User talk:WereSpielChequers/Archive 24

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This is my archive for threads from 2015 that don't belong in my themed archives.

Happy New Year WereSpielChequers!

Happy New Year!

WereSpielChequers,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. Edwardx (talk) 21:05, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2015}} to user talk pages.

Have a bacon-filled new year!

As a member of WikiProject Bacon, I'm wishing you a very happy New Year's Eve and a great 2015! May your new year be filled with positive experiences, great wiki contributions, and of course, well-smoked thin-cut bacon. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:25, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

2015 already

Hi WSC. No frills - just a quiet ‘’all the best’’ to you for 2015 and I hope you’ll continue to be around on Wikipedia for a long time to come - like how about running for Arbcom next year - if WMUK can spare you, of course  ;).--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Kudpung and all the best to you too. However my job for Wikimedia UK requires me to be prepared to work with everyone in the community, and I think if I were on Arbcom, even if I recused where I knew people were UK residents, I would put myself into awkward situations, and potentially deter some people from getting involved in UK GLAM stuff because it would get them involved with an Arb. That doesn't mean I won't take it on at some point, but not under my current circumstances. ϢereSpielChequers 20:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I guess you're right, but you are the right kind of candidate for Arbcom though. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

[[

File:Fuochi d'artificio.gif|left|150px]]

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

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

Welcome to Rainbow

Hi! Thanks for your edit. I don't know how to say single was planed released as single but was released as EP. Please answer me on my discsusion page. Eurohunter (talk) 05:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

OK answered there. ϢereSpielChequers 10:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! Eurohunter (talk) 10:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

But how integrate this with other sentences? I know bolded or more words "The single release was announced on 20 December 2005.[1] It was initially planned to be released as a single but was released as an EP. Basshunter self-released EP on April 1, 2006 in Sweden." is wrong in this sentences. Eurohunter (talk) 10:35, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thank you kindly. As my choir director said to me last night: "I can't think of any action I'd want to perform one million times." What this says about my own mental framework I've no idea...

Happy editing! --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 20:23, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Lovely

When I first saw the cookies I thought you might be the one. But then I came here and I saw all these thank-you notes for cookies, and... I'm kidding. Thanks, that was a warm and informative welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Safir187 (talk • contribs) 08:16, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Oxford editathon

You suggested the possibility of me getting involved in editathons, I'd love to, Dublin is a bit of a trek though! Shiningroad (talk) 10:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

OK how about London on Monday? Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC - Helper Script access

An RfC has been opened at RfC to physically restrict access to the Helper Script. You are invited to comment. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Airport

Last 4 edits on this IP by me. 92.51.116.20 (talk) 23:57, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Posses

I mentioned them User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Wikipedia_Corpus here, along with some of the solutions. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

Precious again

native tongue as tool
Thank you for using the tool of your native tongue, for the wisdom to ignore "your" articles after you finished them, and for not ignoring people, as one of the adiminz: you support others to be one in "fair and consistent" voting and make efforts to reform the process, and you trust editors to rights such as roll back, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (3 May 2009, 14 October 2009)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:35, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Two years ago, you were the 432nd recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:41, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Invitation

Thank you for using VisualEditor and sharing your ideas with the developers.

Hello, WereSpielChequers,

The Editing team is asking for your help with VisualEditor. I am contacting you because you posted to a feedback page for VisualEditor. Please tell them what they need to change to make VisualEditor work well for you. The team has a list of top-priority problems, but they also want to hear about small problems. These problems may make editing less fun, take too much of your time, or be as annoying as a paper cut. The Editing team wants to hear about and try to fix these small things, too. 

You can share your thoughts by clicking this link. You may respond to this quick, simple, anonymous survey in your own language. If you take the survey, then you agree your responses may be used in accordance with these terms. This survey is powered by Qualtrics and their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy.

More information (including a translateable list of the questions) is posted on wiki at mw:VisualEditor/Survey 2015. If you have questions, or prefer to respond on-wiki, then please leave a message on the survey's talk page.

Unsubscribe from this list • Sign up for VisualEditor's multilingual newsletter • Translate the user guide

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Goodlyfe Crew

Ha! brilliant. DBaK (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments and collaborators please

I'm starting to draft something on meta meta:User:WereSpielChequers/spot_checking. ϢereSpielChequers 14:07, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Damn ping

I doubt the ping worked, because I didn't do it absolutely right first time, and it hates that, so [1]. Cheers. Begoon ^talk 17:20, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day

Happy First Edit Day, WereSpielChequers, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Anastasia [Missionedit] (talk) 00:43, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi, please write back when u can

why is gamergate such a big thing its its not on the news??? please come back to my talk to answer page since its the easiest, thanks.71.35.60.98 (talk) 01:15, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, not really my subject, I don't recall taking part in any Gamergate deletion debates. But things can definitely be big without being in the contemporary news. ϢereSpielChequers 02:54, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Keeping Wikipedia Expanding Not Shrinking

Delete canvassing bullshit. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 04:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello User:WereSpielChequers sorry for disturbing you. The reason I am writing you is we all love Wikipedia and we want it expanding. However there is a discussion going on to delete a notable game article because of biased opinions. I saw that you edited this article: Yu-Gi-Oh!_Power_Of_Chaos and let it stay for further expansion, update and keep growing Wikipedia even though it has no references. But I am also totally agree with you to let articles stay for improvements and expand Wikipedia. So I believe you are a neutral, professional, objective and who believes in expanding Wikipedia not shrinking it type of person. So I would like you to check out this discussion Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/MonsterMMORPG_(2nd_nomination) and make your comment based on references it has. References are here Talk:MonsterMMORPG. Please feel free to delete my message to you after you read it. Thank you very much have a nice day.176.233.41.152 (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Translation tool and interesting IEG grants

Hey WereSpielChequers: great seeing you at GLAM-Wiki. Here is the translation tool I was talking about: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/08/the-new-content-translation-tool/ . Also, as new user grant type projects: Wikipedia:WikiProject X and Wikipedia:Co-op . I think there would be a lot of room for research and work in developing grants around the new user research you were talking about, under IEG; as you can see there, are already similar initiatives; and I think we could do a lot of with Welcome template testing, and setting up more tools for positive feedback and integration of good examples into templates. Sadads (talk) 15:10, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Gather Moderation Question

