This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I have been working on Wikipedia to revert vandalism for a while now, although I took a break recently because it was too time consuming. Now I find myself with more time, and would like to continue by using Huggle so I can clean things up faster. As I need rollback privileges to use Huggle, I would be really grateful if you could assign them to me. Thanks so much. WikiTomeTalk 11:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Take down thy til end of august "happiness on others' misfortune" banner!
Since you've obviously been back. That, or change it to reflect your (in)activity. (It is meant to be construed as slightly poking fun at a fellow clerk.) - Penwhale | dance in the air and follow his steps 14:07, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
You are invited to Wikipedia DC Meetup #12 on Saturday, October 23, 6pm at Bertucci's in Foggy Bottom. Special guests at this meetup will include Wikimedia CTO Danese Cooper, other Wikimedia technical staff and volunteer developers who will be in DC for Hack-A-Ton DC. Please RSVP on the meetup page.
To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:59, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
The Wikipedia Guild of Copy-Editors invites you to participate in the November 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive will begin on 1 November at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on 30 November at 23:59 (UTC). The goal for this drive is to reduce the backlog by 10% (approximately 500 articles). We hope to focus our efforts on the oldest three months (January, February, and March 2009) and the newest three months (September, October, and November 2010) of articles in the queue.
Sign-up has already begun at the November drive page, and will be open throughout the drive. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a message on the drive's talk page.
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants, some of which are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.
You are invited to Wikipedia DC Meetup #13 on Wednesday, November 17, from 7 to 9 pm, location to be determined (but near a Metro station in DC).
To keep up-to-date on local events, you can join the mailing list.
You can remove your name from future notifications of Washington DC Meetups by editing this page: Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Invite/List. BrownBot (talk) 13:37, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Spaceflight portals
Hello! As an member editor of one or more of the Spaceflight, Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight or Space colonisation WikiProjects, I'd like to draw to your attention a proposal I have made with regards to the future of the spaceflight-related portals, which can be found at Portal talk:Spaceflight#Portal merge. I'd very much appreciate any suggestions or feedback you'd be able to offer! Many thanks,
It's that time again to update membership status with the Nintendo task force, which we periodically do to keep our membership up-to-date.
All participants have been placed on an "Inactive participants" list. To confirm that you're still a member of the Nintendo task force, simply go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Nintendo#Members and move your name from the "Inactive participants" list to the bottom of the "Active participants" list. If you are no longer an active member in the task force, you may simply remove your name altogether. On 23 December, all entries under the "Inactive participants" list will be removed. Hopefully you can stay with us and continue to work on Nintendo-related articles. Regards, MuZemike delivered by MuZebot 17:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
WikiProject Space Colonization activity
Hello there! As part of an experiment to determine how many active editors are present in the spaceflight-related WikiProjects, some changes have been made to the list of members of WikiProject Space Colonization. If you still consider yourself to be an active editor in this project, we would be grateful if you would please edit the list so that your name is not struck out - thus a clearer idea of the critical mass of editors can be determined. Many thanks in advance.
Elections are currently underway for our inaugural Guild coordinators. The voting period will run for 14 days: 00:01 UTC, Friday 1 December – 23:59 UTC, Tuesday 14 December. All GOCE members in good standing, as well as past participants of any of the Guild's Backlog elimination drives, are eligible to vote. There are six candidates vying for four positions. The candidate with the highest number of votes will become the Lead Coordinator, therefore, your vote really matters! Cast your vote today.
A particular highlight for the wiki crowd will be 'Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958–1968', and the accompanying "WikiPop" project, with specially-created Wikipedia articles on the artists displayed on iPads in the gallery.
This will be a museum touring and partying meetup, so no excuses about being a shy newbie this time. Bring a friend too!
To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:11, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Welcome to The Downlink · Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects · User Activity Checks
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Future issues will contain information on issues under discussion, newly featured content, and articles written by members of the project to appear in the newsletter. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter. If you were not aware of being a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, membership of the former Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight and Space colonization WikiProjects was merged into WikiProject spaceflight during the reorganisation of the spaceflight projects, for more details, please see below.
Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects
The ongoing discussion of the future of Space WikiProjects has been making progress. WikiProject Space was abolished on 5 December 2010, with the Spaceflight, Astronomy and Solar System projects becoming independent of each other. On the same day, an assessment banner, {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} was created for WikiProject Spaceflight to replace the generic space one which had been used previously. On 9 December, WikiProject Space Colonization was abolished, with its tasks being subsumed into WikiProject Spaceflight. On 12 December, the Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight WikiProjects became task forces of WikiProject Spaceflight, whilst WikiProject Timeline of spaceflight became a working group.
A number of issues are still under discussion:
Introducing better defined assessment criteria and an A-class review process
Setting clearer importance criteria for assessing articles
Establishing a joint task force with the Astronomy and Solar System projects to cover space telescopes and planetary probes
Defining the roles of projects, taskforces and working groups, and processes for establishing new ones
A series of checks are underway to establish the numbers of users who are still active within WikiProject Spaceflight, its task forces and working group. All usernames on the members lists were struck out, and members were asked to unstrike their own names if they were still an active member of the project. If you wish to do so, and have not already, please unstrike your name from the master list, plus the lists on any applicable task forces or working groups
You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.
We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2010. Read all about these in the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report.
Highlights
Membership grows to 503 editors
2,589 articles removed through four Backlog elimination drives
Welcome to The Downlink·Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics·Salyut 2
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to the first full issue of The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Below you will find information about happenings within the project, our recognised content, spaceflight in the news and events needing to be covered in articles. You will also find an editorial about the first concerted effort to develop featured topics related to spaceflight, and an article in need of your help and improvements.
Project News will provide details of discussions about and changes in the organisation and structure of the project, newly recognised content, and changes in membership. News from Orbit will summarise spaceflight news and upcoming events, and list suggestions for articles in need of updating as a result. Article News will give details of requests for assistance within articles, and discussions regarding content.
All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter, and we would particularly welcome the submission of editorials, or an article about an area of spaceflight which you are working on, or particularly interested in. Please see The Downlink page for more details.
Discussion within the project is still dominated by the reorganisation proposals. A discussion over the formation and roles of working groups and task forces has led to some clarification regarding working groups, however the roles of the task forces remain vague, and several proposals to abolish them have surfaced. The Human Spaceflight to-do list has been merged into the main project to-do list, with the combined list currently located on the Tasks page of the Spaceflight portal.
New assessment criteria for importance and quality have been implemented, and refinements continue to be made to the importance scale. The scope of the project was redefined to exclude astronomical objects explicitly. Although A-class criteria have been defined, a review process is yet to be discussed or implemented.
Colds7ream conducted an analysis of open tasks related to the reorganisation which four major issues remain unresolved: Discussion concerning the existence and roles of task forces within the project; recruitment of new editors; updating guidelines and whether the project or the task forces should be responsible for maintaining them; and the continued existence of the Human spaceflight portal six weeks after consensus was reached to abolish it.
Discussion about the structure of the project is ongoing, with several proposals currently on the table. One proposal calls for the abolition of task forces in favour of increased emphasis on working groups, whilst another calls for the task forces to become a list of topics. The idea of a formal collaboration system has been suggested, however opposition has been raised.
One of the main open tasks at the moment is replacing the older {{WikiProject Space}} and {{WikiProject Human spaceflight}} banners with the new {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} banner. Articles which need to be retagged are currently listed in Category:WikiProject Spaceflight articles using deprecated project tags. ChiZeroOne is doing a very good job replacing them, but as of the morning of 31 December, there are still 1,424 left to be converted. Additionally, the implementation of a new B-class checklist built into the template has necessitated the reassessment of former B-class articles, which the template has automatically classified as C-class.
News from Orbit
On 3 December, USA-212, the first X-37B, landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base after a successful mission. On 5 December Proton-M with a Blok DM-03 upper stage failed to place three Glonass-M satellites into orbit, the first of three failures in less than forty eight hours. The NanoSail-D2 spacecraft was supposed to have been ejected from FASTSAT in the early hours of the next morning, however it does not appear to have separated. Finally the Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus in the evening of 6 December. The Proton launch was the maiden flight of the Blok DM-03, which does not currently have an article.
On 8 December the Dragon C1 demonstration mission was conducted, with the SpaceX Dragon making a little under two orbits of the Earth on its maiden flight, before landing in the Pacific Ocean to complete a successful mission. The Falcon 9 rocket which launched the Dragon spacecraft also deployed eight CubeSats: SMDC-ONE 1, QbX-1, QbX-2, Perseus 000, Perseus 001, Perseus 002, Perseus 003 and Mayflower. The CubeSats do not currently have articles.
