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21:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

22:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Guidance Barnstar
Dear Asartea,
Thank you so much for your prompt and most helpful assistance from the Help Desk today, as I was struggling with a strange glitch when coding 'rowspan=' in a wikitable. Your provision of a working solution is very much appreciated and will now enable me to make progress with that project; thank you once again!
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(become old-fashioned!) 21:01, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Request for help with Edits

Hi Asartea, Hope you are well. I noticed you made some edits to the gender diversity section of the board room page and I was wondering if you'd be interested in helping me with a project. I'm trying to set up a page for a charity called "Board Apprentice" (https://www.boardapprentice.com/) which aims to end inequality in the board room. It was set up by charlotte Valuer, who is the former chair of the IOD and her primary aim was to train the next generation of business leaders by getting them to experience on company boards. I've written up the page and had ago referencing a draft of the page (it's in my sandbox) but I'm struggling with the referencing. Do you have the capacity to take a look at it and help me get it up to scratch or point me to where I'm going wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:MIAAccount/sandbox&redirect=no Thanks so much MIAAccount (talk) 15:22, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

15:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 March 2022

19:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

20:59, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928)
  • When viewing deleted revisions or diffs on Special:Undelete a back link to the undelete page for the associated page is now present. (T284114)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous


Tech News: 2022-15

19:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-16

23:10, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 May newsletter

The second round of the 2022 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 115 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top seven contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 11 featured articles and the 79 good articles achieved in total by contestants.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

  1. New York (state) Epicgenius, with 1264 points from 2 featured article, 4 good articles and 18 DYKs. Epicgenius was a finalist last year but has now withdrawn from the contest as he pursues a new career path.
  2. Christmas Island AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
  3. Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132, with 605 points from 44 in the news items and 4 DYKs.
  4. Sammi Brie, with 573 points from 8 GAs and 21 DYKs.
  5. Ealdgyth, with 567 points from 11 GAs and 34 good and featured article reviews.
  6. United States Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
  7. England Lee Vilenski, with 545 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and a number of reviews.

The rules for featured and good article reviews require the review to be of sufficient length; brief quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 April 2022

Tech News: 2022-17

22:54, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-18

19:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

It's not vandalism - if you take a second to look at the edits

You'll see that I'm removing what is essentially a list of countries that someone has decided are worthy of being called Nazis (China, Japan, USA, Israel). Oh and all Muslims. But if that's the way Wikipedia rolls as an encyclopedia, fine, let me know, I definitely won't be editing again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2403:5808:D56:0:2492:2A2A:2420:3C78 (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi,
I understand your concerns, but repeatedly removing the material is not the best solution. Instead I would recommend that you leave a note on the articles talk page explaining your concerns. Hope this helps, -- Asartea Talk | Contribs 19:24, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-19

15:20, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration


Tech News: 2022-20

18:56, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-21

00:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 May 2022

Tech News: 2022-22

20:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
  • The IP Info feature has been deployed to all wikis as a Beta Feature. Any autoconfirmed user may enable the feature using the "IP info" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features. Autoconfirmed users will be able to access basic information about an IP address that includes the country and connection method. Those with advanced privileges (admin, bureaucrat, checkuser) will have access to extra information that includes the Internet Service Provider and more specific location.

Arbitration


Tech News: 2022-23

02:44, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-24

16:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-25

20:16, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2022

Tech News: 2022-26

20:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 July newsletter

The third round of the 2022 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 180 points, which is a lower figure than last year when 294 points were needed to progress to round 4. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose, with 746 points, a tally built both on snooker and other sports topics, and on more general subjects.
  • Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132, with 683 points, garnered mostly from "In the news" items and related DYKs.
  • Sammi Brie, with 527, from a variety of submissions related to radio and television stations.

Between them contestants achieved 5 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 51 good articles, 149 DYK entries, 68 ITN entries, and 109 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article nomination, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. WikiCup judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:50, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-27

19:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2022).

Technical news

  • user_global_editcount is a new variable that can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. (T130439)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The New Pages Patrol queue has around 10,000 articles to be reviewed. As all administrators have the patrol right, please consider helping out. The queue is here. For further information on the state of the project, see the latest NPP newsletter.

Tech News: 2022-28

19:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Global bot approval request for Dušan Kreheľ (bot)

Tech News: 2022-29

22:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for resolving the issue with User:Bradv/endlesscontribs.js in my absence, and thanks to Enterprisey for implementing it. And sorry for being MIA - I will try to be around more often, despite other real-life obligations. – bradv🍁 15:13, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Bradv no problem, just happened to stumble across the bug and spot the problem. Also please don't feel sorry for going MIA; real life is always more important than this website. -- Asartea Talk | Contribs 15:50, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Any time, plus what Asartea said. And thanks for making the script in the first place. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:46, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-30

19:25, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

Tech News: 2022-31

21:20, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2022).