Hi, I am the product manager at WMF for the Gather Collections feature. I very rudely just deleted one of your edits on the moderation criteria page.. (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Gather/Moderation_Criteria&oldid=656952347), but then undid my revision because I realized how rude it was...so I'm writing to you to discuss. On the Moderation criteria, you suggested that we delete falseties or opinions from collections. Since collections belong to a user, I think the same rules that apply to userpages should apply. I can say the "sky is yellow" or "barack obama is stupid" on my user page, so I think that I should be able to say it in a collection as well, as this has my name on it. I know there is a lot of wikipedia tradition around url structure, but I actually don't think 99% of our users would see that something has "special:Gather" in it and therefore believe the page is the opinion of 'wikipedia'. This is especially true on mobile devices, where only the domain shows. What do you think? Also, with the rapid rate of comments coming up, I was not able to address all questions that were raised about Gather, so if you want to discuss more, here I am! Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Jkatz, I'm quite broadminded when it comes to including things in userspace, and as for mainspace I'm proud to have been described as a "hempclad, patchouli smoking, sandal wearing inclusionist", I've also been described as "the most deletionist admin in the article rescue squadron". So if I have a problem with content then you can usually be sure that many others will be more deletionist than me. URL and different userspaces are the traditional ways that we use to differentiate between userspace and mainspace, but there are other ways such as header notices. I suspect if you put a header notice such as {{user page}} on these pages then that would make it clearer that the intent is to create userpages, but for those of us who don't use mobile then including user in the url would make a big difference - at the moment these look like they are part of Wikipedia, and part that breaches a slew of rules. There's also the issue that we already have lists, lots of them, and these new lists simply ignore the policies and workflows that have evolved over the last 14 years. ϢereSpielChequers 22:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Dirty hippy! :) I hear you loud and clear on the 'user' thing and have heard similar from others. I will try to get the url situation fixed and make it more clear that these are user creations....but the namespace choice is harder to fix. I am sure we can find something to make it possible to have an inclusive policy--the last thing anybody wants is for a collection called "Evil corporations" to be considered the NPOV of wikipedia. I won't make any changes to that page, then until I find a way to make the 'user'ness of the page more evident and run it by you. Jkatz (WMF) (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Era changes

I've always wished this was clearer. I think it depends on stability, not just who got there first. If an article created in 2005 with one style is change 2 years later to another, and stays that style for 8 years, should it be reverted back? I'd say no. Dougweller (talk) 09:04, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I thought it was becoming less of a problem and assumed that an edit filter was intercepting most era changes. I agree that someone going back through the history of an article and reverting to the situation of many years back is bordering on being pointy and disruptive. My preference used to be that we try for some compromise whereby early Christian topics were done BC/AD and non-Christian ones BCE/CE, but I've now come to realise we would best serve our readers by moving to a template based solution, just as metres and yards can be stored either way a template could allow us to store dates in one format and display by user preference - with Islamic, Judaic and other dates as options. ϢereSpielChequers 09:37, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea. Too sensible to be adopted of course. I still find editors, mainly IPs, making changes - both ways. Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I cut my watchlist back by two thirds, that may have influenced my perception as to how common the problem still is. I first raised this sort of thing in the strategy wiki back in 2009. I think we should give our readers a number of preference toggles, most important being American English v English, and in the case of language one could default by geolocation of IP address. OK we would need hidden templates to record the true meaning of words such as bonnet, trunk, fag and pants, but it should avoid many of the situations where we bite newbies because they simply don't realise that there is more than one way to spell English. I realise there would be some work involved in setting such templates, but less I suspect that the overhead of dealing with people making changes that get quickly reverted. I also think that our having such templates would be a big boost to auto translation software - we are important enough that I suspect Google et al would pick up on such templates PDQ. ϢereSpielChequers 11:07, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd rather the the WMF spending money on that then some of their software work. Why not propose it again? Dougweller (talk) 08:53, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit busy in real life for the next week or two, perhaps the whole of May, but hope to make some proposals in June. There are a couple of other things I also want to revisit, especially the way we treat IPs, and I have a new type of welcome that I've been testing. When I get round to it I will link them to User:WereSpielChequers/Going off the boil?. ϢereSpielChequers 10:04, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll add that page to my watchlist. Dougweller (talk) 10:11, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Helllo

I recently saw you on a wiki podcast ...

• Like — Ched :  ?  11:09, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Ched, do you remember which one and where it is? I was in a couple at Wikimania last year for starters. ϢereSpielChequers 11:29, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I remember is was number 109 ... one of the User:Fuzheado podcasts. Will look for the Youtube link when I get back. Hope you're doing well by the way. Always enjoy meeting up with old friends. — Ched :  ?  11:45, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Acknowledgement

WereSpielChequers, I just want to say that I appreciate your continuous engagement on the Gather Collections issues, and tackling details, without giving up due to my lengthy questions :). Thanks for offering different/broader views of things to make it easier for others to see things differently. I trust that we can together make the best use of this feature, and other features, while keeping everything aligned with movement and community norms. Thank you again.--Melamrawy (WMF) (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Help, please?

Could you do a password reset for my UK wikimedia account please.

Multiple mistakes on my part:

• I don't have email enabled over there, so can't do a reset request the normal way.
• Lost my password before the grand unifying of accounts and didn't bother fixing it at the time, so now after the unification, I'm carrying a dead siamese twin.
• I've tried doing a password change, but while it seems to have reset on every other wiki, it's not altered UK Wikimedia.

