how to add a parameter, but in fact there are none listed that can be added. Template:Cite web is my recommendation to use for a new screenshot, because it does have required parameters. In any case, the screenshot should be taken just after typing a template name, within the template dialog box, and clicking "Add template". (At that point, any required parameters should be visible on the left side, and the template should be in "Add parameter" mode.) Also, I recommend against using Firefox for the screenshot: at the moment, Firefox does not seem to get along well with the font specifications for this dialog.
    • More generally, I note that maintaining a user guide for software that is undergoing frequent UI/UX changes is not a trivial task.
    • And last, with apologies, I want disclaim responsibility for what is now section 7.2, "Substituting templates". I'm not convinced that VE works as described in that section, but I'm not willing to go to MediaWiki.org (or wherever the "barnstar guidance" template exists; it's not at en.wiki) and do further testing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:49, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
    Thank you very much, John. :) I know that the User Guide is a serious issue, and improving the handling of this kind of thing is on my list of things to talk about in recommending improvements for future rollouts of software.
    • I've uploaded a new version of File:VisualEditor - Editing references 20.png, at the same title. It is not as good as Guillaume's, but of course he can redo it if he wants. I am stuck using Paint. :/
    • Since it's different content, I created File:VisualEditor - Template editing 2b.png from the Cite web template, as per your recommendation.
    • The guidance barnstar actually is here. :) It's Template:Guidance Barnstar. I have to declare responsibility for what's in that section (I bestowed it upon myself, since I'm not going to put a barnstar on somebody else's user page and it doesn't work on talk pages), and I'm sure it did work that way on the date I added it, since I just documented what happened when I tried, but I do not have any guarantees it still works that way. I'll try a run-through again and see how it goes.
    I will go ahead and put the replacement image in, although Guillaume may choose to improve it. Again, my technology is pretty rudimentary here. I am really very grateful for your help. The User Guide is a very high importance to me, and my experience in writing such guides is extremely limited. Just from working on this one, I have been able to see some of the challenges of updating the document in the middle of development. If you have any tips for making this more manageable, I would be grateful for them. (This would be a tip for me, not necessarily the WMF. I have not the budget to hire a tech writer, for instance, although I have been told I can get a list of the changes that are implemented in each rollout, which may help. Of course, I can ask for help from the liaisons and from Guillaume, who does have experience with this but is also still fully committed to his pre-existing projects. :/) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:47, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
    @Mdennis (WMF): A couple of suggestions (and I'll continue to ponder on this):
    • Do not expand the user guide to cover optional ways of doing things. For example, at some point within the template dialog, it will be possible to scroll through parameters (right side) to select one. Users can figure that out on their own, I think - so while the User guide would be more complete if information on scrolling were added, it wouldn't necessarily be more useful - and arguably, the lenghier it is, the less useful it is (intimidation factor, increased search time to find relevant information, increased possibility of confusion).
    • Keep information about limitations in the section "What VisualEditor can't be used for", rather than putting this in the other (process) sections. That way, if a limitation vanishes, that impacts only the section covering exceptions, not the sections where readers are looking for guidance. (Exceptions interrupt the train of thought; that's one reason for sidebars.)
    • Don't include any discussion of workarounds (for example, {{small}} instead of a pair of "small" tags). Workarounds are useful only for relatively rare things (blockquotes excepted), and such things can be left to experienced editors using the wikitext editor. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-30

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

    Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

    Future software changes

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    21:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

    VE known issues

    Hallo John, I've now added a few issues to WP:VE/KP, but I can't work out how to add anything to the section above the table. It's obviously a template of some sort but I can't find it. I hope my additions are in the right places. There may be others, but those were a few which seemed not to be represented yet. PamD 08:18, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

    @PamD: You've encountered the reason that the VE team has argued for "transclusion" rather than "template" as a label for one of its dialogs - because while templates are by far the most common form of transclusion, it's also possible to pull in (transclude) the text of all or part of a different, regular page. And that's what I've done at WP:VE/KP - I've pulled in the "Limitations" section from the main page (WP:VE) of the VE "portal". (I used include/noinclude tags to specify that I didn't want the entire page pulled in.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
    So near and yet so far: I looked at that page as a possible source for the text in VE/KP, but dismissed it because the top part of the page didn't match! Didn't think of checking whether it was just a section of the page. Ah well. Yes, I see what you mean about transclusions (in 7 years of editing I've never really understood anything about transclusions until tangling with VE), but I think "Templates" is still going to be much clearer. One could perhaps argue that a chunk of text transcluded from elsewhere is a template, like the boiler-plate text in letters from companies? It's certainly near enough to make "template" a much more user-friendly term than "transclusion": I forget where I pointed out that people use templates in Real Life for patchwork quilting or to fit the carpet round the pipework. Thanks for the explanation, anyway. PamD 16:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-31

