User talk:Sdkb/Archive 6

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.

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

DYK for Kobe Shoji

On 25 November 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Kobe Shoji, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Kobe Shoji escaped 120 °F (49 °C) heat at the Poston Internment Camp by enlisting in the U.S. Army's 442nd Infantry Regiment? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kobe Shoji. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Kobe Shoji), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

		Hook update
		Your hook reached 5,070 views (422.5 per hour), making it one of the most viewed hooks of November 2021 – nice work!

theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 05:24, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Kobe Shoji

Thanks for the feedback. Giant Snowman 18:57, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for all the good work you do! Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:01, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Question from Indiphile99 (12:50, 26 November 2021)

Hello sir/mam, how can an editor get an award --Indiphile99 (talk) 12:50, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Indiphile99, check out the Wikipedia:Reward board! Other ways include having your Wikipedia contributions being noticed by other editors. ––FormalDude

^talk 13:15, 26 November 2021 (UTC) (talk page stalker)

DYK for Found (2021 film)

On 28 November 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Found (2021 film), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the subjects of the documentary Found discover that they are biological cousins as teenagers? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Found (2021 film). You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Found (2021 film)), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Crossword #16

I haven't done the crossword in the Signpost, but I saw you were having trouble with #16. I suspect it is "archives", in reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi's line from Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. - ZLEA _T\^C 04:07, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

@ZLEA, that fits! I haven't seen that film, so the clue doesn't make sense to me; glad it wasn't something obvious that just didn't click haha. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Always glad to offer my nerdyness. - ZLEA _T\^C 04:11, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 30

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Charles Tranberg, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Audible.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. I've AfDed the article anyways, though. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:05, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Question from Lakshya14 (07:33, 6 December 2021)

Hey Sdkb, How do I write a new article and how do i make it good ? --Lakshya14 (talk) 07:33, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Lakshya14! See Help:Your first article. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:55, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

VE/Wikitext help pages

I only just saw it now, but I think Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 193#Directing users to VE or Wiki Markup help pages based on what they actually use is a very good point. Feel free to ping/talk page message me if you raise this anywhere else in future, though I can't really help on the technical side. — Bilorv (talk) 00:00, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv, will do! It's currently at T211117. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Question from Broadwaystars (02:02, 28 October 2021)

Hi Sdkb, I’ve just got started with my first page in my Sandbox. Is it possible for you to publish please? --Broadwaystars (talk) 02:02, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Broadwaystars! You're referring to Rebecca Faulkenberry? I've gone ahead and submitted it for review on your behalf (you can do this yourself through {{subst:Submit}}). It may take a bit, but someone will come by and review it against the criteria for actors. Until then, I'd recommend bolstering it by adding additional quality references to independent news coverage if those exist. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:20, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Sdkb! Thanks for your great feedback. I followed your guidance and added 13 independent news citations along with new headers and a table. It has been 7 weeks and its still not reviewed. Can you assist please. Many thanks {{u|Broadwaystars}} ^talk 13:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Broadwaystars: The news coverage looks sufficient to me, so I've gone ahead and moved the article to mainspace. It'll undergo one more review from another editor before it starts appearing in Google search results (you'll get a notification that it's been patrolled once that happens). As a disclaimer, other editors sometimes come to different conclusions about notability, so there's always a possibility it'll be challenged or nominated for deletion—if that happens, just keep calm and point to the sources. Feel free to let me know if you have further questions, and I hope you go on to create more articles! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:36, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Thanks you have been great!!! Appreciate all your guidance {{u|Broadwaystars}} ^talk 17:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Broadwaystars, regarding the image, the metadata says it's a screenshot. Could you clarify where you got it from? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb Hi, sure, it’s a screenshot of the original to save compressing the photo to upload. It’s a photo taken from the crowd during a live performance. It has a Creative Commons license attached to it. Is this all good. Appreciate all your guidance here Broadwaystars talk 23:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC) Broadwaystars (talk) 23:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@Broadwaystars: Is it a photo that you personally took? If it's a screenshot of a photo that someone else took and released with a Creative Commons license, you should give the source in the description so that others can confirm it. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:38, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Got it. Yes it’s a photo I found of mine after struggling to find one on Flickr or with Creative Commons license elsewhere. I’m looking forward to starting a new page after figuring this out. Broadwaystars (talk) 00:17, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb Any ideas how long the full approval (google publishing and alike) will take so I can start a new project? Thanks as always Broadwaystars (talk) 00:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