Thanks, Bazj (talk) 19:04, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bazj, not sure I can help you on that one, but I will ping @Richard Symonds (WMUK): who is much more likely to know how to help you. ϢereSpielChequers 18:03, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

@Bazj, I'll try to help. So that we can send a new password, we'll need an email address. If you email richard.nevellwikimedia.org.uk I'll ask our developers to sort things out. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:46, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Frigatebird

Hi, WSC - would you take a look at the copyedit changes I'm proposing for the lead? User:Atsme/sandbox. I haven't gotten to the meat and potatoes of the body but noticed you have started some copyediting. I left a message on the TP of the nominator. Thx. Atsme^📞📧 17:52, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

At first glance I see advantages, in particular I like the linking of terms that a non birder might not know. However my interest in the bird and the first time I'd heard of it, is in relation to Easter Island and the birdman cult. If I get time I may rewrite that section. But as the article is currently at FAC I would suggest discussing potential changes at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Frigatebird/archive1. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Austrian ethnologist Georgian-German translator

Hi, I recently started a page on Robert Bleichsteiner who it urns out was a Georgian-German translator. I wondered whether you would have any contacts who would either be interested in starting a page on him in Georgian, or who might be able to add material to the page on English Wikipedia? Leutha (talk) 13:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

probably not, I think the Georgian Wikipedia is still focussing on more core topics, and I'm not sure when I will get a chance to meet them again. But I will bear it in mind. Otherwise great to hear from you, I hope the east London meet up went well and might see you at the next London meet up if I can make that. ϢereSpielChequers 06:36, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

We had five of us, which is more than we have had at quite a few other meetups. I think it is well worth branching out into more local events across London, even if it takes a while to have much impact. I would like to start to involve local heritage groups and other community groups, but I don't think that will happen until the autumn. I am also looking into starting a study group looking at Wikipedia and epistemology perhaps holding sessions at the Wellcome Trust Library. The gist is how do we create a pitch which works with academics. We had a good session at the BL recently, but the problem I saw was that academics don't have enough insight into their own practice (does anyone, Wikimedians included?) What I would like to see is a short document which positions Wikipedia (and perhaps the sister projects) within a context that encompasses academia on a level playing field (not that they'll like that, but with the neo-liberal impact on higher education I am not sure how much room they have to manoeuvre). It would be good to catch up at the next meet up. Leutha (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Leutha, That's good to hear. Not sure at present whether I will be able to come this Sunday, it clashes with some real life stuff, the August meetup is more likely - but perhaps we could Skype? I'm home today if you want to talk. ϢereSpielChequers 05:55, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 6

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IT that does useful things

Anyone watching this page might enjoy meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Community prioritised IT developments - you all have four votes. ϢereSpielChequers 22:13, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Going off the boil?

Hey. I took up your invitation. Some comments:

• Theories are great; and I have another one. But, without verification, they are pure speculation and nothing more.
• You mentioned about typos being less common, and are often fixed quickly. Of note, there's an abuse filter that picks up on canned edit summaries including "fixed typo" (see this). Thus, in recent changes log a well meaning user fixing a typo will come under increased scrutiny, with a higher chance of having their edits reversed.
• Along with typos, you mentioned vandal fighting as a gateway task. It would be interesting to conduct a comprehensive analysis to find out what productive new editors of this generation are doing. If we knew that, we could focus our resources on maximizing opportunities for new editors to become connected with now-relevant gateway tasks.
• There's a saying I learned a long time ago. The factory of the future will have two employees; A human and a dog. The dog's job is to keep the human away from the machines. The human's job is to feed the dog. Wikipedia is heading towards this paradigm. Increased automation, decreased editorship, fewer things that need to be worked on.
• You commented on increased mobile surfing. Very true. Desktops are dying. It will take time, but desktops will become artifacts as obsolete as typewriters. [2] Portable devices make horrible editing devices and always will. Nothing yet can replace the efficacy of a keyboard. Until that happens, mobile platforms will be permanently handicapped. The world record for texting is 25 words in 18.19 seconds [3]. This works out to 82 words per minute, if it could be sustained. I type faster than that on a keyboard, and I'm just an average guy on a computer. The world record top speed for sustained typing is 150 words per minute (and the record holder sustained that for better part of an hour). Whoever comes up with a better interface for mobile devices is going to be a billionaire. I digress. The point is the mobile platforms mean editing will permanently decline.
• All the good stuff is already done. We have nearly five million articles now. People like to feel good about their contributions. If all you're doing is tweaking a few things here and there, it's not very rewarding. If you're starting the articles on the Nile, God, Superbowl X, etc. you feel like you're contributing. If instead any article you can think to create has already been created, you feel like you can't contribute. I had a personal case of this; there's a place I've visited a couple of times that is on the national historic register. It's an amazing place! It is frequently visited and toured. Yet, it did not have an article on it here. Rather bizarre. So, I had a not-so-devious plan. I was going to create an article from absolute nothing to featured status with just one substantive edit. I even bought a book on the place in support of this. I took my own photographs, took notes on the tour to verify in other sources, found a multitude of solid sources, and began writing. Just as I began writing, someone created the article. I was sorely disappointed. I haven't even touched the article. Pout :) But, I hope you get my feeling on this.
• It isn't just that we need a wysiwyg editor. Trying to get people to learn new systems is very difficult. We have to create something that mimics how things are done in MS-Word and other significant desktop editing platforms. The markup language we use, while intuitive for me after years of use, is horribly archaic and difficult to learn. It is as archaic as TeX. Case point for me; at a job I had I installed a wiki on our Intranet, to allow people to easily write things up and share them with everyone. There were a couple of geeks who took to it like ducks to water, but the organization as a whole never did anything of consequence with it. We later moved to SharePoint, which allows people to edit things in MS-Word, and it took off.
• On snark; I've long held that the WP:NPA policy is null and void. I've been directly attacked by a whole host of editors, admins and even a bureaucrat. Nothing every happened to them. Personally, I think the policy should be deleted. It creates more controversy and disappointment than it solves. Witness that we did away with Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct. Doing away with WP:NPA isn't much of a stretch of the imagination. It is very rare that people who are deliberately insulting ever have more than a soft warning tossed their way. People don't like confrontation. Case example for me; I know of an administrator who is extremely rude, and frequently bullies people who disagree with him. He doesn't directly insult anyone, which is how he gets away with it. Plenty of people have complained about him, but nothing is done. I've committed to avoiding him at all costs, knowing that any complaint against him will fall on deaf ears and it will only lead to more grief. As a result, there's a section of the project he frequents that I have largely avoided. Result; less things for me to work on that I want to work on.
• Simplifying our policies and guidelines isn't going to happen. They are ever expanding. I concur with the reality that this generates difficulty for new users. The learning curve is enormous and fraught with a huge number of potholes where you get negative feedback telling you how badly you messed things up, and how you would have done better if only you'd read War & Peace first.
• As you know, there's been quite a bit of change in the stratification of editors. Unbundling has contributed, but so has 'upbundling'. Excuse my neologism; I mean rights normally available to brand new editors are no longer available. Given that we have bots that quickly deal with vandalism, given that much of our content comes from IP editors, partially shutting them out of the process is antithetical to our purposes. I refer in large part to the pending changes and autoconfirmed rights. They sound good on paper, but I would speculate they have significantly impacted gateway tasks for new editors. I also find the template editor right insulting. I should not have to plead my case before someone to get the right. The bureaucracy for it is already large (Wikipedia:Template_editor#Guidelines_for_granting,Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Template editor) and this will increase. We want to reduce the monstrosity that is WP:RFA yet create more crap like Wikipedia:Requests for permissions. Unbundling achieves only a stratification of bureaucracy; it does not eliminate it.