Administrator changes

readded Valereee
removed Anthony Appleyard (deceased) • CapitalistroadsterSamsara

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC has been closed with consensus to add javascript that will show edit notices for editors editing via a mobile device. This only works for users using a mobile browser, so iOS app editors will still not be able to see edit notices.
  • An RfC has been closed with the consensus that train stations are not inherently notable.

Technical news

  • The Wikimania 2022 Hackathon will take place virtually from 11 August to 14 August.
  • Administrators will now see links on user pages for "Change block" and "Unblock user" instead of just "Block user" if the user is already blocked. (T308570)

Arbitration

  • The arbitration case request Geschichte has been automatically closed after a 3 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

  • You can vote for candidates in the 2022 Board of Trustees elections from 16 August to 30 August. Two community elected seats are up for election.
  • Wikimania 2022 is taking place virtually from 11 August to 14 August. The schedule for wikimania is listed here. There are also a number of in-person events associated with Wikimania around the world.
  • Tech tip: When revision-deleting on desktop, hold ⇧ Shift between clicking two checkboxes to select every box in that range.

Tech News: 2022-32

19:48, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-33

21:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 02:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-34

00:10, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-35

23:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

Administrators' newsletter – September 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2022).

Guideline and policy news

  • A discussion is open to define a process by which Vector 2022 can be made the default for all users.
  • An RfC is open to gain consensus on whether Fox News is reliable for science and politics.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • An arbitration case regarding Conduct in deletion-related editing has been closed. The Arbitration Committee passed a remedy as part of the final decision to create a request for comment (RfC) on how to handle mass nominations at Articles for Deletion (AfD).
  • The arbitration case request Jonathunder has been automatically closed after a 6 month suspension of the case.

Miscellaneous

  • The new pages patrol (NPP) team has prepared an appeal to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) for assistance with addressing Page Curation bugs and requested features. You are encouraged to read the open letter before it is sent, and if you support it, consider signing it. It is not a discussion, just a signature will suffice.
  • Voting for candidates for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees is open until 6 September.

WikiCup 2022 September newsletter

The fourth round of the WikiCup has now finished. 383 points were required to reach the final, and the new round has got off to a flying start with all finalists already scoring. In round 4, Bloom6132 with 939 points was the highest points-scorer, with a combination of DYKs and In the news items, followed by BennyOnTheLoose, Sammi Brie and Lee Vilenski. The points of all contestants are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

At this stage, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For the remaining competitors, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and importantly, before the deadline on October 31st!

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. The judges are Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-36

23:19, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Question from Foxmilder (15:12, 9 September 2022)

Hello,

My name (or, more accurately, the ironic pen name I found slightly amusing and ended up stuck with indefinitely) is Fox Milder.

I'm relatively new to editing, and I am told that you have been assigned to be my mentor. I don't really know precisely what that entails, but there are many aspects of Wikipedia editing of which I know very little, and I am keen to learn how I might best go about making a positive contribution to the site.

Currently, my main area of focus when editing Wikipedia is best described as aesthetic or stylistic: Having spent years occasionally encountering instances of messy, inelegant writing in the articles I read, I decided I would contribute, where possible, by (hopefully) improving upon awkward passages, grammatical errors, and so on.

As a current university student, I am often warned of the alleged unreliability of Wikipedia by lecturers, tutors, and other academic staff. I object to this assessment of Wikipedia, which I tend to hold in higher regard than do my teachers and peers.

My suspicion is that the academic reputation of Wikipedia as a source of information suffers for the fact that articles are often written in an awkward and/or disjointed style, presumably a by-product of the collaborative, democratic means by which articles are written and edited.

I'm not a particularly active editor, and my goals here are rather modest. My primary aim in editing Wikipedia pages is simply to harmonise the contributions of various editors, standardise the authorial voice of articles, and improve the general readability of Wikipedia.

Is there anything I ought to know about engaging in this kind of editing? More specifically, are there any established norms of etiquette I should be aware of regarding purely stylistic edits? It's important to me that my edits do not come across as tendentious, pedantic, or critical of other editors' contributions.