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes; not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 25. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 29, and on all Wikipedias on August 1. [64]
    • Wikivoyage was offline for around 40 minutes on July 24. [65]
    • Pywikipediabot moved their code from SVN to git; bot owners need to update their tools. [66]
    • The Notifications and Thanks extensions were added to Meta-Wiki on July 26; other wikis will get them soon. [67]
    • It is now possible to add edit summaries on Wikidata using the API; the feature will be added to user interface soon. [68]
    • The software that resizes large PNG images on all wikis was changed on July 25. Resizing of PNG files bigger than 35 megapixels should be faster and more reliable now. [69]
    • Three new webfonts (Gentium, Old Persian and Shapour) will be added to Universal Language Selector. [70], [71], [72]
    • Special:MIMESearch, which gives a list of files by type, will be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis with MediaWiki version 1.22/wmf12 (bug #13438). [73]
    • A mailing list to discuss multimedia features was started; users are encouraged to sign up.
    • VisualEditor news:
      • On July 24, VisualEditor was added for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias; it will be added for all users on those wikis on July 29. [74]
      • A preference to completely disable VisualEditor while it is in beta phase was added on July 24. [75]
      • Many bugs were fixed in right-to-left languages. [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81]
      • It is possible again to scroll down in the template editing window (bug #51739).
      • VisualEditor now works with the FlaggedRevisions extension. (bug #49699)
      • If the user opens VisualEditor using a section edit link, the title of the section is added to the edit summary (bug #50872).
      • Invisible templates now can't be deleted by accident or on purpose (bug #51322).

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    20:40, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

    Talkback

    Hello, John Broughton. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_articles.
    Message added 14:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

    Matty.007 14:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 14 August 2013

    Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission

    You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/RfC Reviewer permission. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

    WP:RA --> WP:AFC

    Hey there John! I notice you mention changes coming to WP:RA and was wondering if I could get some more input from someone at RA about an idea I had to merge WP:RA into WP:AFC... You can see the draft for an RfC I intent to put up in the relatively near future that I've only begun working on ==> User:Technical 13/SandBox/New face of AfC RfC proposal draft <== I'm not very proficient with these things just yet, and would be happy if you would take a few minutes to help me with some of the basic layout of the RfC and add some comments and questions (I have a set of questions to add from an #wikipedia-en-helpers connect discussion where I first mentioned the idea to add still too). Thanks! Technical 13 (talk) 20:44, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

    @Technical 13: I looked at User:Technical 13/SandBox/New face of AfC RfC proposal draft. My initial reactions are (a) There is now not a "Concept" namespace, and until there is, I don't see how AfC and RA could be merged; (b) I personally wouldn't want IP editors to be able to create new pages in this new namespace, because that immensely increases the amount of patrolling work needed; and (c) RA is actually in worse shape than AfC, with years of a backlog, for a number of reasons, including no process for declining article requests - so I don't think you're going to gain anything, in terms of available editors, by merging AfC and
    More generally, based on my discussions at WT:RA, I think that one way that AfC could be helped would be to bring in editors from active WikiProjects. To do that, of course, someone needs to tag or categorize the proposed articles in a way that WikiProjects can find them, after discussing such a process with interested WikiProjects. (Example: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/House of Music (Aalborg) might be reviewed by an editor from Wikipedia:WikiProject Music.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-34;

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • The previous version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 15. It was enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 22. [82]
    • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 22. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 29. [83]
    • You can now use new styles of galleries. Please give feedback to User:Bawolff. [84]
    • You can now visit a random page in a category, for example Special:RandomInCategory/Science. (25931) [85]
    • You can now use the <wbr> HTML5 tag to say where a word can be cut. (52468) [86]
    • Gadget authors: you can now use the wikipage.content hook, so that your scripts are re-run when a page is changed after the document-ready event (for example using Ajax). (30713) [87]

    Problems fixed

    • There was a bug where file redirects didn't work when a file was renamed; it is now fixed. There is still an issue with purging, but it should be fixed soon. (52200)
    • Maintenance reports provided by special pages will now all be updated on each wiki every six months. This will for example give you recent information on uncategorized pages, unused templates and most wanted pages (see details).
    • There was a bug that caused false positives for anti-blanking edit filters; it is now fixed. (52077) [88]

    VisualEditor news

    • The "edit" and "edit source" tabs and section edit links can now be changed more easily; for example, some wikis are using "edit source" for wikitext editing, and "edit beta" for VisualEditor. You can ask for the same change in bugzilla.
    • You can now edit references that are added inside a <references> block. (51741)
    • You can now test on mediawiki.org new basic tools to add and edit struck text (with the button for the <s> tag), lower text ( for <sub>), upper text ( for <sup>), underlined text ( for <u>), computer code ( for <code> and <tt>), math text ( for <math>), Egyptian hieroglyphs ( for <hiero>), and to say that text is in another language ( for lang="ar" dir="rtl"). (51609, 51612, 51611, 51590, 51610, 52352)
    • You can now use VisualEditor with the Opera browser. [89]

    Future

    • Starting on August 26, you will be able to use data from Wikidata on Wikivoyage sites. [90]
    • Starting on August 27, you will also get notifications on the mobile site if you're logged in to a wiki using notifications. [91]
    • Starting on August 28, all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. Some countries (like China) will not use HTTPS. If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on meta. [92]
    • Starting on August 29, you will get the code editor interface to edit JavaScript and CSS pages on all wikis. [93]
    • The plan to use Solr for search in MediaWiki was changed; instead, Elasticsearch is now planned. [94]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    19:51, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

    Talkback

    Hello, John Broughton. You have new messages at Wikipedia_talk:Requested_articles.
    Message added 13:15, 2 September 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