So, there are my comments. Enjoy. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• PS: I took so long to write this I got "Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data. Please try saving your changes again. If it still does not work, try logging out and logging back in. "

Thanks, I don't agree that all the good stuff is started as I know of subjects where that is far from true. But I'd concede that it is true for many of our existing and former editors, so I've added User:WereSpielChequers/Going_off_the_boil?#All_the_Good_stuff_has_already_been_done. I'm familiar with the term upbundling, though I use it more for various proposals to shift certain admin rights just to crats. I agree that there have been changes that are disconcerting for newbies, the classic being that if you cite your first edits you are going to have to complete a capcha, if you don't you will get reverted and maybe bitten by others. I became autoconfirmed in 2007, and in those days you could add uncited edits without getting bitten. I was autoconfirmed long before my first cited edit so never had the capcha hassle, but we need a better less bitey way to handle that. ϢereSpielChequers 15:12, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• On the 'good stuff'; I saw a study a while back that showed disparity in areas of Wikipedia. The types of people attracted to Wikipedia will of course have subject areas where they are plentiful and subject areas where they are not. The areas where we do not have a lot of contributors certainly have lots of 'good stuff' to start. But, we don't attract the types of editors that fill those voids. The types we do attract find little in the way of voids where they can contribute. As to the captcha problem...holy crap! I had no idea that was part of the editing process for newbies now. That's sick! On rights... I eschew having any special rights. I shouldn't have to jump through a bureaucratic nightmare to edit a template after I've been here for many years with tens of thousands of edits and one inappropriate block that was placed by an admin who has (for an unrelated event) since been relieved for cause. The idea that I could be here so long, have done so much work here and still not be trusted without jumping through a bunch of hoops is absurd to me. I am an editor. Nothing else. If you can't trust me, you might as well shut down the project. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• Admin, Crat Oversight and checkuser are the only rights that involve jumping through hoops. If you want Reviewer and Rollbacker you have but to ask. As for admin, RFA may be crazy but a 2008 block should be ignored, I'd be stunned if even one maverick opposed over that. ϢereSpielChequers 20:30, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
• On Capatchas... holy crap. I got a new account for my WMF internship and had to ask to be manually confirmed. It was way more of a hassle than I ever thought it would be. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:37, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• Capchas are a complete pain, I can sort of understand IP editors needing to do them and also them being needed for new account creation - apparently a test of dropping the requirement saw us spam botted. But I don't see any gain in requiring capcha for links added by new accounts. PS are you going to Mexico? ϢereSpielChequers 20:33, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

• I am not. I have a wedding to attend this weekend. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. I think my brain went off the boil. Anyway, to your 20:30, 14 July 2015 comments above; people oppose RfAs for all sorts of crazy reasons. I would be surprised if someone didn't oppose an RfA for a years old block. As to additional rights, I don't want to ask for additional rights. If my time here isn't enough for me to have rights to perform editing functions without having to ask, then I don't deserve them. Five years ago, an administrator gave me additional rights without me having to ask. I asked him to undo his changes (which he did without any resistance). Wikipedia has long walked away from the idea of empowering the simple editor to being able to build something magical. This is wrong, and is a foundational issue to the problems we have with editor recruitment and retention. But, to date, our response has been to continue to stratify users into ever more rights groups. By keeping my simple status as an editor I stand against this stratification. It also has the added benefit of understanding the viewpoint of editors who are relatively new to the project. My anecdotal conclusion; we treat them like crap. I think we treat any editor that does not have additional rights like crap. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I think we mistreat lots of our volunteers in various different ways, but I don't agree that it is as simple as mistreatment of editors who lack additional rights. I occasionally edit as an IP when I'm on an insecure connection, and my typo fixes as an IP don't get reverted. I've also been involved in several outreach editathons training new editors. Sometimes the participants ignore my advice and create an article that they can't find independent reliable sources for and then have it deleted, but newbies who add referenced content rarely have problems here. If anything lack of userrights can be used as a shield by some editors. ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Where did everybody go?

I was in London yesterday, dropped in on the Pendrel's Oak, Holborn, expecting a bunch of Wikipedians to be there, and there was only one other person (sorry, can't remember their on-wiki name, guy from New York, does the top article stats). Had a brief chat about User:Ritchie333/Monopoly, how writing articles is too hard for newcomers, lunch, then went to Hyde Park and fell asleep. Was everybody enjoying the sunshine? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm terribly sorry to have missed you both. I wasn't able to get there till after two, but there was already a table of five opposite the door and another half dozen came later. What time did you leave? ϢereSpielChequers 20:06, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I left just before 2. Must have just missed everyone. Oh well. At least I walked down Park Lane properly to look at all the properties I'd researched in order to improve the article to GA status, so it's not all bad. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:07, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Really sorry I missed you, I hope to be there next month, but we should probably change the official start time as it rarely gets going much before 2. ϢereSpielChequers 12:47, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Data

WereSpielChequers, as you're one of the people who likes data, I thought I'd report what I found out... I manually looked through Top 5,000 in the List of Wikipedians by article count looking for editors who had created 40-49, 30-39, 25-29, and 20-24 (non-redirect) articles (note: the data wouldn't let me filter out Diambiguation articles easily so, unfortunately, they'll be included in the count - oh well...), respectively, excluding from the count any:

1. Admins or Bureaucrats
2. editors blocked for cause, and
3. editors who hadn't actively edited within approximately the last year.