On 15 December, a Soyuz-FG launched Soyuz TMA-20 to the International Space Station, carrying three members of the Expedition 26 crew. It docked two days later. The Soyuz TMA-20 article is currently short, and could use improvements to bring it up to the same level as articles for US manned spaceflights. On 17 December, a Long March 3A launched Compass-IGSO2. There is currently no article for this satellite.
17 December saw Intelsat regain control of the Galaxy 15 satellite, which had been out of control since a malfunction in April. The Galaxy 15 article is in need of serious cleanup and a good copyedit. On 25 December a GSLV Mk.I failed to place GSAT-5P into orbit. A Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage successfully launched KA-SAT on 26 December. Barring any suborbital launches at the end of the month which have not yet been announced (a NASA Black Brant was scheduled for December but does not appear to have flown), 2010 in spaceflight concluded on 29 December when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6 spacecraft. These do not currently have articles.
Four launches are currently scheduled to occur in January 2011. A Delta IV Heavy is expected to launch NRO L-49 on 17 January. The satellite is expected to be an Improved Crystal electro-optical imaging spacecraft. Two launches are planned for 20 January, with Kounotori 2, the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, being launched by an H-IIB, and the Zenit-3F making its maiden flight to deploy Elektro-L No.1, the first Russian geostationary weather satellite to be launched since 1994. On 28 January Progress M-09M will be launched by a Soyuz-U. 28 January will also be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Space ShuttleChallenger on mission STS-51-L.
Article News
It was requested that the article Walter Haeussermann be expanded. Haeussermann, a member of the von Braun rocket group, died on 8 December. Although the article has been updated following his death, a user requested that more information about the engineer be added. Another user requested that the articles Commercial Space Launch Act and Launch Services Purchase Act be created, to cover laws of the United States concerning spaceflight.
Articles related to methods of taking-off and landing were discussed. The term VTVL currently has an article whilst VTHL and HTHL do not. It was suggested that the existing article should be merged, and each term be covered by the article for the equivalent aviation term, however some distinction between use in the fields of aviation and spaceflight should remain.
Concern was raised that a large scale deletion request could cause many images to be lost from articles, help was requested to investigate whether any of the images were not subject to copyright, or if they were then whether they could be uploaded to the English Wikipedia under a claim of fair use.
Concerns were raised about a large amount of content in the newly-created article deorbit of Mir duplicating existing content in existing Good Article Progress M1-5. A proposal to merge deorbit of Mir into Progress M1-5 was made, however objections were raised, and discussion has since stalled without reaching a consensus. It has also been requested that the article Mir be copyedited.
The existence of separate categories for "spaceflight" and "space exploration" has been questioned, with a suggestion that some of the exploration categories, including Category:Space exploration iteslf, should be merged into their spaceflight counterparts.
Editorial – Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics
There has recently been much talk about trying to increase the activity of the project. To this end, a major reorganisation effort has been undertaken, which has seen the space WikiProjects separated into the Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight groups, with WikiProject Space being abolished. We have also seen the child projects of WikiProject Spaceflight being abolished, with Timeline of Spaceflight becoming a working group, and the Unmanned and Human Spaceflight projects becoming task forces for now, with some suggestions that they should be abolished outright. The problem with the previous structure was that there were too many different groups of editors, and nobody was sure which projects were supposed to be doing what. Now there is only one project, this is somewhat clearer, but spaceflight is still a huge topic.
Another way to improve the activity of the project is to attract more editors. Spaceflight is a topic which many people have at least a very casual interest in, and therefore it is strange that there are only about four or five people regularly participating in discussions on the project talk page. Evidently action is needed to raise the profile of the project.
One way in which the project's profile can be raised is to have a major success associated with it. The creation of a featured topic could be one such success, and would also be hugely beneficial to articles in the area that it relates to. Space Stations are one of the most high-profile and notable areas of spaceflight, and are therefore a logical choice to spearhead such an initiative.
To this end, in late December a working group was established to concentrate and coordinate efforts to establish featured topics related to space stations. An initial proposal calls for topics on Skylab, Salyut, Mir and the International Space Station, as well as one on space stations in general. There is currently an effort to get Mir promoted to Good Article status; the article currently requires a copyedit, after which it will be sent for peer review and then to GAN.
This is by no means a short-term project. There are many articles, particularly for the larger space stations such as the ISS and Mir, which are currently nowhere near becoming recognised content. Skylab is the smallest of the proposed featured topics, but it still requires that three C-class articles, two Start-class articles and a redirect all reach at least Good Article status, with at least three becoming Featured Articles. The ISS topic is so large that it may have to be subdivided.
I don't expect that we will have any featured topics by the end of the year, but I believe that a Good Topic, which requires all articles reach at least GA status, but does not require any featured articles, may be possible. I also believe that several articles on the subject can easily be improved to Good Article status, and some articles may be at featured level by the end of the year. In the long term, having featured topics will benefit the project and its content.
Selected Article – Salyut 2
Salyut 2 was an early space station, launched in 1973 as part of the Salyut and Almaz programmes. It malfunctioned two days after launch, and consequently was never visited by a manned Soyuz mission.
The Salyut 2 article describes the station:
“
Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(Russian: Салют-2; English: Salute 2) was launched April 4, 1973. It was not really a part of the same program as the other Salyutspace stations, instead being the highly classified prototype military space station Almaz. It was given the designation Salyut 2 to conceal its true nature. Despite its successful launch, within two days the as-yet-unmanned Salyut 2 began losing pressure and its flight control failed; the cause of the failure was likely due to shrapnel piercing the station when the discarded Proton rocket upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973.
”
The article is currently assessed as start class, and is in need of attention. It consists of the above paragraph, along with a list of specifications and an infobox. The article needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopaedic style, and with more information about the space station. It has not yet been determined whether Salyut 2 would have to be included in a featured topic about the Salyut programme, or whether since it was never manned it is less integral to the topic, however if its inclusion were necessary then in its current form it would be a major impediment to this. Downlink readers are encouraged to improve this article, with a view to getting it to B-class and possibly a viable Good Article candidate by the end of the month.
You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.
Description: There will be a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Archives and you will learn more about what NARA does. We will also have a mini-film screening featuring FedFlix videos along with a special message from Jimmy Wales. In the afternoon, there will be lightning talks by Wikimedians (signup to speak), wiki-trivia, and cupcakes to celebrate!
Details & RSVP: Details about the event are on our Washington, DC tenwiki page.
Please RSVP soon as possible, as there likely will be a cap on number of attendees that NARA can accommodate.
Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·The Charts·Yuri Gagarin
Project News
A report on popular pages from December 2010 revealed surprising trends in readers' interests. Boeing X-37 was the most popular article within the project's scope, with SpaceX Dragon in second with Global Positioning System in third place. The top seven articles were all assessed as C-class, with the remainder of the top ten being Good Articles. It was noted with some concern that moon landing conspiracy theories was more popular than moon landing.
A discussion regarding whether missiles warranted inclusion within the project scope was conducted, and resulted in the continued inclusion of missiles.
The last remaining articles tagged with the banner of the former Human Spaceflight WikiProject were re-tagged with the WikiProject Spaceflight banner. The last banner was removed on 8 January, and the template has since been deleted. The project is thankful to ChiZeroOne for his work in this field.
Concerns were raised that the new article reporting system was not working correctly, however it was noted that there is sometimes a delay before articles appear on the list.
Discussion regarding the existence of the separate spaceflight and space exploration category structures led to a mass CfD being filed on 10 January to abolish the space exploration categories, merging them into their counterparts in the spaceflight category structure. This was successful, and the exploration categories have been removed. Several other categorisation issues remain unresolved.
A proposal was made to standardise some of the infoboxes used by the project, the future of Template:Infobox spacecraft(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was discussed, and design work began on a replacement. Template:Rocket specifications-all(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion and subsequently kept due to extant substitutions, however it was noted that the template had been deprecated by WikiProject Rocketry. Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them).
Five members of the project gave interviews for the Wikipedia Signpost, and a report on the project, authored by SMasters (talk·contribs), is expected to be published in the 7 February edition of the Signpost. It is hoped that this will raise interest in and awareness of the project.
News from orbit
Four orbital launches were conducted in January, beginning on 20 January with the launch of Elektro-L No.1 on the first Zenit-3F rocket. This was followed later the same day by the launch of a Delta IV Heavy with the USA-224 reconnaissance satellite. The articles for USA-224 and the Zenit-3F rocket could use some expansion, whilst the Elektro-L No.1 satellite needs its own article.