    Just posted some more Matty.007 13:15, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

    Professionals - notice of discussion

    You may be interested in the deletion proposal related to Category: Professionals. Regards, XOttawahitech (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

    Effects of climate change on humans

    Hey John. See my edit summary upon my revert of your last edit. I have no attachment to any style issue there, please edit away, but the text cannot remain without quotation marks and inline citations. I know the user's post at the help desk implied that it was just the "keywords" that were being copied, but it's not: the text after the keywords are direct cut and paste quotes (see e.g., here). Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

    non breaking n dash?

    is there a non breaking n dash? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.131.41 (talk) 04:23, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

    I'm not really sure I understand your question. An "n dash" has a space on either side, by definition. If for some reason you don't want there to be a line break on one of those spaces (which would be odd), then put a non-breaking, or hard, space, as described at Wikipedia:Line-break handling, on each side of the n dash. (Also, probably not relevant, but just in case: Wikipedia:How to make dashes.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:07, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
    The usage (for chemical bonds within paras of text) does not have spaces (e.g. "fluorine–fluorine bonds"). In any case, nowrap is all that I need. Thanks.71.127.131.41 (talk) 22:57, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

    police mugshot upload

    Thank you for your advice. I am an organized crime, "mafia" nut and wanted to post a picture of a deceased mobster. The Wiki article about this person did not have a photo, so I wanted to add one. Please excuse my punctuation. Jim S — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zygotican (talk • contribs) 03:40, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

    @Zygotican: I didn't realize the person that was being discussed was dead. That makes a lot of difference. The information I pointed you to says (#10) that non-free images are okay in this circumstance:
    "Pictures of deceased persons, in articles about that person, provided that ever obtaining a free close substitute is not reasonably likely."
    So, it looks to me as if you can go to Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard. If you have questions, you should look at Wikipedia:Uploading images. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:53, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

    NextWorth Solutions

    Hi John. I was trying to think of somebody I haven't pestered in a while in a COI capacity. Lexein, North8000 and others are probably pretty worn-out from my dragging them into everything and Drmies wants a commission! (inside joke)

    On the Talk page is a proposed small article on this company that is notable (one of the two major electronics trade-in/recycling companies), but not very big. It's mostly a basic, short, non-controversial article, but the one area where my COI is pretty potent even on small articles with no controversies is the Reception section, which is where I was really hoping to get some input and discussion from another editor. Do you think you coudl spare a few minutes to take a look? CorporateM (Talk) 12:46, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: I've done some edits to your draft. I'm not ecstatic about the second external link (to an undated local news station video clip), but otherwise I think the article is ready to go (to replace the existing stub). However, I'm certainly open to discussion about the editing changes I made, so let me know what you think. (And I do think this is a useful addition to Wikipedia; there is no doubt in my mind, just from doing a quick Google News search, that this is a notable company.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:55, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
    Thanks so much! "Pricing" is a much better header. I also felt the same way about the iPod Observer being anecdotal, but wanted to let an impartial editor decide. I took out the questionable link and some repetition about Target. The trade-in spikes around Apple announcements I placed in the Pricing section, but it could equally go in either one I think. I actually felt "one of the best known" was a bit promotional compared to specifically saying that it and a competitor are the two major players, but meh.
    It's certainly much better than the current and ready for article-space I think. I'll submit a Request Edit. CorporateM (Talk) 18:58, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
    That's $400 (8x50), CorporateM. Drmies (talk) 01:47, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
    @CorporateM: Ping me in, say, 48 hours, should no one respond to your edit request. (I'm cheaper, at least at the moment, than Drmies, apparently.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:01, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
    Well, throw in $100 for the move, $1000 for having to delete the original article (the rate reflects the work I had to do to become admin), and $2000 for restoring the history. CorporateM, if you file the paperwork on the talk page to close that edit request you save your client another $500. Thank you John, Drmies (talk) 03:15, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
    Jeez, Drmies' price keeps going up! At some point, someone will misinterpret our friendly banter and think I'm actually bribing an admin, apparently a very expensive one. Someone told me a while back I should shoot for admin status some day - wouldn't the Wikipedia mob have a field day with that one, awful idea. CorporateM (Talk) 03:34, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