It was a "hand count" so, unlike a bot, it's probably not "100%" accurate (I'm sure I missed an editor from the count here or there...). And it's certainly not the "complete data set" of everyone in the Wiki. But I think it's decent enough data to draw some conclusions from. Here are the results:

Number of articles created by number of editors, and Autopatrolled rights

# of articles created	Total # of editors	# of editors with Autopatrolled rights	% editors with Autopatrolled rights
40–49	72	8	11.1%
30–39	61	8	13.1%
25–29	47	4	8.5%
20–24	38	6	15.8%

A couple of follow-up thoughts: While I didn't keep a "hard count", I would say about half of the editors in the table above already had some kind of "extra permissions" (e.g. Rollbacker, Reviewer, File Mover, or combinations of any of these) even if they didn't have Autopatrolled. Also I recognized a significant percentage of the names from this list, and nearly all of them appeared to be long-time editors. IOW, I'd say nearly all of these can be put in the category of "trusted editors". So considering all of that, and the percentage of editors with less than 50 created articles who have already been granted Autopatrolled status, I can't think of any good reason not to go ahead with my proposal to drop the Autopatrolled permissions requirement to somewhere between 20–30 (non-redirect, non-disambig.) articles created (with 25 articles created being my likely suggested level). There's clearly a significant number of medium- and long-term "trusted" editors who would benefit from a lower requirement for Autopatrolled, and lowering the requirement will also hopefully help take some of the burden off the Page Curation crew.

I may try and put together the proposal for VPP tonight, but if I don't I may not get to it until 24 hours from now (as I'll have to run errands tomorrow during the day...). As always, any thoughts on your end are welcome. Thanks again! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The tricky thing is not establishing that we have lots of editors who have created that many articles, but establishing the point where such a large proportion will be ready for autopatroller that it is worth lowering the bar. I realise that my own experience is likely to be somewhat skewed, in going through the list of people who have created lots of articles but who don't yet have Autopatroller I am looking at the list after many people have pulled out good candidates and given them autopatroller. So maybe if someone went through a batch of people who have created forty articles they will conclude that it is worth doing, but there are two prices to remember. Firstly assessing candidates takes much longer than patrolling a single article, and can only be done by an admin, we may be short of new page patrollers but we are even shorter of admins. Secondly we don't want to set people up to fail; If we lower the bar to forty but more people then get refused because their work isn't yet good enough, then we don't just waste admin time, we give a group of goodfaith editors a negative experience. ϢereSpielChequers 21:38, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

User:WereSpielChequers/Edit Warring

Opinions on User:WereSpielChequers/Edit Warring would be welcome. ϢereSpielChequers 15:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Check something for me?

What happens if you click on https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earth-Two&oldid=673487708&veaction=edit and try to change that cell now? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:32, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

That came up as an old version, but I have made two subsequent edits there using a chromebook. ϢereSpielChequers 20:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

On the old version, or on the latest? (Sometimes a problem is specific to a version of an article – either a problem in wikitext, or Parsoid and the wikitext parser having different opinions about what to do with a page.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Latest version. here is another edit where I had to revert to the classic editor, again this might be due to table size though this time not cell size. ϢereSpielChequers 12:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Regulation Committee and alternatives to consensus

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Regulation Committee and alternatives to consensus was WP:SNOW closed . Its discouraged/inappropriate to add new content after a discussion has been closed (WP:CLOSE). The situation is a bit unusual as it was closed by an IP Address. I decided raise the issue here, instead of just reverting, in case perhaps the close is invalid or something else along those lines (that I'm unaware of). Respectfully,—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 06:46, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Since I'm one of the opposers I shouldn't involve myself as an admin in this issue. If you don't mind me taking my admin hat off and commenting, there are a lot of similar RFCs at the moment and closing one or more unpopular ones per SNOW is probably sensible. If you support that proposal and you think you can respond to points raised by the opposers then you could boldly unclose it, but my suggestion would be to revive a modified version in a few months that responds to at least some of the objections. ϢereSpielChequers 09:26, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm one of the opposers as well. My apologies if my inquiry here was unclear: my question concerns your additions [4] after the close. I have no issue with the closing itself.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 15:17, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd say from the timing those would be effectively an edit conflict - I certainly wasn't deliberately editing after something had been closed. Oddly the history shows all three of my edits as after the close but one of the time stamps is from before. ϢereSpielChequers 15:23, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I thought that too at first, look at the dates though. The discussion was closed on August 6th, your comments were on August 15th.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 15:58, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Whoops reverted. ϢereSpielChequers 12:28, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

NiCole Robinson

Would you be okay with unprotecting NiCole Robinson? I assume there was some kind of BLP issue (the revisions have been revdel'd), but there have been no problematic edits since 2012. Conifer (talk) 08:16, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Conifer, yes the deleted revisions were BLP related, and the article has been OK for three years. But we don't know whether that was because of the semi protection or not. But we now have pending changes and I'm willing to move this to pending changes, is that OK with you? ϢereSpielChequers 09:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Given that it's a lightly-edited article, that seems like a good idea. Thanks! Conifer (talk) 09:39, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Help with UK copyright and image licencing

As someone who knows more about UK image licencing and copyright can you give me any help with answering the queries in the image review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bristol/archive1?— Rod ^talk 08:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

hi Rod, I am fairly sure that Graffiti is not covered by FoP due to it being 2d, but Geni or MichaelMaggs would be the people to ask about UK licensing. ϢereSpielChequers 06:10, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Actively look for mutual patrolling

I won't clutter User:Doc James/Paid editing with a by-the-way post, particularly since it may go nowhere. However, FYI I floated your idea here. It would be tricky to implement, but Andrew had a system which may still be running, and it would have been capable of doing the job, if someone dedicated quality time to the project. Johnuniq (talk) 11:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I used to work in computing, finding mutually supporting accounts should be straight forward, finding rings and teams not too complex. If Andrew doesn't have the time to pick this up then we could always file a bot request. ϢereSpielChequers 12:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to WP:ADMIN regarding paid editing

You recently commented on a brainstorm that discussed banning administrators from paid editing. A concrete proposal to amend the administrator policy to this effect has been made at Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Proposed change - 'No paid editing" for admins. Your comments would be appreciated. MER-C 08:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Consensus review

I would like your opinion on this please. I haven't asked anyone else because at this stage I don't want to create what might be unneccesary drama. Your thoughts would be very much appreciated. Thanks, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:24, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Help us improve wikimeets by filling in the UK Wikimeet survey!