On 22 January, an H-IIB launched the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori 2, to resupply the International Space Station. It arrived at the station on 27 January. Less than a day after its arrival, another cargo mission was launched to the station; Progress M-09M departed Baikonur early in the morning of 28 January, docking on 30 January. In addition to payloads to resupply the station, the Progress spacecraft is carrying a small subsatellite, Kedr, which will be deployed in February. Kedr does not currently have an article. Progress M-08M departed on 24 January to make the Pirs module available for Progress M-09M, and has since reentered the atmosphere. Its article needs to be updated to reflect the successful completion of its mission.
The NanoSail-D2 satellite, which failed to deploy from FASTSAT in December, unexpectedly separated from its parent craft and began operations on 18 January, with its solar sail deploying on 21 January.
Nine orbital launches are scheduled to occur in February, beginning with the launch of the first Geo-IK-2 satellite; Geo-IK-2 No.11, atop a Rokot/Briz-KM, on the first day of the month. Articles need to be written for the Geo-IK-2 series of satellites, as well as for Geo-IK-2 No.11 itself, and the Briz-KM upper stage that will be used to insert it into orbit.
A Minotaur I rocket will launch NRO L-66, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office, on 5 February. The payload has not yet been identified, however once more details are known, it will need an article. Iran is expected to launch the Rasad 1 and Fajr 1 satellites in February, with 14 February the reported launch date. The satellites will fly aboard a single rocket; either the first Simorgh or the third Safir. Once this launch occurs, the satellites will need articles, and the article on their carrier rocket will require updating.
The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, is scheduled to launch on 15 February to resupply the ISS. Docking is expected to occur on 23 February. 23 February will also see the much-delayed launch of Glory atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. This will be the first Taurus launch since the launch failure in early 2009 which resulted in the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. In addition to Glory, three CubeSats will be deployed; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [PRIME]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated.
On 24 February, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket will launch the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11. Articles are needed for the series of spacecraft, as well as for the specific satellite being launched. It is likely that a Kosmos designation will be given to the payload when it reaches orbit. In the evening of 24 February, Space ShuttleDiscovery will begin its final mission, STS-133, carrying the Permanent Multipurpose Module, a conversion of the Leonardo MPLM, to the ISS. Other payloads include an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier, and the Robonaut2 experimental robot. The first manned mission of 2011, Discovery's six-man crew will transfer equipment to the station, and two EVAs will be performed. The launch has already been scrubbed five times, before Discovery was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to inspect and repair cracks on its External Tank.
At some point in February, a Long March 3B rocket is expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, as part of the Compass navigation system. The date of this launch is currently unknown. Both satellites will require articles once more information is available. A PSLV launch, carrying the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft, is expected to launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre towards the end of the month, probably between 20 and 23 February.
Stop press: The Rokot launch was conducted at 14:00 UTC on 1 February, and at the time of writing it appears to have ended in failure, due to a suspected upper stage malfunction. The spacecraft is in orbit, it is not clear at the time of writing whether it will be salvageable.
Following up on the issues covered in the last issue, the requested move of Missile Range Instrumentation Ship to Tracking ship was successful, with the article being renamed. The discussion concerning types of launch and landing resulted in a proposal to merge VTVL into VTOL, however this has been met with some opposition. Several other options have been suggested on Talk:VTVL. The large scale deletion of mis-tagged Soviet images on Commons went ahead, with most of the useful ones having already been backed-up locally under fair use criteria.
Discussion was held regarding the naming of spaceflight-related articles. Concerns were raised regarding inconsistency in article titles and disambiguators. A project guideline was adopted to standardise titles, with the parenthesised disambiguators "(satellite)" and "(spacecraft)" being adopted as standards for spacecraft, and the exclusion of manufacturers' names from article titles was recommended. Issues regarding Japanese spacecraft with two names, the correct names for early Apollo missions, and dealing with acronyms and abbreviated names remain unresolved.
A large number of articles were moved to conform to the standard disambiguation pattern. In addition, several Requested Moves were debated. A proposal to move SpaceX Dragon to Dragon (spacecraft), which began prior to the adoption of the standardised disambiguators, was successful. Atmospheric reentry was subject to two requested moves, firstly one which would have seen it renamed spacecraft atmospheric reentry, which was unsuccessful, however a second proposal shortly afterwards saw it moved to atmospheric entry. A proposal currently under discussion could see Lunar rover (Apollo) renamed Lunar Roving Vehicle
Help was requested for adding citations to List of Mir spacewalks. A request was made that STS-88 be reviewed against the B class criteria, and suggestions for improvements made. Another user requested improvements to the article Yuri Gagarin, with a view to having the article promoted to featured status in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his Vostok 1 mission. As a result of this request, Yuri Gagarin is this month's selected article.
Questions were raised as to whether an article or category should be created to cover derelict satellites. The categorisation of spacecraft by the type of rocket used to place them into orbit was also suggested. In another categorisation issue, it was questioned whether Space law should fall under space or spaceflight.
There is no editorial this month as no content was submitted for one. Instead, we present the "top ten" most popular articles within the project, based on the number of page views in January. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was the most popular article of the last month, up fourteen places from 15th in December. Space Shuttle Challenger was the highest climber in the top 40, up 42 places from 50th. December's most popular article. Boeing X-37, dropped 57 places to 58th. On a happier note further down the chart, moon landing is now ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories.
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in space, aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961. He was subsequently awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and was training for a second flight at the time of his death in 1968.
His article describes him and his spaceflight experience:
On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, launching to orbit aboard the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1). His call sign in this flight was Kedr (Cedar; Russian: Кедр). During his flight, Gagarin famously whistled the tune "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows" (Russian: "Родина слышит, Родина знает"). The first two lines of the song are: "The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows/Where her son flies in the sky". This patriotic song was written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1951 (opus 86), with words by Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky.
”
The article is currently assessed as C class, and had been assessed as B class prior to the criteria being redefined. Although a full reassessment has not yet been made, it seems close to the B class criteria, however details on his spaceflight experiences are somewhat lacking. It has been requested that the article be developed to Featured status by April, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his mission.
You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.
There have been very few discussions relating to the administration of the project in the last month, as things start to settle down after the merger.
An invitation template has been created in an effort to attract new users to the project. Discussion was also held regarding the creation of a list of common templates, however no conclusions were reached. A proposal was made to implement an A-class assessment process, however editors are undecided about whether it would be best to copy the system used by another project such as WP:MILHIST, or to develop one specifically for the requirements of this project.
User:ChiZeroOne has set up a collaboration page in his userspace, initially focussing on articles related to Skylab. Collaboration pages were at one point proposed as part of the structure of the Spaceflight project itself, however no consensus was achieved on the issue. If this collaboration is successful, it could open the door to a reevaluation of that situation.
News from orbit
Five orbital launches were conducted in February, out of nine planned. The first, that of the Geo-IK-2 No.11 satellite atop a Rokot/Briz-KM ended in failure after the upper stage malfunctioned. The Rokot has since been grounded pending a full investigation; the satellite is in orbit, but has been determined to be unusable for its intended mission. A replacement is expected to launch within the year. A general article on Geo-IK-2 satellites is needed, to supplement those on the individual satellites.
A Minotaur I rocket launched USA-225, or NROL-66, on 6 February following a one-day delay. The second Automated Transfer Vehicle, Johannes Kepler, was successfully launched on 16 February to resupply the ISS. Docking occurred successfully on 24 February, several hours before Space ShuttleDiscovery launched on its final flight, STS-133. Discovery docked with the ISS on 26 February, delivering the Leonardo module and an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier to the station. Following several delays, a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat rocket launched the first Glonass-K1 satellite; Glonass-K1 No.11, on 26 February. It is currently unclear as to whether the satellite has received a Kosmos designation or not.
Seven launches are expected to occur in March. On 4 March, the Glory satellite will launch atop a Taurus-XL 3110 rocket. Three CubeSats will be also be deployed by the Taurus; KySat-1, Hermes and Explorer-1 [Prime]. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. This launch was originally scheduled for February, but following a scrubbed launch attempt, it was delayed.