    Drmies performed the article-merge and I've nominated for GA to get a second pair of eyes, though it may not pass muster because it is a very small article. If you have time/interest, I'm also prepping Proactiv for a GA (see here). I have removed some promotionalism from another editor as an obviously counter-COI edit and User:Anthonyhcole removed some unsourced criticisms that would be inappropriate for me to remove myself. However, Anthony said he wasn't really interested in the article in-general and I need a partner in crime for my Bright Line (ish) approach. Although it is a "medication" it's best known for celebrity endorsements and infomercials - not a topic many editors are interested in I suppose. CorporateM (Talk) 12:11, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: I'm happy to help with Proactiv, but it isn't clear to me exactly what you're looking for. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:07, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
    • I would like to add something to the Lead regarding their celebrity endorsements and advertising, which is what they're best-known for to summarize the Advertising section and parts of the History that cover celebrity endorsement deals. Suggested something like "$12-15 million a year are spent on celebrity endorsement contracts for Proactiv, including celebrities Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, and Justin Bieber." Do you think that would be ok?
    • There is a lot of redundancy due to the excessive and promotional details an editor added about Proactiv+, which I would like to consolidate to something like "A Proactiv+ version, released in February 2013, is paraben-free and marketed as being both an acne treatment and a moisturizer." I might just make the edit, as it's pretty counter-COI.
    • I think in general the article could use a look-over with some trimming in mind, but I wouldn't mind waiting for the GA review to see what they say.
    I guess it depends on how involved you want to get, but now to think about it I should have just made the edits maybe. Editors will probably think the first bullet is promotional, but only because they don't know the context that the promotion of the product itself is what they are best-known for.
    CorporateM (Talk) 21:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
    I've added (roughly) the suggested wording to the lead section, and done some copyediting. I think everything else is what (a) you can do, or (b) might be left for GA. [Which I think is likely to fail; too short - but maybe worth doing anyway.] My only quibble is that some marketing information is in the "History" section and some is in the "Marketing" (formerly "Advertising") section. Personally I'd prefer the "History" section to focus on corporate-level information, moving marketing info out of that section. I also think there might be a "Sales" section, which would cover how the product is sold [price, distribution channels] and the volume of sales (I realize it's a private company, but there must be some info about sales over the years, somewhere), rather than having this info in the Products section. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:24, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

    Hi John. If you notice this post this high up on the Talk page, I wanted to bring this Request Edit to your attention, as I think you are the one that added the material I am proposing be deleted as a matter of following through with the GA review feedback. CorporateM (Talk) 04:22, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

    Disambiguation link notification for September 15

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    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) 21:48, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 18 September 2013

    WhitePages.com

    Hi John. If you don't mind me tapping you once more, I've offered a draft WhitePages article in my PR role here and am particularly concerned about the second bullet regarding some confusing criticisms by VentureBeat. If I have it right, the criticisms are leveled at US Search, which is actually just an advertiser, but it was apparently not clear enough that it was an ad (or something; it's confusing). CorporateM (Talk) 13:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

    @CorporateM: Actually, I don't find the issue about US Search, the advertiser, to be that confusing, but I've not had a chance to see what you wrote in your draft versus what's in the two online articles. I'll do that - and review the draft - in the next day or two. One point, initially, though - your lead section doesn't really make a statement that demonstrates notability; the existing article does. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:26, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
    Good point on the Lead. It was easy for me to find a source that mentions them hosting the largest database of contact information on Americans. Sometimes I over-compensate for my COI in trying to avoid promotion. CorporateM (Talk) 16:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
    Hi John. Just wanted to see if you were going to have a chance to take a look. If you need more time or can't get to it, I would understand. CorporateM (Talk) 21:36, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
    @CorporateM: I'm on the road until Tuesday. I'm finding that editing via an iPad is profoundly irritating. If you still could use my help, and I don't get back to this article by Wednesday, I'd appreciate a ping. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:57, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
    Ping! CorporateM (Talk) 15:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-40

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • Special:Listfiles can now display old versions of files a user has uploaded. A new link was also added (Special:AllMyFiles) that gives a list of all files the current user has ever uploaded (that haven't been deleted).
    • There is now an Android application to contribute to translatewiki.net from mobile devices. [95]

    VisualEditor news

    • VisualEditor now has a new toolbar with drop-down menus for advanced tools. [96]
    • Many bugs were fixed, some related to copy-and-paste. [97]
    • You can now move references, list of references, templates and other elements with the mouse ("drag-and-drop"). [98]
    • You are invited to comment on designs for the interface to add references in VisualEditor.

    Future

    • Developers are looking for ideas of small technical projects that new developers could work on. Please add your ideas. [99]
    • Developers are looking for wikis who would accept to try using secure links (HTTPS) for all users. [100]
    • You can join an IRC discussion about "Beta features", a tool to try new features, on October 3. [101]
    • You can join an IRC discussion about Flow, the new wiki discussion tool, on October 17.

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    19:56, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 02 October 2013

    Request to add an info box to Alex Molinaroli's article

    Hello John.

    This is Anna Timms, Senior Manager of Social Media, Johnson Controls. You recently reviewed and approved some edits I suggested to the Johnson Controls article - thank you for your help with that.

    Since I work for Johnson Controls I have a conflict of interest with all articles related to the Company - so will not make any changes directly myself. The Company's new CEO, Alex Molinaroli, has an article which needs updating with his new job title which changed on October 1, 2013 - President and Chief Executive Officer. I have also created an Info Box because the article is missing one. The draft is here User:Anna_C_Timms/sandbox2

    I posted these edits in the TalkBox of Alex's article last week but they haven't been reviewed Talk:Alex_Molinaroli

    Please would you review the job title edit and Info Box - and if you agree with the contents, please add it to the article.

    Thank you --Anna C Timms (talk) 15:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

    Hi John. Thanks for publishing this. Best wishes. --198.36.95.21 (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)--Anna C Timms (talk) 15:33, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

    Invitation to provide thoughts

    Hi, John Broughton!

    Since you provided comments on this discussion, I invite you to look at the discussion for a system of automating article requests I have been working on independently.