@Broadwaystars, ah, makes sense; thanks for the clarification. The New Page Patrol process can be quite variable; it can take up to months, depending on how much of a backlog there is. You don't need to wait for it to finish before embarking on your next project, though. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:51, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a survey about medical topics on Wikipedia

Dear fellow editor,

I am Piotr Konieczny, a sociologist of new media at Hanyang University (and User:Piotrus on Wikipedia). I would like to better understand Wikipedia's volunteers who edit medical topics, many associated with the WikiProject Medicine, and known to create some of the highest quality content on Wikipedia. I hope that the lessons I can learn from you that I will present to the academic audience will benefit both the WikiProject Medicine (improving your understanding of yourself and helping to promote it and attract new volunteers) and the wider world of medical volunteering and academia. Open access copy of the resulting research will be made available at WikiProject's Medicine upon the completion of the project.

All questions are optional. The survey is divided into 4 parts: 1 - Brief description of yourself; 2 - Questions about your volunteering; 3 - Questions about WikiProject Medicine and 4 - Questions about Wikipedia's coverage of medical topics.

Please note that by filling out this questionnaire, you consent to participate in this research. The survey is anonymous and all personal details relevant to your experience will be kept private and will not be transferred to any third party.

I appreciate your support of this research and thank you in advance for taking the time to participate and share your experiences! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at my Wikipedia user page or through my email listed on the survey page (or by Wikipedia email this user function).

The survey is accessible through the LINK HERE.

Piotr Konieczny
Associate Professor
Hanyang University
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

	Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2022!
	Hello! I hope you have great holidays! --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Elmer P. Wheaton

On 20 December 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Elmer P. Wheaton, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that marine engineer Elmer P. Wheaton made his employees learn to scuba dive so that they would have respect for the sea? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Elmer P. Wheaton. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Elmer P. Wheaton), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 12:03, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations

		The Featured Article Medal
		By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this special, very exclusive award created just for we few, we happy few, this band of brothers, who have shed sweat, tears and probably blood, in order to be able to proudly claim "I too have taken an article to Featured status". Gog the Mild (talk) 13:03, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Sociology Barnstar
	Thank you for your contributions to sociology topics. 𝗩𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿 ℣ 08:21, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Vikipolimer! Always glad to know someone else actually reads those articles haha {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Hahah Lol @Sdkb I just started writing articles about sociology too, after eight years of education, I think I can do that. 𝗩𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿 ℣ 08:36, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb Btw I have just done the Sociology of small groups you may check it for grammar issues :) 𝗩𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿 ℣ 12:53, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb Can you review this article if you have time :) 𝗩𝗶𝗸𝗶𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿 ℣ 14:35, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The University Barnstar
		For the time and effort you have put in to elevate Pomona College, List of Pomona College people, and Jean Walton, amongst others to a higher level. Like the topics, places and people you have written about, you have also improved the learning experience for many and that is admirable. — The Most Comfortable Chair 18:02, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

This means a lot, The Most Comfortable Chair; thank you! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:39, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Checking in

I think I'll be ready to take a crack at the US Presidents list in a few days, if you're still interested? I thought you'd be interested to hear that apparently Wikipedia's Muhammad and Historicity of Muhammad articles are recommended by an oxford bibliography [1]!? Rather odd... Aza24 (talk) 08:36, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Aza24, I can't access the full bibliography, but that is odd! And tackling the presidents list in a few days sounds good! If I get further comments at the Pomona FAC I may be preoccupied with that, but we can go at whatever pace works for both of us. Hope you're well! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:23, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

If you're still interested in the Muhammed thing, you should have access to the article through the Wikipedia library's default oxford bibliographies subscription.