Hello! I'm running a survey to identify the best way to notify Wikimedians about upcoming UK wikimeets (informal, in-person social meetings of Wikimedians), and to see if we can improve UK wikimeets to make them accessible and attractive to more editors and readers. All questions are optional, and it will take about 10 minutes to complete. Please fill it in at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD

Thanks! Mike Peel (talk) 18:18, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

New Users

Um... this is a dumb question... but how do you find new users? Exoplanet Expert (talk)

Hi Exoplanet Expert, not a dumb question at all, though the answer does depend on what sort of newbies you are looking for. The biggest source is to look at Special:RecentChanges - it should be "recent changes" on your side bar. As a rough rule of thumb anyone with a redlinked talkpage is new, though some may only be new to English Wikipedia.

Another place to look is at new page patrol, Special:NewPagesFeed and set your filters to look for pages created by new editors.

If those two feel like supping from the firehose, the teahouse could always do with someone who can answer questions from newbies.

Category:Wikipedians_looking_for_help is another place to check as many help requests come from newbies.

Hope that helps. ϢereSpielChequers 20:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration case statement

Hi, WereSpielChequers. I'm an arbitration clerk, which means I help manage and administer the arbitration process (on behalf of the committee). Thank you for making a statement in an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case. However, we ask all participants and commentators to limit the size of their initial statements to 500 words. Your statement significantly exceeds this limit. Please reduce the length of your statement when you are next online. If the case is accepted, you will have the opportunity to present more evidence; and concise, factual statements are much more likely to be understood and to influence the decisions of the Arbitrators.

Requests for exemption to the word limit can be made either on the case page itself or to the Arbitration Comittee mailing list.

For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 20:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Amortias, sorry about that, I will hack bits out but I did read - 1400 words here. Presumably diffs don't count, just readable text? ϢereSpielChequers 20:29, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

480 words now, I may put 20 back when I sense check int in the morning. ϢereSpielChequers 21:45, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

a request

Seasons greetings

I happened to browse first chapter of "Human Evolution (2014) by Robin Dunbar" at pelicanbooks.com library. Presently I am working on relatively new en wikipedia article Ceremonial pole. Ceremonial pole is ancient tradition in human history, I am interested in exploring the book "Human Evolution (2014)" further to find if any citations relating to this tradition are available in the given book.

I did not see much recent activity on Wikipedia:Pelican Books this page. If it is still open I am interested in applying for the same.Please let me know.

Thanks and warm regards

Mahitgar (talk) 05:54, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Mahitgar, I left Wikimedia UK a while ago now Richard Nevell (WMUK) might know if that still runs. ϢereSpielChequers 09:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Vested contributors arbitration case opened

You may opt-out of future notifications related to this case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Vested contributors/Notification list. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Vested contributors. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Vested contributors/Evidence. Please add your evidence by November 5, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Vested contributors/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 01:19, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Vested contributors retitled Arbitration enforcement 2

You may opt-out of future notifications related to this case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 2/Notification list. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 2. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 2/Evidence. Please add your evidence by November 5, 2015, which is when the evidence phase closes. For this case, there will be no Workshop phase. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 13:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement 2 case closed

You are receiving this message because you are a party or offered a preliminary statement and/or evidence in the Arbitration enforcement 2 case. This is a one-time message.

The Arbitration enforcement 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) has been closed, and the following remedies have been enacted:

1.1) The Arbitration Committee confirms the sanctions imposed on Eric Corbett as a result of the Interactions at GGTF case, but mandates that all enforcement requests relating to them be filed at arbitration enforcement and be kept open for at least 24 hours.

3) For his breaches of the standards of conduct expected of editors and administrators, Black Kite is admonished.

6) The community is reminded that discretionary sanctions have been authorised for any page relating to or any edit about: (i) the Gender Gap Task Force; (ii) the gender disparity among Wikipedians; and (iii) any process or discussion relating to these topics, all broadly construed.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kharkiv07 (T) 02:41, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration enforcement 2 case closed

Halloween cheer!

[[

File:Wikipedia Halloween's Day.png|214px|left]]

Happy Halloween!

---

Hello WereSpielChequers:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 15:45, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Thank you kindly

Nice to be up here - there's a great view. :-) Happy editing! --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 12:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

And some 5M cheer as well!

We've reached five million!!                                                   The English Wikipedia now has over 5,000,000 articles! Woo-hoo! Feel free to pass this message on! You can never celebrate too much. [[ File:SMirC-party.svg|20px|5 000 000]] Eman235/talk 18:11, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Signature

Hi, I just edited below you on an RFA, and noticed that your signature causes my syntax highlighter to highlight everything because the markup tags are closed out of order. Could you please swap the closing italic and span tags in your signature? Thanks. kennethaw88 • talk 19:07, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Showing my ignorance here. Are you saying I need to change this:

''[[User:WereSpielChequers|<span style="color:DarkGreen">Ϣere</span>]][[User talk:WereSpielChequers|<span style="color:DarkRed">Spiel</span>]]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers</span>''

To this:

''[[User:WereSpielChequers|<span style="color:DarkGreen">Ϣere</span>]][[User talk:WereSpielChequers|<span style="color:DarkRed">Spiel</span>]]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers</span>''

ϢereSpielChequers 20:04, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. The syntax highlighter expects the delimiters for things like html tags, italics/bold marks, and brackets to finish in the opposite order that they began. Otherwise it can't pair them up, and the highlighting doesn't stop where it should in the text. kennethaw88 • talk 20:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Done? ϢereSpielChequers 20:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Perfect! kennethaw88 • talk 20:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