    Thanks much! ~ Matthewrbowker Make a comment! 18:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

    Reply about SEC bill article

    Hi! Thanks for pointing out the need for an update to that article - I was still learning a lot about Wikipedia back then. Still am, really. I've gone back and covered the bill's passage in the House, some of the debate about it (although it could still use more, I'm sure), and added six more references. Hopefully it looks better. If you still have comments, maybe add them to the article talk page? That way other people can work on it too. SEC Regulatory Accountability Act Thanks! HistoricMN44 (talk) 19:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

    Flow Newsletter

    Hey John Broughton. 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) 19:56, 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) 21:37, 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) 03:18, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-42

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    VisualEditor news

    • You can now create and edit references inside media captions. [103]
    • You now need to press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image; the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion of infoboxes and similar content. [104]
    • When you resize images, you will now still see them, and their size will also be seen in the center. [105] [106]

    Future

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    09:11, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

    Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

    Books and Bytes

    Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

    by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

    Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

    New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

    Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

    New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

    New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

    News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

    Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

    New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

    Read the full newsletter


    Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 20:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-43

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • The "Toolbox" section in the site sidebar is now called "Tools" in English. You can do the same in your language by editing the interface text on translatewiki.net. Someone else may have already done it. [109]

    VisualEditor news

    • On wikis with VisualEditor, you can now use it on pages in the File, Help and Category spaces. [110]

    Problems

    • On October 22 (UTC), an error in the site settings caused *.wikimedia.org sites (like Meta-Wiki and Commons) to redirect to wikimediafoundation.org for a few hours. [111]

    Future

    • MediaWiki 1.23wmf1 was added to test wikis on October 24. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 28 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 31 (calendar).
    • In the next days, servers in San Francisco will start providing (cached) content to users located in Oceania. If you are in that area and notice problems, please tell us. [112]
    • You will soon be able to test new features easily using the "Beta Features" view. VisualEditor will be in the list on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. Another example is a set of changes in the article text style.

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    09:42, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-44

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • The style and colors for warning boxes, error messages, and success messages in all skins of MediaWiki has been changed. [113]

    VisualEditor news

    • You will soon be able to switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without having to save the page. You can't yet switch from wikitext to VisualEditor but developers hope to make it possible in the future. [114]

    Problems

    • There was a problem on October 31 during the activation of MediaWiki 1.22wmf2 on test wikis. mediawiki.org was also broken, and if you had problems logging in, it was probably because of this as well.

    Future

    • Because of the problem with MediaWiki 1.22wmf2, the calendar has changed. It will be added to mediawiki.org and non-Wikipedia sites on November 4, and all Wikipedia sites on November 7.

    JavaScript / Gadget developers

    • Due to a recent change, gadgets and user scripts that use jQuery UI should explicitly load the appropriate modules, as they may not be loaded by default. [115]
    • Developers have started to remove long-deprecated methods. You should check the JavaScript console (in debug=true mode) and look for deprecation warnings and their stack trace. [116]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    10:32, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-45

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • You can now use the "Autonym" font of the Universal Language Selector (ULS) to display the name of languages (for example in navigation templates) in their correct script. To do this, add the CSS class "autonym" to the elements that include language names. Note that this font only works for the name of languages, not for any other text. [117]

    Problems

    • There was a problem with Parsoid (the program used by VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML) on November 4, between 19:40 and 20:40 (UTC). Encoding issues caused non-ASCII characters (including those with diacritics, like "é") to be broken when converted to wikitext and saved to the page. [118]

    Future

    • The Beta Features tool is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. With it, you can test new features before they're added for everyone. The plan is to add this tool to all wikis on November 21. [119]
    • MediaWiki 1.23wmf3 was added to test wikis on November 7. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 12 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 14 (calendar). [120]
    • The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [121]
    • The button of the Search page will soon be changed to be blue and bigger (see the difference). [122]
    • You will soon be able to add a page name as parameter for {{REVISIONID}}, {{REVISIONUSER}} and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} and similar functions, by writing for example {{REVISIONID:Apple}}. [123]
    • In the future, when you hide a CentralNotice banner on a wiki, it will also be hidden on other Wikimedia sites. [124]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    13:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

    Yelp, Inc.

    Before I dig myself into a hole asking to trim controversial content where I have a COI, I was wondering if you could let me know if you think I am on the right track or if my judgement is clouded by COI here. If you time to do so. CorporateM (Talk) 13:41, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

    Hey do you think I can borrow you for another thing? Money Management International is a barely notable non-profit that provides free financial management counseling. They have an absolutely massive article filled with IRS reports, primary sources, court records - out of the 68 cites and 20 external links, I haven't seen any proper sources. I put together a 2-paragraph stub on Talk that seems more appropriate. I posted at COIN and Ukexpat confirmed my fairly obvious diagnosis that it is filled with WP:NOT and needed to be stubbed.
    Could you take a look and - if you find it appropriate to do so - stub it with the two paragraphs and/or an alternative version discussed here and/or whatever edits you deem appropriate? CorporateM (Talk)

    November 2013

    Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Paseo de la Castellana may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

    List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:
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    Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 01:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

    Disambiguation link notification for November 14

    Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Ijebu-Jesa, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Polytechnic (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

    It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

    RA

    Hi, I am just checking that you have see the latest development proposal at Requested Articles before we initiate them. Thanks, Matty.007 18:08, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-46

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    Problems

    • There was a problem caused by too many requests to the database on November 14. [125]

    Future

    • MediaWiki 1.23wmf4 was added to test wikis on November 14. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 19 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 21 (calendar).
    • The new Search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added to *.wikimedia.org, Wikimania and Wikisource wikis on November 19, and Wiktionary wikis on November 21 (except where it's already available). Once it is added, you can test it by adding &srbackend=CirrusSearch to the address of the search results page. It will become the main search engine on Wikivoyage wikis on November 21. [126]
    • The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 19 instead of November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [127]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    08:49, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

    VisualEditor newsletter for November 2013

    Did you know?