I am reading through the presidents list and the archives and find that it is a heavily guarded page by a small group of editors. Every change seems to need talk page vetting and I suspect the two edits I made just now will be reverted! I don't know if I am willing to try and move along an article like this... what do you think? I would still very much like to work on an article with you, if you're interested. Are there any topics in classical music or Chinese history that you find compelling? :) Alternatively, we could chip away at a VIT3 article for GAN or something. Aza24 (talk) 06:20, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Aza24, hmm, I have mild interests in both classical music (viola, contra dance music) and Chinese history (I recently fixed up the lead of one-child policy after watching Found, and I'm interested in censorship/propaganda topics). I'm not sure I'll have enough time or energy to be a full equal partner on a big project (the presidents list was attractive partially since it didn't seem that big, given how close it is to FL), but I could certainly help out. Let me know if you have ideas! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey, do you still have that spelling tool? I just found terracotta spelled wrong in two separate articles (spelled "terecotta", with one r) and it may be worth a run with the tool. On the President's list, I'm going to ping @Kavyansh.Singh: to see if they have any thoughts on the article's state. Aza24 (talk) 06:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Aza24, hmm, I'm not quite sure what you're referring to. Are you looking for WP:Adopt-a-typo? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I could have sworn you went through and changed New York Times to The New York Times across some articles, though I could totally be remembering (or interpreting) it wrong. Aza24 (talk) 06:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Aza24, oh, yeah, that was me. Just using WP:AutoWikiBrowser's find and replace feature. You could certainly use AWB to correct that typo, or whatever other tools are recommended at the WP:Typo team page. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Philosophy Barnstar
		You're a very wise and experienced Wikipedia editor, and I always value your unique input. Thank you for everything you bring to the project. ––FormalDude ^talk 09:39, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much, FormalDude! It's always a pleasure to interact with you. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:45, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Promotion of Pomona College

Congratulations, Sdkb! The article you nominated, Pomona College, has been promoted to featured status, recognizing it as one of the best articles on Wikipedia. The nomination discussion has been archived.

This is a rare accomplishment and you should be proud. If you would like, you may nominate it to appear on the Main page as Today's featured article. Keep up the great work! Cheers, Gog the Mild (talk) via FACBot (talk) 00:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Bravo! All the hard work paid off!!! Aza24 (talk) 08:38, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Congrats! It's great to see this achievement not only for you but to reverse a long-standing trend in a pretty important coverage area. Sidenote: that map has to be the best use of OSM embedded maps I've seen so far on Wikipedia. MSG17 (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Season's greetings!

FormalDude is wishing you a Hellish Hexennacht!

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Hellish Hexennacht, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person.

Don't eat the red snow! ––FormalDude ^talk 23:56, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Source editor help pages

Hello, and I hope you've had a pleasant Christmas? I've spent a bit of time over the hols trying to get my head around what brand new users see and need to understand when it comes to the help we give them on using WP:Source Editor and Visual Editor. At the first page of the Wikimarkup help Help:Introduction to editing with Wiki Markup/1, I noticed you added a small screenshot of the Edit tab. I wanted to suggest that this is changed. Here's my reasoning:

Only non-registered users see the 'Edit' tab - which for them is what enables Source editor (SE)
All new, registered user who have not made changes to their default Preferences will see the 'Edit source' tab.
All other users will see only the 'Edit' tab if they have intentionally set their editing Preferences to "Always give me the Visual Editor if possible)"
Because the 'Edit' tab is mostly associated with WP:VE, it seems to me wrong to present this tab is the route to activating Source Editor.

To that end, I have created five new screenshots as shown here, and recommend we change the image to the third one down (i.e. this one), showing just the 'Edit source' tab ringed, but with both tabs shown.

I also suggest we swap positions of the 3rd and 4th paragraphs so that greater priority is given to the Source Editor, with VE being mentioned further down, as it's less relevant to this particular topic.

How does that sound to you? Nick Moyes (talk) 20:10, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Nick; nice to hear from you, happy post-solstice, and yeah, I noticed you making some tune-ups to the tutorial series! I don't have a fully clear mental picture of the whole complex system of how new editors end up choosing between VE and source (there's a lot of baggage left over from the early controversy), but it sounds like you've figured it out, so that sounds good.

Regarding prioritizing source vs. VE, that leads into some of the broader questions about what direction we want to take the tutorial, so I'll share my evolving thoughts. The understanding I've come to (from the Growth Team's work, Enterprisey, and others) is that people don't really tend to learn by sitting down and reading the entire tutorial. Rather, they want to get editing as quickly as possible, and will consume only bite-sized pieces of information if they're presented in context. So, my ultimate vision is that rather than e.g. having people go to Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/1, they instead just start editing a page using VE, the editor recognizes that they're trying add content and prompts them to add a source with a few sentences on RS, and once they've added their source, uses RSP to validate it. Processes like article creation would be handled similarly, as I've envisioned here. If it's done well enough, it would become convenient even for experienced editors, and source editing would become an uncommon preference. In that scenario, the tutorial might become a set of supplementary pages that you reach by clicking "learn more" on one of the prompts you encounter while editing. It would be almost entirely about best practices rather than about technical how-to, since the technical challenges would be resolved by an improved UX.