4 March will also see the launch of the first flight of the second X-37B, atop an Atlas V 501. An article is needed for that flight, which will probably receive a USA designation once it reaches orbit. On 8 March, Discovery is expected to land, bringing to an end the STS-133 mission, and retiring from service 27 years after its maiden flight. On 11 March, a Delta IV Medium+(4,2) will launch the NROL-27 payload. Whilst the identity of this payload is classified, it is widely believed to be a Satellite Data Systemcommunications satellite, bound for either a molniya or geostationary orbit. An article for this payload is required. 16 March will see the return to Earth of Soyuz TMA-01M, carrying three members of the ISS Expedition 26 crew.
On 31 March, a Proton-M/Briz-M launch will carry the SES-3 and Kazsat-2 spacecraft into orbit, in the first dual-launch of commercial communications satellites on a Proton. Several other launches may occur in March, however their status is unclear. Last month, a Long March 3B rocket was expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, however this launch did not take place. It is unclear if it has been delayed to March, or further. The launch of the Tianlian 2 communications satellite on a Long March 3C may also be conducted in March, or possibly April. Both the Compass and Tianlian launches would occur from the same launch pad, which requires a turnaround of almost a month between launches, so it is unlikely that both will happen in March. A Safir launch, which had been expected in February, now appears to have been delayed to April, but given the secrecy of the Iranian space programme, this is unclear.
Article news
Discussion regarding the merger of articles on launch and landing modes seems to have stagnated, with no consensus being reached on any existing proposal. A discussion regarding changes in the sizes of Soviet and American rockets during the 1950s and early 1960s was conducted, with claims that rockets became smaller in that period being dismissed, however it was noted that smaller rockets were developed with equivalent capacity to older ones were developed, as well as much larger ones with increased capacities.
Category:Derelict satellites orbiting Earth was created as a result of discussion surrounding the categorisation of derelict satellites. Concerns have also been raised that satellites are being listed as no longer being in orbit whilst still in orbit and derelict, and a discussion was held on how their status could be verified. An effort to categorise spacecraft by the type of rocket used to launch them is underway, however the categorisation of satellites by country of launch was rejected.
It was reported that a sidebar has been created for articles related to the core concepts of spaceflight. Editors noted that it should only be used for core concepts, and not where it would conflict with an infobox. An anonymous user requested the creation of an article on moon trees. It was pointed out that the subject already had an article, and a redirect was created at the title proposed by the anonymous user.
Concerns were raised regarding the quality of the article Japan's space development. Editors noted that the article appeared to be a poorly-translated copy of an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, although there have been some signs of improvement. Discussion regarding moving the article to Japanese space program is ongoing, however a move request has not yet been filed.
A particular concern was raised regarding false claims in the article Van Allen radiation belt. In one case a scientist to whom one of the claims had been attributed was contacted, and clarified that he had made a remark to that effect as a joke in the 1960s, but was not entirely sure how or why it had been included in the article. Other concerns were raised before the discussion moved to WikiProject Astronomy.
A question was raised regarding the copyright status of images credited to both NASA and ESA, particularly with regard to images of the launch of the Johannes Kepler ATV. The discussion reached no general conclusions, however it was found that the specific images that were suggested for inclusion in the article could be used, since they were explicitly declared to be in the public domain.
A template, Template:Spaceflight landmarks(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), was created to cover landmarks in the United States that are related to spaceflight. Several sources of public-domain NASA images were also discussed, and it was noted that almost all NASA images are public domain, however there are some exceptions.
It has been proposed that Leonardo MPLM be merged with Permanent Multipurpose Module since the two cover separate uses of the same spacecraft. A review of the article STS-88 has also been requested.
Three new Good Articles have been listed: Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet, Bold Orion and SA-500D. Orion (spacecraft) was delisted after concerns that it contained out-of-date content. SA-500D is currently undergoing good article reassessment, using the community reassessment method, after the review of its good article nomination was criticised for being lenient and not sufficiently thorough. Mir, Mark E. Kelly and Reaction Engines Skylon have been nominated for Good Article status and are awaiting review, whilst List of Mir spacewalks is undergoing a peer review with a view to it becoming a featured list.
Editorial: Direction of the Project
Well folks, its now been more than three months since the discussion that reformed the space-related WikiProjects, and in that time we've had a number of achievements we can be rightly proud of; we've gathered members up to a total of 43, improved awareness of the project via an interview in the Signpost, and refreshed the spaceflight portal into an attractive, up-to-date and useful page. Meanwhile, User:ChiZeroOne has made a sterling effort in clearing up talk page templates belonging to prior projects, we've managed to sort out various policies, started work on rearranging our templates, and User:GW Simulations has begun this excellent monthly newsletter for us. However, there are a few areas of the project that seem to be passing by the wayside, specifically the areas dedicated to fostering collaboration on articles and article sets between the project members, so here I present a call for more collaboration on the project.
Presumably, the lack of collaboration is due to folks not being aware of what's going on, so here's a quick rundown of some of the ways you get involved in the group effort. Firstly, and most importantly, it'd be fantastic if more members got involved in the discussions ongoing at the project's main talk page, found at WT:SPACEFLIGHT. There are several discussions ongoing there, such as the relaunch of the spacecraft template, requests for assistance with various assessment and copyright queries, and conversations regarding category organisations, which affect many more articles, and thus editors, than are currently represented in the signatures so far.
Secondly, it was established earlier on in the project's formation that a great way to attract more editors would be to develop some good or featured topics. There are a couple of efforts ongoing to try to see this idea to fruition, such as the Space stations working group and ChiZeroOne's own collaboration page, currently focussed on Skylab-related articles. These pages, however, have been notably lacking in activity lately, which is a shame, as their aims, given enough editor input, would really see the project furthering itself. Similarly, there are a number of requests for assessment for articles to be promoted to GA class, among other things, on the Open tasks page, which lists all of the activities needing input from members. If everyone could add this page to their watchlists and swing by it regularly, we could power through the good topics in extremely short order! Other things that could do with being added to people's watchlists include Portal:Spaceflight/Next launch, the many templates at Template:Launching/Wrappers and the task list at Portal:Spaceflight/Tasks.
Finally, I'd like to try and get people involved in finally settling the organisational problem we have with reference to the task forces and working groups. Whilst the Timeline of spaceflight working group is a continuation of the old Timeline of spaceflight WikiProject and thus is ticking over nicely and the space stations working group has been mentioned previously in this editorial, the task forces (Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight) in particular are currently dead in the water. I'm unsure as to whether or not this is because people are unaware of their existence, they clash too much with one another and the rest of the project or because people don't see a need for them, but if interested parties could make themselves known and others voice suggestions for getting rid of them, we can decide either if they're worth keeping and get them running again, or do away with a layer of bureaucracy and close them down. Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated.
In summary, then, we've got a great project going here, with a nice set of articles, a good editor base and lots of ways of getting involved. Thus, a plea goes out to everyone to get involved, get editing with the other project members, and hopefully we'll see ourselves take off in a manner not dissimilar to the trajectory dear old Discovery took last week. Many thanks for everyone's hard work so far, and poyekhali! :-)
The Charts
Since it is useful to keep track of the most viewed pages within the project's scope, it seems like a good idea to continue this feature, which was originally included in last month's issue as a one-off.
Europa was a rocket developed by a multinational European programme in the 1960s. Consisting of British, French and German stages, it was intended to provide a European alternative to the US rockets used for the launch of most Western satellites to that date. Although the British Blue Streak first stage performed well on all flights, problems with the French and German stages, as well as the Italian-built payload fairing, resulted in the failure of all multistage test flights and orbital launch attempts. The programme was abandoned after the failure of the Europa II's maiden flight in 1971. The article Europa (rocket), describes it:
Tasks were to be distributed between nations: the United Kingdom would provide the first stage (derived from the Blue Streak missile), France would build the second and Germany the third stage.
The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects :
Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches
Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch
Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred
Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled
The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed.
”
The article is currently assessed as start-class, and is missing a lot of information. It also lacks some basic features such as inline citations. Since Europa was a fairly major programme, enough information should be available to produce a much higher quality article, and it could probably be brought up to GA status with enough effort.
You have recieved this newsletter because you are currently listed as a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, or because you are not a member but have requested it. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.
The next DC Wikimedia meetup is scheduled for Saturday, May 7, 3:30-5:30 pm at the Tenleytown Library (adjacent to the Tenleytown Metro Station, Red Line), followed by dinner & socializing at some nearby place.
This is the first official meeting of our proposed Wikimedia DC chapter, with discussion of bylaws and next steps. Other agenda items include, update everyone on our successful Wikimania bid and next steps in the planning process, discuss upcoming activities that we want to do over the summer and fall, and more.
Please RSVP here and see a list of additional tentatively planned meetups & activities for late May & June on the Wikipedia:Meetup/DC page.