    VisualEditor's toolbar has a new feature (currently working only in some browsers), "Switch to source editing". By choosing this item, you can move directly into the wikitext source editor without saving. This is particularly useful if you need to make significant changes to tables, image galleries, or other elements that are not currently supported.

    For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide.

    Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some feature changes, major infrastructure improvements to make the system more stable, dependable and extensible, some minor toolbar improvements, and fixing bugs.

    A new form parsing library for language characters in Parsoid caused the corruption of pages containing diacritics for about an hour two weeks ago. Relatively few pages at the English Wikipedia were affected, but this created immediate problems at some other Wikipedias, sometimes affecting several dozen pages. The development teams for Parsoid and VisualEditor apologize for the serious disruption and thank the people who reported this emergency at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback and on the public IRC channel, #mediawiki-visualeditor.

    There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

    • Accidental deletion of infoboxes and other items: You now need to press the Delete or ← Backspace key twice to delete a template, reference or image. The first time, the item becomes selected, and the second time, it is removed. The need to press the delete key twice should make it more obvious what you are doing and help avoid accidental removals of infoboxes and similar (bug 55336).
    • Switch from VisualEditor to the wikitext editor: A new feature lets you make a direct, one-way editing interface change, which will preserve your changes without needing to save the page and re-open it in the wikitext editor (bug 50687). It is available in a new menu in the action buttons by the Cancel button (where the "Page Settings" button used to be). Note that this new feature is not currently working in Firefox.
    • Categories and Languages are also now directly available in that menu. The category suggestions drop-down was appearing in the wrong place rather than below its input box, which is now fixed. An incompatibility between VisualEditor and the deployed Parsoid service that prevented editing categories and language links was fixed.
    • File:, Help: and Category: namespaces: VisualEditor was enabled for these namespaces the on all wikis (bug 55968), the Portal: and Viquiprojecte: namespaces on the Catalan Wikipedia (bug 56000), and the Portal: and Book: namespaces on the English Wikipedia (bug 56001).
    • Media item resizing: We improved how files are viewed in a few ways. First, inline media items can now be resized in the same way that has been possible with block ones (like thumbnails) before. When resizing a media item, you can see a live preview of how it will look as you drag it (bug 54298). While you are dragging an image to resize it, we now show a label with the current dimensions (bug 54297). Once you have resized it, we fetch a new, higher resolution image for the media item if necessary (bug 55697). Manual setting of media item sizes in their dialog is nearly complete and should be available next week. If you hold down the ⇧ Shift key whilst resizing an image, it will now snap to a 10 pixel grid instead of the normal free-hand sizing. The media item resize label now is centered while resizing regardless of which tool you use to resize it.
    • Undo and redo: A number of improvements were made to the transactions system which make undoing and redoing more reliable during real-time collaboration (bug 53224).
    • Save dialogue: The save page was re-written to use the same code as all other dialogs (bug 48566), and in the process fixed a number of issues. The save dialog is re-accessible if it loses focus (bug 50722), or if you review a null edit (bug 53313); its checkboxes for minor edit, watch the page, and flagged revisions options now layout much more cleanly (bug 52175), and the tab order of the buttons is now closer to what users will expect (bug 51918). There was a bug in the save dialog that caused it to crash if there was an error in loading the page from Parsoid, which is now fixed.
    • Links to other articles or pages sometimes sent people to invalid pages. VisualEditor now keeps track of the context in which you loaded the page, which lets us fix up links in document to point to the correct place regardless of what entry point you launched the editor from—so the content of pages loaded through /wiki/Foobar?veaction=edit and /w/index.php?title=Foobar&veaction=edit both now have text links that work if triggered (bug 48915).
    • Toolbar links: A bug that caused the toolbar's menus to get shorter or even blank when scrolled down the page in Firefox is now fixed (bug 55343).
    • Numbered external links: VisualEditor now supports Parsoid's changed representation of numbered external links (bug 53505).
    • Removed empty templates: We also fixed an issue that meant that completely empty templates became impossible to interact with inside VisualEditor, as they didn't show up (bug 55810).
    • Mathematics formulae: If you would like to try the experimental LaTeX mathematics tool in VisualEditor, you will need to opt-in to Beta Features. This is currently available on Meta-wiki, Wikimedia Commons, and Mediawiki.org. It will be available on all other Wikimedia sites on 21 November.
    • Browser testing support: If you are interested in technical details, the browser tests were expanded to cover some basic cursor operations, which uncovered an issue in our testing framework that doesn't work with cursoring in Firefox; the Chrome tests continue to fail due to a bug with the welcome message for that part of the testing framework.
    • Load time: VisualEditor now uses content language when fetching Wikipedia:TemplateData information, so reducing bandwidth use, and users on multi-language or multi-script wikis now get TemplateData hinting for templates as they would expect (bug 50888).
    • Reuse of VisualEditor: Work on spinning out the user experience (UX) framework from VisualEditor into oojs-ui, which lets other teams at Wikimedia (like Flow) and gadget authors re-use VisualEditor UX components, is now complete and is being moved to a shared code repository.
    • Support for private wikis: If you maintain a private wiki at home or at work, VisualEditor now supports editing of private wikis, by forwarding the Cookie: HTTP header to Parsoid ($wgVisualEditorParsoidForwardCookies set to true) (bug 44483). (Most private wikis will also need to install Parsoid and node.js, as VisualEditor requires them.)