BTW kennethaw88 I'd been using that signature for years, Is this an ancient problem or is this a Visual Editor problem? ϢereSpielChequers 13:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I've never used visual editor, just the normal editing window, with this enabled. Apparently, it was only written and added as a gadget in 2012 (I've only been here since 2013). I get the impression it isn't widely used, because lots of pages have markup problems that are accepted by the Mediawiki software, but not the highlighter. kennethaw88 • talk 22:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

A possibility for your talents

Hello WSC. I am one (among many) who have been delighted to share, with our fellow editors, the wonderful "Seasons Greetings" templates that you have created over the years. As we approach that time of year yet again I wonder if you have ever seen this? It looks tailor made for your talented skills. If it doesn't pique your interest then no worries. I look forward to whatever you come up with. Thanks for your time and cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 01:06, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Marnette, I'm not sure whether that works in the very small thumbnail that fits into something suitable for a talkpage post. What do you think of this version as opposed to say my Hibernian special? ϢereSpielChequers 07:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I had not considered the size reduction. I do like what you came up with though - especially since I lived in Alaska for a few years :-) Hopefully recipients will do what I did and click on both pics to see them full sized at their file pages. I like the Hibernian as well - it gives us a choice between the fanciful and realistic. Thanks for your efforts! MarnetteD|Talk 12:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome! There may even be a third version before the holiday season. ϢereSpielChequers 12:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by article count

Hi. I figured you might be interested in this edit – based on the Talk page topic below that that you started, you may want to run the question about also showing Autopatrolled with the article count stats by MZMcBride. (And I'd be interested in that data too!) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 04:23, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Lists

WSC, there's a name missing on this list: yours. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:40, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, that's very flattering, but not great timing. In the last few weeks I have taken on extra responsibilities in several different parts of my non wiki life, so now is not a good time to consider a two year stint on Arbcom. That said I'm not ruling out a run in future, just not this year. Plus looking at all the candidates who've come forward in the last few days I may have nine I'm willing to vote for, including several better qualified than me. ϢereSpielChequers 16:30, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

You might want to check it

As you saw I just updated the table [5], however I did it manually. Best efforts basis and I hope it is correct. Peter Damian (talk) 10:17, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Peter, looks good to me. I agree that the final September figure is an obvious error and best to use a different days data. ϢereSpielChequers 17:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Patrick Hennessy (painter)

When we met recently I seem to remember that one of the editors told me that the lead section of an article did not need referencing.When I attempted to refine ClemRutters hack(that was his word not mine)at the lead to-day an editor 14GTR undid my edit stating that the lead was not referenced.Is that correct? snowpatrol 22:27, 18 November 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seascaper (talk • contribs)

A Misspelled Tail

I was reading up on Spiel Chequers er, I mean Spell Checkers, and I ran across this little gem:

A Misspelled Tail
by Elizabeth T. Corbett

A little buoy said: "Mother, deer,
May I go out too play?
The son is bright, the heir is clear;
Owe, mother, don't say neigh!"

"Go fourth, my sun," the mother said.
The ant said, "Take ewer slay,
Your gneiss knew sled awl painted read,
But dew not lose your weigh."

"Ah, know," he cried, and sought the street
With hart sew full of glee--
The weather changed--and snow and sleet
And reign, fell steadily.

Threw snowdrifts grate, threw watery pool,
He flue with mite and mane--
Said he, "Though I wood walk by rule,
I am not rite, 't is plane."

"I'd like to meat sum kindly sole,
For hear gnu dangers weight,
And yonder stairs a treacherous whole--
Two sloe has been my gate.

"A peace of bred, a nice hot stake,
I'd chews if I were home,
This crewel fete my hart will brake,
Eye love knot thus to roam.

"I'm week and pail, I've mist my rode,"
But here a carte came past,
He and his sled were safely toad
Back two his home at last.

Source: Elizabeth T. Corbett, originally published in the children's magazine St. Nicholas in 1893.
--Guy Macon (talk) 19:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, a nice read, though surprised she missed the opportunity to say "The whether changed or even "The whether chain Jed". ϢereSpielChequers 23:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Moderation policy

• I just came across this interesting account of how content moderation is done elsewhere. I was wondering where to put it and this conversation seems a good place. As a talking point, do we have a "Grandma Problem"? I've not seen it described in this way but suppose it's what Natbrown was complaining about. Andrew D. (talk) 11:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Here is as good a place to restart such a debate as any. If you pay people to moderate you then you will probably farm much of the work out to low wage countries, but doing so for Wikipedia is more complex than for a US based social media site, especially if you want a policy that goes further than "legal in the state of Florida". Considering the reference to Natka I'm assuming you are more interested in her idea of a "child safe" product than in the economics of it. We have a global mission and a global community. A policy that says Wikipedia should be "safe for Work" or "child friendly" immediately raises the issue of whose mores are you proposing we follow. Since some of the Wikipedia critics have claimed the porn content on commons is a significant minority, I've heard critics range from commons being saturated with porn to it being as much as 1% porn, it is fair to ask the critics whose mores they think a global project should follow. I doubt that many people in the west would consider 1% of commons as "porn" but to a strict Wahhabi the proportion would be even higher. I'm sure there are parts of the American Bible belt where there are people who would be comfortable with a swimsuit policy, equally there are people who consider that Victorian museum curators chiselling off parts of statues and painting figleaves on artworks were Philistines and vandals. There are also cultures that find depictions of female faces offensive, by contrast I come from a culture which considers a ban on female faces immoral. So I don't believe we can come up with a comprehensive policy that all cultures and moral codes can agree with, yet I'd agree there are some things on Commons that I'd rather not see. If you would set a policy line somewhere other than "legal in the state of Florida" where would you set it and why? ϢereSpielChequers 17:32, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts#French_Sculpture_Census

Hi, please see this - is this some bot that can be turned off? Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks! Johnbod (talk) 21:04, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Detection of paid editors / socks

Being discussed here [6]. For AI to work we need some good datasets. Not sure if you have a list of more? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:45, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry doc, my focus is more about spotting attack pages. Kudpung has much better antenna for spammers and socks. Not sure if you can easily differentiate between a hagiography written by an unpaid fan and one written for pay. You might find that an attack page detector would be easier to write and find data for - all articles deleted per G10 looking at their unblanked pre deletion template version would be a good training set. Personally I would prioritise that because I think it more important than dealing with overly promotional articles; But you may also find that a much easier task to develop an AI for, and your paid editor detector might be much easier to do when you already have an attack page detector developed. ϢereSpielChequers 11:35, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Gathering my wits...