The Guild of Copy Editors – May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive
The Guild of Copy Editors invite you to participate in the May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive began on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this backlog elimination drive are to eliminate as many articles as possible from the 2009 backlog and to reduce the overall backlog by 15%. ! NEW ! In an effort to encourage the final elimination of all 2009 articles, we will be tracking them on the leaderboard for this drive.
Awards and barnstars
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.
You are receiving a copy of this newsletter as you are a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, or have participated in one of our drives. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add you name here. Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Both are quite reasonable, and indeed are probably what should have been done in the first place. 'Preciate it. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 13:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
You are receiving this message because you contributed to Template:TFA-editnotice. A similar edit notice has recently been developed at Template:New release editnotice. It is intended for films, video games and other prominent popular media items which may be subject to high levels of editing by newcomers around the time of their release date.
You could be having this much fun! Seriously, consider coming.
This message is being sent to inform you of a Wikipedia picnic that is being held in your area next Saturday, June 25. From 1 to 8 PM or any time in between, join your fellow volunteers for a get together at Norman's Landscape (directions) in Manhattan's Central Park.
Take along your friends (newbies permitted), your family and other free culture enthusiasts! You may also want to pack a blanket, some water or perhaps even a frisbee.
If you can, share what you're bringing at the discussion page.
The latest GOCE backlog elimination drive is under way! It began on 1 July and so far 18 people have signed up to help us reduce the number of articles in need of copyediting.
This drive will give a 50% bonus for articles edited from the GOCE requests page. Although we have cleared the backlog of 2009 articles there are still 3,935 articles needing copyediting and any help, no matter how small, would be appreciated.
We are appealing to all GOCE members, and any other editors who wish to participate, to come and help us reduce the number of articles needing copyediting, as well as the backlog of requests. If you have not signed up yet, why not take a look at the current signatories and help us by adding your name and copyediting a few articles. Barnstars will be given to anyone who edits more than 4,000 words, with special awards for the top 5 in the categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words".
The Smithsonian is hosting its first Backstage Pass at the Archives of American Art on Friday, July 29. 10 Wikimedians will experience the behind the scenes aspects of archiving the world's largest collection of documents and photographs related to American art. After a complimentary lunch, an edit-a-thon will take place and prizes will be awarded. Followed by an evening happy hour. We hope you'll participate! SarahStierch (talk) 14:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to the first Wikipedia Baltimore meetup on Saturday, July 23, 10:00am-12:30pm at the Walters Art Museum. Come meet Wikimedians, learn about GLAM-Wiki partnerships, get involved, and discuss future wiki outreach and activities in the Baltimore area!
There also is a Wikipedia & Cultural Heritage at the Young Preservationist Happy Hour on Friday, July 22, 6:30pm at the Midtown Yacht Club, an unpretentious neighborhood pub.
Note: You can remove your name from the Baltimore meetup invite list here. -- Message delivered by AudeBot, on behalf of User:Aude
The first ever WikiProject National Archives newsletter has been published. Please read on to find out what we're up to and how to help out! There are many opportunities for getting more involved. Dominic·t 21:15, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
This week, our first multilingual featured article contest was announced. We are aiming to improve the articles on the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or Bill of Rights to featured or good status in English and other languages. Prizes for winners will be a gift package from the National Archives including a book of your choice or a tote bag, and other swag, plus, of course, a special barnstar.
August 6 backstage pass
Plans are in the works for a meetup and backstage pass event at the National Archives II facility in College Park, MD. There will be a regular social meetup, a discussion with Dominic about WP:NARA, a tour of the building by NARA staff, and then time for a scanathon and editathon in the research rooms and library until the building closes at 5 pm. Keep your schedules open!
The National Archives' Archival Recovery Team (ART) is a team of law enforcement agents and archivists who investigate NARA's lost and stolen documents. They have received media attention ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]) and would like to request an article be written for the team, if Wikipedians deem it notable. It is hoped that making more information about the group available on Wikipedia will increase public awareness of the documents they are seeking to recover.
Ongoing
Today's Document challenge
The Today's Document challenge is an opportunity for Wikipedians to get their work related to National Archives holdings spotlighted on Archives.gov and the National Archives' tumblr. Each day the National Archives selects a document related to the day's date to showcase. The goal is to get articles related to the selected documents on the main page in ""Did You Know...?" the same day that the National Archives features the document. Alternatively, other appropriate articles related to National Archives holdings not already selected will be used for new documents of the day by NARA staff and posted to their tumblr.
Wikisource
WP:NARA has a sister WikiProject on Wikisource, WS:NARA. On Wikisource, editors transcribe, proofread, and arrange documents. This helps to make little-known documents more discoverable, or well-known documents more searchable, and improves accessibility. See the files being worked on. If you are new to Wikisource and would like to participate, there are experienced Wikisourcerors willing to be mentors.
New contributions
A list of some recent contributions to the project:
The National Archives has hundreds of thousands of digitized documents in its holdings. We are working on a bulk upload to Commons of one particular cache of about 123,000 TIFF master files in the next few days! Once uploaded, these will require a massive community effort to help categorize the files on Commons and add them to articles on Wikipedia or transcribe them on Wikisource.
Inclusion in the online catalog
We are currently working on a system for including links to pages on Wikimedia projects in the National Archives online catalog. The Wikimedia projects are hosting an increasing number of transcriptions of National Archives documents and high-quality image and video files that are not available through NARA's own site. Links to these Wikimedia pages in the documents' actual catalog records will benefit the end user by providing them access to further resources about the documents, and they will also demonstrate the National Archives commitment to supporting Wikimedians' efforts.
To stop receiving this newsletter, please remove your name from the list.
DC Meetup, July 29
DC Meetup 21 - Who should come? You should. Really.
DC MEETUP 21 is July 29! This meet up will involve Wikipedians from the area as well as Wiki-loving GLAM professionals. See you Friday! SarahStierch (talk) 16:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
On Saturday, August 6, the National Archives is hosting a Wikipedia meetup, backstage pass tour, and edit-a-thon in College Park, Maryland. Meet staff and fellow Wikipedians, go behind the scenes at the National Archives, help digitize documents, and edit together! Dominic·t 21:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
MediaWiki and Wikimedia developers' meetup Hi, Amorymeltzer. I'd like to invite you to come to the New Orleans Hackathon 2011. It's an opportunity for MediaWiki developers and Wikimedia operations engineers to come together to work on advancing Wikimedia's tools and infrastructure, focusing on Wikimedia Labs (starting with the dev-ops virtualization cluster), and to train and to squash bugs.
The theme of this event: "the infrastructure of innovation". We're going to improve and discuss the Wikimedia Labs projects infrastructure and other stuff that makes it easier for anyone to supercharge Wikimedia with awesomeness. We're going to work on our gadgets/extensions/tools support, authorization/authentication strategy, dev-ops virtualization, and general training and hacking.
It's mostly going to be dev sprints and bugsmashing, with some discussion and workshops. The event is open to anyone who wants to come and contribute, and is an opportunity to spend time with senior MediaWiki developers & ops engineers, write beautiful code, and learn about the latest developments.
If you can make it to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 14-16 October 2011, we'd love to have you. Please add your name to the attendees list. Thanks! Sumanah (talk) 20:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC) (Volunteer Development Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation)
election of the Board of Directors for the next two years
approval of a budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year
report on the activities and accomplishments of the past year
social gathering afterwards at a nearby restaurant
Candidate nominations are open until 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, September 24. We encourage you to consider being a candidate. (see see candidate instructions)
The meeting is open to both the general public and members from within the DC-MD-VA-WV-DE region and beyond. We encourage everyone to attend!
You may join the chapter at the meeting or online.
Note: You can remove your name from the DC meetup invite list here. -- Message delivered by AudeBot, on behalf of User:Aude
You are invited to the National Archives in College Park for a special backstage pass and scanathon meetup with Archivist of the United StatesDavid Ferriero, on Saturday, October 8. Go behind the scenes and into the stacks at the National Archives, help digitize documents, and edit together! Free catered lunch provided! Dominic·t 15:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to Wikipedia:The Musical in NYC, an editathon, Wikipedia meet-up and lectures that will be held on Saturday, October 22, 2011, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (at Lincoln Center), as part of the Wikipedia Loves Libraries events being held across the USA.
All are welcome, sign up on the wiki and here!--Pharos (talk) 03:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia Loves Libraries comes to DC on Saturday, November 5th, from 1-5pm, at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library.