    Looking ahead:

    • VisualEditor will be released to some of the smaller Wikipedias on 02 December 2013. If you are active at one or more smaller Wikipedias where VisualEditor is not yet generally available, please see the list at VisualEditor/Rollouts.
    • Public office hours on IRC to discuss VisualEditor with Product Manager James Forrester will be held on Monday, 2 December, at 1900 UTC and on Tuesday, 3 December, at 0100 UTC. Bring your questions. Logs will be posted on Meta after each office hour completes.
    • In terms of feature improvements, one of the major infrastructure projects affects how inserting characters works, both using your computer's built-in Unicode input systems and through a planned character inserter tool for VisualEditor. The forthcoming rich copying and pasting feature was extended and greater testing is currently being done. Work continues to support the improved reference dialog to quickly add citations based on local templates.

    If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 22:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-47

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    • The Beta Features announced before are now available on all Wikimedia wikis. You can test new features easily by changing your Beta preferences. VisualEditor is one of those features on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. There is also a new media viewer and changes in the article text style. [128]
    • Tools developers can now create tools that use the OAuth protocol to connect to accounts on Wikimedia sites. As a user, you can use those tools to make edits and other changes with your account without giving the tool your password. [129]

    Problems

    Future

    • There will be no major code changes on the week of November 25 because many developers will be on holiday for Thanksgiving.
    • The editing interface of Page: pages on Wikisource (working with the Proofread Page extension) will soon also work without JavaScript. [130]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    06:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

    The Wikipedia Library's Books and Bytes newsletter (#2)

    Books & Bytes

    Sign up for monthly delivery

    Welcome to the second issue of The Wikipedia Library's Books & Bytes newsletter! Read on for updates about what is going on at the intersection of Wikipedia and the library world.

    Wikipedia Library highlights: New accounts, new surveys, new positions, new presentations...

    Spotlight on people: Another Believer and Wiki Loves Libraries...

    Books & Bytes in brief: From Dewey to Diversity conference...

    Further reading: Digital library portals around the web...
    Read Books & Bytes

    The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs) 16:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-49

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    This newsletter is now posted using MediaWiki message delivery.

    New features

    • The CommonsMetadata feature was added to all wikis. It creates metadata information about multimedia files (like their license) that can be read automatically by computer programs. It not only works for Commons, but for all wikis, and you can use it for files on your wiki by editing templates used to describe metadata. [131]
    • JavaScript code used on Wikimedia sites is now saved locally on your computer to load faster. [132]

    VisualEditor

    • You can now paste formatted content copied from external sources (not just as plain text) into VisualEditor; this includes copy/pasting from other VisualEditor windows. [133]
    • You can now open VisualEditor by adding ?veaction=edit to the page URL, regardless of your user preferences. [134]
    • Many bugs have been fixed, and VisualEditor should also look faster, for example when you save a page. [135]

    Problems

    • Due to issues, the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") was recently removed from wikis where it was enabled, then added again. [136]

    Future

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    08:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

    The Wikipedia Library Survey

    As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi t | c 15:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 11 December 2013

    Tech News: 2013-50

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    New features

    VisualEditor

    • The toolbar is now simpler; all text styles (bold, italics, underline, subscript, etc.) are in the same menu, and the "More" menu is called "Insert". [140]
    • You can now use a basic tool to add special characters to your text. You can add more characters (useful in your language) by editing the MediaWiki interface on translatewiki.net.
    • The tool to add and edit mathematical text is now called "formula". [141]

    Problems

    • There was a problem with the "Create a book" tool (Collection); books could only be exported to PDF format. The change has been undone. [142]
    • The log-in system for external tools ("OAuth") was broken on wikis that tested the new search tool. It was fixed last week. [143] [144]
    • Because of a bug, this newsletter is delivered to users using the new MediaWiki message delivery, and to community pages using the old EdwardsBot. [145]

    Future

    • MediaWiki 1.23wmf7 was added to test wikis on December 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 17 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 19 (calendar).
    • You will soon be able to select the language of SVG images that have translations using a drop-down menu on the image page. (see example) [146]
    • GLAMToolset, a tool to help GLAM groups (like museums) upload many pictures to Commons, will be added to Commons on December 17. [147]
    • A Draft namespace will be added to the English Wikipedia to make it easier to create new pages. You will be able to use VisualEditor for drafts if you have enabled it. [148] [149]

    Other

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    08:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 18 December 2013

    VisualEditor newsletter • 19 December 2013

    Did you know?