WereSpielChequers, I was poking around WP:UAA, and there are several bot-reported names that are clearly not violations. How do I decline? Is it a simple as removing the entries from the page? Thanks! 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 18:05, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I think so, since the bot doesn't warn the user, but a clear edit summary is unusually important here. Otherwise here are a couple of examples, I haven't done anything at UAA for yonkls yonks so if I returned there I suspect I would do a few like this till I calibrated my tolerance with admins active there. Note the very clear edit summaries and Reassurance at the editor's talkpage that they aren't going to be blocked. ϢereSpielChequers 21:22, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I'll add a few {{UAA}} and see if the bot automatically removes them. I'm just used to reporting and then ignoring the page. By the way, I must add "yonkls" to my vocabulary. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 21:37, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, though that does look like a word in need of a meaning. If I ever get round to writing my opus they may get their own planet. ϢereSpielChequers 22:01, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I like yonkls better. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 22:27, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Stats for MENA and AR wiki

Hi! Hope this finds you well. I saw you were one of the editorss who contributed to this page here so I figured out that maybe you can help find up-to-date statistics for MENA and AR Wiki. Specifically, I'm looking for the number of edits coming from each MENA country to the AR Wikipedia. Thanks!--Reem Al-Kashif (talk) 13:58, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Reem, the closest I know to that are the stats at here but I'll also ask some people I know. ϢereSpielChequers 17:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

MarnetteD|Talk is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec15b}} to your friends' talk pages.

Thanks again for making this WSC. Several recipients have enjoyed it already. Cheers MarnetteD|Talk 05:00, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Quviahugvik

From high in the Canadian Arctic CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate the Winter or Summer Solstice, Quviahugvik, Eid, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hannukah or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Adapted from User:WereSpielChequers greetings

I adapted yours so I could add my own images. By the way some of those reindeer (in the image in the previous section) ended up in Canada and their descendants are still around. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 11:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings!

Hello WereSpielChequers: Enjoy the holiday season and upcoming winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:31, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Wikiclaus' cheer !

		Wikiclaus greetings
		Michael Q. Schmidt talkback is wishing you the happiest of Wikiclaus' Wikipedian good cheer. This message is intended to celebrate the holiday season, promote WikiCheer, and to hopefully make your day just a little bit better, for Wikiclaus encourages us all to spread smiles, fellowship, and seasonal good cheer by wishing others a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone with whom you had disagreements in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings and the happiest of holiday spirits from Wikiclaus !

Holiday Cheer

	Seasons Greetings
	Christmas! Christmas, everywhere, on every talk page, I do dispair Seasons being greeted and Wikibreaks told, but still time for a little more editing, for being WP:BOLD! So go on, go forth and enjoy beyond concern Your Wiki will be waiting for when you return. Have a great Holiday Season. Buster Seven Talk 18:42, 21 December 2015 (UTC) This card designed by User:Samtar.

Yo Ho Ho

7&6=thirteen (☎) is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec15b}} to your friends' talk pages.

Loved your card. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 04:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Best wishes for the holidays...

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Adoration of the Shepherds (Poussin) is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

	Merry Christmas!!
	Hello, I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year, Thanks for all your help on the 'pedia!    –Davey2010 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 14:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

It's that time of year...

Christmas tree worm, (Spirobranchus gigantic)
	Time To Spread Some Happy Holiday Cheer!!
	I decorated a special kind of Christmas tree in the spirit of the season. What's especially nice about the digitized version is that it doesn't need water, and it won't catch fire.
	Wishing you a joyous holiday season... ...and a prosperous New Year!! 🍸🎁 🎉
	Atsme📞📧 16:16, 23 December 2015 (UTC)	Pure pun-ishment. [7]

Merry Christmas!

Aaaaaa too many festivals. I choose (northern) winter solstice and Christmas. That'll limit the extent to which I overeat. Deryck C. 22:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and happy new year

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Merry Christmas and happy new year. (:

--Pine^✉

Happy holidays, WSC!

I'm off to Midnight Mass tonight in the cathedral in Udon Thani. No queuing up outside in the cold - its 29º here! Al the best, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you kindly

I look forward to celebrating as many of those as allow end-of-year feasting. Happy editing! --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 02:21, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

	Wishing you a Charlie Brown Charlie Russell Christmas! 🎄
	Best wishes for your Christmas Is all you get from me 'Cause I ain't no Santa Claus Don't own no Christmas tree. But if wishes was health and money I'd fill your buck-skin poke Your doctor would go hungry An' you never would be broke." —C.M. Russell, Christmas greeting 1914. Montanabw(talk)

Happy Holidays!

Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!

Wishing you a happy holiday season and a Merry Christmas. May your new year be happy and prosperous. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:39, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Mahmood Haider

I reverted because sourced information was removed and unsourced info was added. If you didn't like anything, then remove that and not revert the entire thing. I also no longer respond via email. I've received numerous death threats after responding to people. Bgwhite (talk) 22:31, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi BG, sorry to hear about the death threats, if you don't want to get emails you might try disabling it in your preferences, that way people will know not to email you even when discussing the sort of negative stuff that ideally shouldn't be discussed on wiki; Either that or create an email account just for Wikipedia stuff. My concern was about the unsourced negative information, hence my revert. If you disagree with the policy of reverting to the last neutral version in the page history I suggest you seek consensus to change the policy. ϢereSpielChequers 16:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year 2016!

	Happy New Year 2016!
	Wishing you a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Rosiestep (talk) 22:51, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Gnu Ear Greetings

	Hopp(y) Gnu Ear
	Hoppy Gnu Ear to you! Hoppy Gnu Ear to you! Be Safe! Buster Seven Talk 07:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)