We will be holding an edit-a-thon, working together to improve Wikipedia content related to DC history, arts, civil rights, or whatever suits your interests. There may also be opportunities to help with scanning historic photos plus some swag!
Note: You can remove your name from the DC meetup invite list here. -- Message delivered by AudeBot (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC), on behalf of User:Aude
FINE ART EDIT-A-THON & DC MEETUP 26 is December 17! The Edit-a-Thon will cover fine art subjects from the Federal Art Project and the meet up will involve Wikipedians from the area as well as Wiki-loving GLAM professionals. You don't have to attend both to attend one (but we hope you do!) Click the link above and sign up & spread the word! See you there! SarahStierch (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Sir I am a php developer, now i am thinking about developing MediaWiki project, Before I start work i want to know few things about terms of use. I think you can answer my questions because you are working with wikimedia for long time. my questions are flowing:
1. Can I make a commercial website with this source?
2. Can I edit and devolve and modify this source for my website?
3. Can I add more things with this this source?
I read MediaWiki terms of use but i didn't get my answer. Please response me.
Thank You Sir.
Nilanjan Das. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nilu wiki (talk • contribs) 11:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
You are invited to the National Archives ExtravaSCANza, taking place every day next week from January 4–7, Wednesday to Saturday, in College Park, Maryland (Washington, DC metro area). Come help me cap off my stint as Wikipedian in Residence at the National Archives with one last success!
This will be a casual working event in which Wikipedians are getting together to scan interesting documents at the National Archives related to a different theme each day—currently: spaceflight, women's suffrage, Chile, and battleships—for use on Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons. The event is being held on multiple days, and in the evenings and weekend, so that as many locals and out-of-towners from nearby regions1 as possible can come. Please join us! Dominic·t 01:07, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
1 Wikipedians from DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New York City, and Pittsburgh have been invited.
Articles for Creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently the are 2632 submissions waiting to be reviewed.
Can you please block me from Wikipedia permanently? I don't want to edit entries anymore. Guinsberg (talk) 21:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't think self-blocks requested in the heat of things makes anything better. You are doing well taking a bit of a break right now, so why not take a LOA from Wikipedia for a while, at least for the weekend? ~ Amory(u • t • c) 00:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
I just came on here to withdraw the request for a while. You're right, and thanks. :) Guinsberg (talk) 00:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
You said:
I use the word sysop instead of admin wherever possible. You should too.
It's a personal preference. I think administrator can give the wrong impression and that sysop comes closer to what the rights convey. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 06:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.
So a few things about the interviews:
Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.
Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.
If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.
Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 04:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
DC Wikipedia meetup #28 is on Saturday, March 10, 2012, from 7pm on at Capitol City Brewery in downtown DC. (11th & H St NW).
Join us for an evening of socializing, chatting about Wikipedia, discussing Wikimedia DC activities and the latest preparations for Wikimania 2012. (RSVP + details)
Note: You can remove your name from the DC meetup invite list here. -- Message delivered by AudeBot (talk) 02:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC), on behalf of User:Aude
You're invited: Smithsonian Institution Women in Science Edit-a-Thon!
Who should come? You should. Really.
She Blinded Me with Science: Smithsonian Women in Science Edit-a-Thon will be held on Friday, March 30, 2012 at the Smithsonian Archives in Washington, D.C. This edit-a-thon will focus on improving and writing Wikipedia content about women from the Smithsonian who contributed to the sciences. It will be followed by a happy hour meetup! We look forward to seeing you there!
Hello Amorymeltzer. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.
Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.
You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. StevenZhangDR goes to Wikimania! 11:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Time: 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. (drop-ins welcome at any time)
The event's goal will be to improve Wikipedia articles and content related to the neighborhoods and history of New York City - No special wiki knowledge is required!
Please join us for a Wikimedia DC Meetup & Dinner on Saturday, May 5. This will be a great opportunity to meet other Wikimedians from the DC area, discuss upcoming Wikimedia DC activities and events, and have fun over dinner and drinks. All ages are welcome! Kirill[talk] 03:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Amorymeltzer. Will you weigh in on the above discussion since you've weighed in on it before? I would ask others who weighed in on that previous discussion to weigh in again, but they're either blocked or inactive. Flyer22 (talk) 18:31, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Please join us for the second Smithsonian Institution Archives Edit-a-thon! This event will focus on Smithsonian history including the history of the Institution's museums, archives, research centers and the people behind them. This will be a great opportunity to learn about the Archives, work within them & with staff, and learn more about the world's largest museum complex. We hope you'll join us on Friday, May 25. Please sign up here! Sarah (talk) 21:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Note: You received this message because you were listed here. If you no longer wish to receive messages of this nature, please remove yourself from that list.
Articles for Creation is desperately in need of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors and administrators alike, to help us clear a record backlog of pending submissions. There is currently a significant backlog of 2632 submissions waiting to be reviewed. These submissions are generally from new editors who have never edited Wikipedia before. A prompt, constructive review of submissions could significantly editor retention.
We would greatly appreciate your help. Currently, only a small handful of users are reviewing articles. Any help, even if it's just 1 or 2 reviews, would be extremely beneficial.
Hello there. As you expressed interest in hearing updates to my research in the dispute resolution survey that was done a few months ago, I just wanted to let you know that I am hosting an IRC office hours session this coming Saturday, 28th July at 19:00 UTC (approximately 12 hours from now). This will be located in the #wikimedia-officeconnect IRC channel - if you have not participated in an IRC discussion before you can connect to IRC here.
"Masterpiece Museum" Edit-a-Thon at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum and Wikimedia DC present the "Masterpiece Museum" Edit-a-Thon. Drawing from their vast vaults of art, the caretakers of the Smithsonian American Art Museum have meticulously drawn forth canvas jewels to import into Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia articles. The museum directors and staff are excited about this project, and would love to have experienced Wikimedians help in the effort! Kirill[talk] 17:55, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
When
August 10, 2012, 10 AM - 4 PM
Where
Smithsonian American Art Museum, 7th & F St NW, Washington, DC
Articles for Creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 2632submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our Help Desk.
Can you review submissions based on their individual merits?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions.
We would greatly appreciate your help. Currently, only a small handful of users are reviewing articles. Any help, even if it's just 2 or 3 reviews, it would be extremely beneficial.
On behalf of the Articles for Creation project, TheSpecialUserTSU
The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)
Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.
Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow
In this issue:
Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
Research: The most recent DR data
Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
Backstage at the Smithsonian Libraries is part of Wikipedia Loves Libraries 2012, the second annual continent-wide campaign to bring Wikipedia and libraries together with on-site events. Running this fall through October and November, libraries (and archives) will open their doors to help build a lasting relationship with their local Wikipedian community.
Organized by Wikimedia DC, this event will take place on October 12, 2012, and will include new editor training, a "backstage pass" tour of the National Museum of Natural History, and an edit-a-thon. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Articles for Creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 2632 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our Help Desk.
Can you review submissions based on their individual merits?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions.
WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive
WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from October 22, 2012 – November 21, 2012.
Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 1000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!
Articles for creation is desperately short of reviewers! We are looking for urgent help, from experienced editors, in reviewing submissions in the pending submissions queue. Currently there are 2632 submissions waiting to be reviewed and many help requests at our help desk.
Can you review submissions based on their individual merits?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then please read the reviewing instructions and donate a little of your time to helping tackle the backlog. You might wish to add {{AFC status}} or {{AfC Defcon}} to your userpage, which will alert you to the number of open submissions.
Plus, reviewing is easy when you use our new semi-automated reviewing script!
Thanks in advance, Nathan2055talk - contribs
Sent on behalf of WikiProject Articles for creation at 22:35, 29 November 2012 (UTC). If you do not wish to receive anymore messages from this WikiProject, please remove your username from this page.
You are invited to Wikipedia Goes to the Movies in NYC, an editathon, Wikipedia meet-up and workshops focused on film and the performing arts that will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2012, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (at Lincoln Center), as part of the Wikipedia Loves Libraries events being held across the USA.
All are welcome, sign up on the wiki and at meetup.com!--Pharos (talk) 06:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
The Washington, DC event will be held on Monday, December 10, 2012 at Busboys & Poets on 5th St NW & K St NW near Mt Vernon Square. The area is easily accessible by the Red Line Chinatown stop and the Yellow Line and Green Line Mt Vernon Square stop, as well as by WMATA buses.
Wikimedia DC Holiday Party and Wiki Loves Monuments Exhibition
Please join Wikimedia DC and four other local media nonprofits—the National Press Club's Young Members Committee, 100Reporters, IRE and the Fund for Investigative Journalism—in winding down another year with a night of well-mannered frivolity.