Can you offer any advice in regard to this? --Foxmilder (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello. Although I am not Asartea, I would like to butt in by mentioning the Manual of Style, as it’s a good place to start when looking for guidelines and consensus regarding stylistic edits. Hope this aids you in your editing, Mugtheboss (talk) 18:17, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
@Foxmilder: Asartea put your question out into a chat room for input, as a slight disclaimer for why someone else is answering. First, welcome! Don't worry TOO much about rules and regulations - there are far, far too many policies out there to expect newbies to know them all at first glance. Just pay attention to if people revert your changes afterward, and if they do, see if they cite a policy or the like in their edit summary. It's to be expected that there may be some "School of Hard Knocks" learning of the rules. I will say that the Wikipedia Manual of Style is a good thing to read if your main interests are stylistic, if you are willing to read one page of policy first. (Wikipedia has so many policy pages due to 20 years of accrued discussions... no easy fix for that.)
For when you see an article written in a seemingly awkward or disjointed style, I will recommend potentially checking the "history" tab first, and maybe looking at what the page looked like a month ago / a year ago. Sometimes an uncaught vandal, or a well-meaning but clueless editor, storms in and disrupts things, and the easiest fix is also the simplest - undo their contributions, and presto, disjointedness gone. No need to waste your time "fixing" something that shouldn't have been added in the first place.
You wrote something interesting above: "standardise the authorial voice of articles". I don't want to draw implications from this statement you didn't intend, but I'd be careful here. Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austen are all celebrated 19th century English authors, but nobody would ever confuse one's writing for the other. In the same way that trying to "fix" Dickens by trying to make him read like Twain doesn't really help and will probably hurt, it's okay for different articles to have different styles, because they're maintained by different editors. This is especially true across domains - mathematics editors may have one style, military history editors have another style, and so on. (See Sacred Cod for one example of a rather goofy style for an article that's basically harmless.) For sure, nobody will complain about fixing simple grammar errors, but changing a "good" version of valid style A into valid style B may attract some criticism. Notably, we have a policy WP:RETAIN on the most famous case of this, national varieties of English. For articles without a strong link to one variety of English, Wikipedia uses the style of English of the first major contributor usually. There's a similar policy on citation style, WP:CITEVAR. Anyway, the principle of RETAIN goes a bit beyond just British vs. American English: it's to not make changes for the sake of changes, because then there'd be inefficient edit warring back and forth.
For things you should know and how to avoid breaking social norms: In general, you should be fine as long as you don't edit war to force your changes through, and you don't make tons of changes so quickly that it looks like a bot account or attempting to do a "fait accompli." It's also best to avoid certain controversial style topics (e.g. race capitalization, person-first terminology) that draw a lot of heat. If someone reverts you... well, technically there's a Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:Ownership of content that says nobody "owns" a page. But in practice, if you're just offering stylistic changes, there's something to be said for deferring to the preferences of the long-term maintainer of the page. Maybe best to let it lie unless you're really sure they're wrong, in which case talk it out on the article talk page rather than edit warring, where you can ask why your change was undone. 90% of copyeditors / proofreaders do their jobs in peace and make solid changes, so I really wouldn't worry too much - this warning mostly comes up if you happen to be in the 10% of controversial or contested changes.
Anyway, good luck with your editing of Wikipedia! I hope the "danger scenarios" above don't sound too scary - to be clear, I think they're unlikely to happen. You can always ask Asartea for a check-in or check of your edits to see how things are going 100 edits later or the like. SnowFire (talk) 18:46, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
ding ding ding!Mugtheboss (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
@Mugtheboss: First of all,
Thankyou for this tremendously detailed response. There's a lot of stuff in here that I had wondered about, and I appreciate you telling me directly, saving me the time and effort of trying to find the various policy documents in which these principles are elaborated. I am particularly grateful for your advice regarding national varieties of English, and your suggestion to avoid those few areas where questions of style are closely intertwined with political and cultural controversies.
Regarding my stated desire to "standardise the authorial voice of articles", I ought to have been more clear. I have no desire to standardise authorial voice across articles — to do so would be injurious to the democratic, internationalist orientation of Wikipedia. What I have in mind is the "smoothing over" of clashing authorial voices within individual articles. I don't have the level of experience to understand why this happens, but I often encounter articles in which the transitions between sections or paragraphs feel slightly jarring, as though the writing style or POV of the text has suddenly changed.
Nevertheless, I take your point. I notice now, for instance, that I spelled the word "standardise" in the manner that is natural to me as a speaker of Australian English. But if I were to use the same word while editing an article written in American English, the appropriate spelling would be "standardize". I suspect I will have to remind myself of this particular principle. I can comfortably write within the conventions of British English without much mental effort, but I find writing in American English requires more conscious attention.
Finally, regarding the more controversial aspects of language use: I have reasonably deeply-held political views regarding some of the issues mentioned, and my feeling is that it would be unwise for me to involve myself in controversies that overlap with my personal biases. I have a reasonable sense of what I am capable of being dispassionate and objective about, and where my limits lie. My preference, more or less, is to simply avoid subject areas where my participation might give rise to the reasonable apprehension of bias.
Thanks again for your advice. Foxmilder (talk) 04:09, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
@Foxmilder: Hello and welcome to Wikipedia! All the advice mentioned above is excellent. My advice for a beginner, after reading the basic manuals, tenets and etiquette, is to choose a recent article and prove his editing abilities. If your main interest is prose itself, I would recommend Jacques Abeille as a recent article that could use a boost in writing quality. Good luck and may Fortune smile at you! DemianStratford (talk) 20:16, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-37

01:47, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-38

MediaWiki message delivery 22:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-39

MediaWiki message delivery 00:27, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

Administrators' newsletter – October 2022

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2022).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Articles for creation helper script now automatically recognises administrator accounts which means your name does not need to be listed at WP:AFCP to help out. If you wish to help out at AFC, enable AFCH by navigating to Preferences → Gadgets and checking the "Yet Another AfC Helper Script" box.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous


Tech News: 2022-40

MediaWiki message delivery 00:21, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-41

14:06, 10 October 2022 (UTC)