    VisualEditor's toolbar has a new drop-down menu that contains all character formatting: bold, italics, subscript, superscript, strikethrough, computer code, underline, and the ability to remove all formatting from text.

    For more information about how to use VisualEditor, read the user guide.

    Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

    There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

    • Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
    • Auto-numbered external links like [151] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
    • Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
    • There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
    • Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
    • It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally.  To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name.  For example, change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor.  This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

    Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

    If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

    Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#Unrelated_to_the_deletion_process

    Thank you for looking hard at the advantages/disadvantages. Might it be helpful to migrate the struck out disadvantages into a separate section too? Fiddle Faddle 09:46, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

    Could you revert, please?

    Hi John. Thanks for all your years of volunteering here at Wikipedia. Thanks also for your wonderful book. I found it a good read.

    It looks like you may have missed my my note to you at Wikipedia talk:Drafts#Deletion and Draft:. I was hoping you would revert your changes to the discussion there. More specifically the moving and striking of comments per our guideline at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Others' comments, which states

    Striking text constitutes a change in meaning, and should only be done by the user who wrote it or someone acting at their explicit request.

    among other things. I realize you were trying to help move the conversation forward, but I think you may have not realized what my comments inferred. That deletion is often viewed by article writers as a hostile act and drives writers away. And that the Draft: namespace can act as a "safe harbor" for article writers as described in this 2011 concept. Therefore, I believe my comments were relevant to the conversation. And I expect others may very well feel the same. I sincerely appreciate your help with this. Thanks. 64.40.54.118 (talk) 22:28, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
    @64.40.54.118: The guideline you cite specifically says "Some examples of appropriately editing others' comments: ... Off-topic posts ..."
    More importantly, my expectation was that if the text that I edited to have strikethrough was in fact relevant, then the editor who posted it would go back and modify the wording to make it clear(er) that it was in fact relevant, rather than being off-topic. That is, if I didn't realize what the comment inferred (as you state), then the solution is to make the inferences explicit rather than implicit, since other editors are likely to reach the same (apparently erroneous) conclusion. Such clarification would also help to identify whether the point being raised was already covered by another item in the list.
    Additionally, any other editor who thought the text was in fact relevant on its face could, quite properly (in my opinion) also remove the strikethrough, per WP:BB.
    So, no, I'm not going to revert my edit, but I'm certainly happy to see others revert it if/when textual clarifications are made that do in fact show the item(s) are both relevant and non-duplicative. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 06:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

    Tech News: 2013-51

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    Recent software changes

    • The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on December 19. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on December 31 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 2, 2014 (calendar).
    • You can now test the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") on all Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia chapter wikis hosted on Foundation servers. Enable "New search" in your Beta features preferences. [152]
    • There was a bug where notifications were not sent when the signature of the user leaving the message linked to a translated namespace. The problem was fixed in the software and will soon be fixed on Wikimedia sites. [153] [154]
    • You can now use the log-in system for external tools (OAuth) on all Wikimedia wikis that use the unified login. [155]
    • If your wiki adds stars or other icons to interwiki links for featured articles in other languages, you may need to change the JavaScript code. [156]
    • You can thank other users for their edits even if your browser does not have JavaScript. [157] [158]
    • All edits made through Flow, the new discussion system for MediaWiki, are now visible in user's contributions. You can test it on the Flow talk page on MediaWiki.org. [159] [160]
    • You can test a visual tool that shows edits made to an article over time. It only works for English Wikipedia pages for now and is slow on long articles. [161]
    • You can test the first version of the new mobile Wikipedia app for Android and iOS. [162]
    • Translatewiki.net, the site where you can translate the MediaWiki software, now has a new main page for users without an account. [163]

    Future software changes

    • There will be no technical changes this week (December 23 to December 29) due to end-of-year holidays.
    • When someone deletes, restores, uploads, or moves a file on Commons, pages on all wikis that use that file will be refreshed. [164] [165]
    • New users will soon have their user and talk pages added to their watchlist as soon as they create an account. [166] [167].
    • The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will not show the text of versions of a page that have been hidden. [168] [169]
    • You will soon be able to see the raw HTML created by some wikitext by using the Special:ExpandTemplates tool. [170] [171]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    08:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

    The Signpost: 25 December 2013

    Tech News: 2014-01

    Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

    Recent software changes

    • You can now see the text of DjVu and PDF files in search results on wikis testing the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [172] [173]
    • With the new version of the Wikibase DataModel extension, you can install it outside Wikimedia wikis. [174]

    VisualEditor news

    • Images are now shown inside VisualEditor as HTML5 <figure /> elements. Comments are welcome. [175]
    • You can now test a basic version of VisualEditor on mobile devices; see this article as an example.

    Problems

    Future software changes

    • CirrusSearch will be added as the second search method for Spanish (es), French (fr), Portuguese (pt) and Russian (ru) wikis on December 30. Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies and Wikinews users will also be able to enable it in their Beta Features options.
    • AbuseFilter log entries will be visible in CheckUser tool reports. [177] [178]
    • It will soon be possible to search for log entries done by users without an account. [179] [180]
    • It will no longer be possible to globally hide users with more than 1,000 edits. [181] [182]

    Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

    08:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
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