The festivities will take place on Friday evening from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM in the Zenger Room on the 13th Floor of the National Press Club, located on 529 14th Street NW, near Metro Center. There will be meat and vegetarian appetizers as well as a cash bar with specially reduced drink prices all night long. In addition, we will be exhibiting the finalists of the Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest at the event.
Hope to see you there! Kirill[talk] 04:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
This is the very first newsletter for WikiProject Articles for creation! If you find any errors or have suggestions on what to improve/include in future newsletters, please leave a message here.
v4.1.16b2 is now available in the beta channel! Reviewers can use the beta version of the script by following the instructions here and should report bugs here! Release notes can be found here as well as in the source code.
If you are JavaScript savvy, please contact Nathan2055 (talk·contribs) if you wish to help with development.
Reviewing articles and more since 2005!
Delivered 01:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC) by EdwardsBot. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, please remove your name from the spamlist.
Doing the "Open Space" thing at one of our earlier NYC Wiki-Conferences.
You are invited to celebrate Wikipedia Day and the 12th anniversary (!) of the founding of the site at Wikipedia Day NYC on Saturday February 23, 2013 at New York University; sign up for Wikipedia Day NYC here, or at bit.ly/wikidaynyu. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues!
We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience!--Pharos (talk) 01:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
How did you make your page have random quotes appear on it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scientific Alan 2 (talk • contribs) 22:13, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
It's a custom-made template I put in a subpage. You can learn more about templates here. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 19:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I know about templates, but how do you make it choose random text? Scientific Alan 2 (talk) 15:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Ahhh, that's an old trick. You'll want to read about Magic words. Rather than write a random-number generator using wiki templates, I just used NUMBEROFPAGES. Grabbing some digits from there functions as an easy pseudorandom generator. For example: 21 ~ Amory(u • t • c) 18:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter (4th Quarter 2012)
To receive future editions of this newsletter, click here to sign up on the distribution list. This newsletter was delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 03:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Please join Wikimedia DC for Happy Hour at the Capitol City Brewery at Metro Center on Thursday, February 28 at 6 p.m. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!
For more information and to sign up, see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 34. Hope to see you there! Harej (talk) 02:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Removed a warning template
As you say, it doesn't matter, but the second warning was for a different article, Decimal. I was worried that the user in question was going to continue their little section-blanking spree, and wanted to be sure there were enough warnings in place for a mod to block if needed, but it seems like they lost interest — perhaps because we reverted their changes so quickly. I will keep an eye on them, if they try the same thing anytime soon I'll restore the warning. ubiquity (talk) 20:43, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikiproject Articles for creation Needs You!
WikiProject Articles for creation Backlog Elimination Drive
WikiProject AFC is holding a one month long Backlog Elimination Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running from March 1st, 2013 – March 31st, 2013.
Awards will be given out for all reviewers participating in the drive in the form of barnstars at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 2000 articles, so start reviewing articles! Visit the drive's page and help out!
Invitation to a discussion: Wikipedia and legislative data
Hi Amorymeltzer, since you are interested in meetups in DC, I'd like to invite you to attend the Cato Institute's "Wikipedia and Legislative Data" events on March 14. (There's also an all day workshop on March 15; let me know if you are interested, we may be able to add more people.)
There will be an introduction to Wikipedia and open edit-a-thon in the afternoon, and a Sunshine Week Reception in the evening. I hope you can make it!
Hope to see you there! -Pete (talk) 18:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, March 9!
Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Guapo's at Tenleytown-AU on Saturday, March 9 at 5 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!
We typically link to the term in question rather than the redirect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Amorymeltzer, did you manage to access the Sunday Times article? Or did you just delete parts of the Wikipedia article because the source wasn't fully online? Sionk (talk) 02:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
I was wondering about that. Maybe I missed something, but as far as I could see the article loaded perfectly fine. It's short and not full of much, but it is one of the better sources listed. I couldn't find any of that information in it, though. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 02:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Maybe there is a limit to the number of free articles that can be accessed. I couldn't access it fully. The Times are one of the newspapers that put their content behind a paywall a few years back. No problems anyway, if the personal info wasn't in the article then you were within your rights to remove it. All the best! Sionk (talk) 02:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi! I'm not fussed either way, but is there any reason you downgraded my 3-month long protection on this article to 2 weeks? I think a longer protection period was called for, given that the article is a BLP and female politicians always attract more than their share of idiocy.
Not calling you out - I'm a little rusty, so I was wondering if I just went too far :) ~ Riana ⁂ 18:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
^ Ignore, noticed that you changed it back. :) ~ Riana ⁂ 18:38, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The innocent grin of innocence! All good. ~ Riana ⁂ 18:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Talkback
Hello, Amorymeltzer. You have new messages at Tolly4bolly's talk page. Message added 15:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. Your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping.
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please tell me on SuggestBot's talk page. Thanks from Nettrom (talk), SuggestBot's caretaker. -- SuggestBot (talk) 15:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for cleaning up WP:AFC/R - I got edit conflicted a few times while trying to close multiple requests at once, until you had answered them all. Huon (talk) 01:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Possibly the only time I've been thanked for edit conflicting! ~ Amory(u • t • c) 01:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Geist Force (video game)
This game (1999) for the Sega Dreamcast was developed six years before "Geist" was released on Nintendo (not the same game). Geist Force was not released until 2012 when Assemblergames.com purchased the unfinished game with the Dreamcast development kit, then finished the game. I do not know exactly what else to do here, but I can only tell you that myself and many others bought the game after it was finished. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Monkeeman3 (talk • contribs) 02:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Right you are, so sorry! Thanks for the catch. I've undone my edit so it's now pending review, although I'd suggest adding more verifiablesources. Are you related to Smuckola? ~ Amory(u • t • c) 03:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Wikidata weekly summary #49
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Development
Design improvements to the SetClaim API module
More work on implementing the simple inclusion syntax that will be 1 way to access Wikidata data on Wikipedia
More work on Lua (the second way to access Wikidata data on Wikipedia)
Added parser page property to hold entity id in client. This fixes:
bugzilla:45037 - don’t show edit link if noexternallanglinks has suppressed all Wikidata links
bugzilla:44536 - have the edit link go directly to the Q### pages, instead of Special:ItemByTitle which shall make the link be more reliable and work for all namespaces
Selenium tests for deleted-property-handling
Selenium tests for multiline references
Selenium tests for add-sitelinks-from-client
Selenium tests for Entity-Selector-as-Searchbox
Selenium tests for language-table
Implemented in-process caching for entities
Lua support to access the repo data and implement getEntity (so you can use stuff like entity = mw.wikibase.getEntity("Q1459") in Lua modules)
rebuildTermSearchKey is now ready for production (this still needs to be run but once done it will make search case-insensitive)
Improved error reports from the API
Ground work for better edit summaries from the API
Added a table of content to item pages
Added debug functionality to be able to investigate why it takes longer than it should for Wikidata changes to show up on recent changes and watchlists on Wikipedia
Finished implementation of References-UI
Implemented GUID generator in JavaScript
Worked on fixing a bug related to deleted properties where the UI would display wrong information
Minor fixes/additions to the JS datamodel implementation
If you add a Babel box to your user page Wikidata will show you items and descriptions in other languages you speak as well without you having to switch the language
Want to know which items use a certain property? Try the “what links here” link on a property page
The word "administrator" or "admin" has such a connotation. I fully admit that "sysop" or "system operator" has a strong connotation too, but one that is slightly more in line with what the RfA bit means. It's just a technical convenience. A (real network) sysop may indeed administer, but when someone in life says "I am an administrator" there is a notion of hierarchy that just doesn't exist. As a sysop I do indeed have some authority, but only that vested in me by the community; there should be no implication that I am in any way "better" or "above" because of that. Honestly, I think a lot of the recent dustup can be traced to that: people seeing or feeling a hierarchy where there shouldn't be or isn't one, which just leads to a pissing contest that gets everyone wet.
It's all moot, though, because most of the time saying "sysop" is awkward as hell. Requests for Sysopship? Sysophood? Just weird. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 16:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Interesting. "Administrator" always seemed a bit ambiguous to me: I know of RL contexts where "administrators" are the lowliest of employees and other contexts where the top officials, including the president, of large, notable institutions are "administrators". I always thought "sysop" sounded more colorful or interesting or something (especially in the plural, it makes me think of cyclops and Special Ops), but I've noticed that it doesn't seem to be used as much as it once was around here. Rivertorch (talk) 06:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
TBH I put it up there ages ago and am less enthusiastic now. I just get tired of explaining to friends that no, I'm not in charge of Wikipedia, I just clean-up around the place. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 15:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
"Numeral" redirect requests
Just FYI, I was about to decline the various "numeral" Andromeda redirect request with non-standard numeral characters as extremely unlikely search terms. Huon (talk) 04:19, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Word. I can't for the life of me figure out which is which, can you? I'll delete any you can point my way... ~ Amory(u • t • c) 04:21, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Nevermind, duh, got it. Thanks a bunch; I should go to bed. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 04:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
You seem to have missed And ⅱ, And ⅲ, And ⅳ and And ⅶ. I'm almost convinced 65.92.180.137 is trolling us, but it's so high-quality trolling that every single request must be evaluated, and quite a few are good. Others seem like deliberate make-work. Huon (talk) 04:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I don't know, I tend to AGF in these cases, maybe too much, but there has been some precedent. A few years ago where there were a huge rush of Astronomy redirects at AFC/R and, well, it's the nature of the beast: Astronomers use a lot of different names. Honestly I think most of these are kind of absurd, but if solid evidence is there for the existence and usage of the term then it's fair game in my book. No harm, eh? ~ Amory(u • t • c) 04:39, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, "no harm" is debatable. For example, they didn't request creation of And I (as opposed to And V, And X and so on), but requested And i to redirect to Andromeda I. Since they were aware that we had an And I article, I'd call that deliberately misleading. Since they didn't request "And v" or "And x" either, I find it very hard to believe that they honestly thought "And i" would more commonly refer to the galaxy than the song. Huon (talk) 05:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Maybe, or maybe s/he just cares way more about Andromeda. It wouldn't be the first time someone thought a redirect was better suited for a different purpose. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 15:19, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Rollback
Hi. Quick question: In my denied request for rollback, you admonished (?) me to be sure to revert to a "good version." I'm just curious why you mentioned that. When I roll back manually, I have to do it one step at a time, so if there is more than one version to take care of, I have to revert to a bad version first, no? StevenJ81 (talk) 12:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
You've actually got a couple options here. You can use some of the addons, like twinkle or popups, as they will let you revert to a specific revision. They can be a bit awkward, and usually involve a boring edit summary; okay for pure and simple vandalism but not for other reversions (good-faith, etc.). What you can do is open up a specific revision, such as this, and then click edit. If you do so, you'll edit that version of the page, not the latest. So open up the last good revision, click edit, and just type "Reverting vandalism" or something in the minor edit summary and you're good to go. Since it's an old revision and different from the latest, it will save. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 17:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
In honor of Women's History Month, the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Women in the Arts are teaming up to organize a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29, 2013 from 10:00am - 5:00pm. The event is focused on encouraging women editors while improving Wikipedia entries about women artists and art world figures. This event is free of charge, but participation is limited to 20 volunteers, so RSVP today! Sarasays (talk) 23:21, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Development
Rolled out new code on wikidata.org. The new stuff you probably care about is:
Improved references. They can now have multiple lines. This should make references much more useful. You can now have one reference with for example values for each of the properties "book", "author", "page" to describe one source.
Widget to add language links on the Wikipedias directly: added setting to enable/disable it per wiki and made it available for logged-in users only
Widget to add language links on the Wikipedias directly: improved layout / size
Made it so that the “edit links” link on Wikipedia is also shown when the corresponding item only has a link to this one language and no other languages
Submitted improved Apache config patch to make wikidata.org always redirect to www.wikidata.org, which is awaiting code review and deployment.
Improved the script that is responsible for taking Wikidata changes to the Wikipedias
Added a few ways to better debug the script responsible for taking Wikidata changes to the Wikipedias. This should help with investigating why some changes take way to long to show up on the Wikipedias.
Started work on automatically adding edited items to the user’s watchlist (according to preferences)
Finished script for rebuilding search keys, so we can finally get case insensitive matches in a lot of places
Support for multi-line references in diff view
Selenium tests for inclusion syntax
Improved parser function (that will be used to access Wikidata data on the Wikipedias) to accept property ID or label
Increased isolation of data model component to increase clarity and visibility of bad dependencies
Worked on schema access in the SQLStore (of the query component)
When you edit a statement there is a little wheel in front of the text field. This lets you choose between “custom value”, “unknown value” and “no value”. “No value” means that we know that the given property has no value, e.g. Elizabeth I of England had no spouse. “Unknown value” means that the property has a value, but it is unknown which one -- e.g. Pope Linus most certainly had a year of birth, but it is unknown to us.
Thank you very much, Amorymeltzer, for manually protecting the CN shortcut to the {{Citation needed}} template. Just so you'll be aware, there is an open bug report, T13700, to try to get the devs to make it so the cascade protection will suffice without having to doubly protect the pages on the cascade list. Have a great day! – PAINE ELLSWORTHCLIMAX! 17:57, March 24, 2013
Thanks, good to know. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 01:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Worked on making properties accessible from the client using their label so you can use {{#property:executive director}} instead of {{#property:p169}} for example
Made qualifiers ready for the next deployment (Please test. See details further down.)
Selenium tests for qualifiers
Fixed some issues related to QUnit testing
Worked on improved handling and code design of multiple snak lists in the UI (qualifiers, references)
Discussions/Press
Denny wrote down how we’re planning to support queries on Wikidata. Feedback welcome.
Now that improvements for references have been deployed here’s a discussion on the best way to use them. (You can see an example of how it could be used in the source for “CAS registry number” on d:Q153)
We’re currently carefully monitoring performance after the deployment of phase 2 on the first 11 Wikipedias. There seem to be a few small issues. As soon as they are resolved we'll deploy on English Wikipedia. All other Wikipedias are planned to follow very soon after that.
Bye and a big thank you to Anja, Silke, Jens and John who are leaving the development team at the end of the month and will work on other cool things. You’ll be missed!
Ever had any doubt about the possibilities of Wikidata? Talk to Wiri!
We worked on reducing the time it takes for Wikidata edits to show up in the Wikipedias and made some progress. Daniel posted an analysis
We started running a script on the database in order to make search on Wikidata case-insensitive. This should be finished in a few days and then search should be more useful.
In addition to the above we have rolled out a new search box that suggests items. This should also make finding things on Wikidata a lot easier for you.
We’re making some progress with Internet Explorer 8 support but there are a lot of issues with it (some outside our control). It’s unclear at the moment how much we can improve it still without spending an unjustified amount of time on it. You can follow the progress at bugzilla:44228
Edits are now auto-confirmed for users with more than 50 edits and account age 4 days: bugzilla:46461
Do you need old-style interwiki links for a sister project for example? This is for you
The Wikimedia Foundation applied as a mentoring organisation for Google Summer of Code again. We have proposed some Wikidata projects for students to take up if the Foundation is accepted again. At least 2 other organisations that applied also propose Wikidata ideas. More details on that once we know which organisations are accepted.
Denny hacked together a tree of life based on data from Wikidata
Did you file a bug report for Wikidata or did someone else do it for you? Please take a minute to check if it is still valid. (Thanks for filing it btw!)
Could I have 2 mins of your time? As I’ll be working on some other projects for Wikimedia Germany as well from now on the time I can spend on Wikidata will be reduced. This means I’ll have to figure out what is useful to spend time on. If you’re reading this could you let me know for example on this discussion page? Also if you have ideas how to improve the weekly summaries please post them. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk)
I have now done 75-100 "undo"-vandalism changes... -Josve05a (talk) 12:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, damn, that was fast! Nicely done. I see there was that one error, good job reverting it quickly and keeping the notice on your user page. Enjoy rollback! ~ Amory(u • t • c) 16:16, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! -Josve05a (talk) 17:56, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
removing a site
My family ha experienced identity theft and a stalker has been putting information up that is causing us great legal problems. No one has the right to put up an entire history on my or my family.
Why do you continue to revert this information and how can I get this off of the internet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boucherbeamish (talk • contribs) 16:35, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Hello, I'm sorry you seem to have troubles. However, as far as I can see there is nothing improper about the articles. The information, while maybe not interesting, is sourced, which means the information is out in the public, which I suppose is one of the downsides of being a notable person. At the very least you could suggest on the talk page that some of the information isn't particularly relevant. If you are seriously having an issue, check out the contact page, in particular the email address listed there, although I'll be up front and say that I don't think much will be done since the information is largely relevant and sourced. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 19:45, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Previous issue | Next issue 
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~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