We're obviously a ways away from that sort of environment, but I do think VE has gotten good enough that using it should be self-explanatory to most people with at least rudimentary computer literacy. One current role for the tutorial system, then, is as a bridge for editors who started editing in VE but have gotten involved enough that they'd like to learn to edit in source. For that reason, I think it's reasonable to put stuff about source first.

Sorry that ended up longer than anticipated haha, but I hope that helps give a sense of how I'm thinking about the tutorial overall these days. It's in a good state given the technical UX environment we have to work with, but I hope the environment itself is made better so that editors don't have to rely on it as much. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:22, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that overview of your thoughts. You'll see I'm replying from my alt-account which I've fired up specifically to help me better understand the experience and settings a new user gets by default here. Being a bit 'old school' I'm personally rather stuck on using Source Editor, but have got myself on a 'Train the Trainers' course next month, run by Wikimedia UK and aimed at helping us teach groups of new users how to edit online (and in person, post_Covid, one hopes). I'm convinced it'll be VE we'll be pushing new users towards. Yet, via this alt-account, I can now see that (as a new user) none of us have it enabled by default. So, if we're to ensure a new registered user has access to both editing options right from the start (and especially VE) we need to make it really clear how they change things themselves to make them always accessible.

I started out concerned by the fact that we have never actually added given an equivalent and clear name to the wikitext editor (i.e. Source Editor) as we have done with VisualEditor. I think it was George Orwell in '1984' who identified that, by minimising the language, you remove people's power to express themselves or to talk about concepts if they have no handle by which they can describe or identify it.

If I make any changes which you think are unhelpful, feel free to revert and by all means lets have a discussion as to what's best. (As you didn't comment specifically on my points, I'll probably go ahead and 'be bold' and make them tomorrow.) Best wishes, NM Demo (talk) 01:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC) (alt-account for User:Nick Moyes)

I agree with all of what Skdb said: we have a lot of words bouncing around in help space, Wikipedia space, etc, and it's a frequent refrain in the user interface design field that more words means users care less. That said, our help pages do need every last edit and improvement they can get. Side note on defaults: IRC informs me that VE is enabled for new users, so I guess "NM Demo" was created before that default was set up. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

@Enterprisey Ah, now that I did not know. Yes I’ve had User:NM Demo at least a couple of years. I might therefore abandon it and create a new one then, as I felt the only way to see things from the perspective of a new account-holder was to have one. I agree that there are now so many interlinked places to find help that you almost don’t know where to start, so it’s tempting not to bother at all. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:43, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Your advice

You advised me to link to WP:FILMPLOT in my edit summaries when I remove actor's names from plot summaries, but how do I do this? `` Pete Best Beatles (talk) 06:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

@Pete Best Beatles Just explain the rationale for this type of edit in your EDITSUMMARY. e.g.: “Removing actors’ names per WP:FILMPLOT”

Does that make sense? Regards, Nick (Talk Page Stalker) Nick Moyes (talk) 09:49, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Your message

Courtesy link: User talk:165.1.194.41 § Hugo award template

Hello Sdkb,

It's got nothing to do with being bold. I would need to create an account in order to create the template. And I've refused to do that for over 10 years and won't change now. :) But if you'd be so helpful to just create the template I'd be willing to flesh it out.

Cheers, 165.1.194.41 (talk) 08:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that makes a little more sense. I've created it for you at Template:Hugo Award Best Series, along with draft documentation. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we can both live with the results for now. ;) Cheers, 165.1.194.41 (talk) 16:10, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi, could you please elaborate what still needs to be done? There seems to be something missing?! Thanks. 165.1.194.41 (talk) 16:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything obviously missing; could you clarify what makes you think so? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

The template documentation shows up in light green, compared to (e.g.) this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Hugo_Award_Best_Novel. I thought this might be because the newly created one is still a draft? It's not? 165.1.194.41 (talk) 16:53, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Templates are supposed to have documentation on a subpage, which is then transcluded (automatically copied) to the template's page and show up in green. You'll see it if you go to any very widely used template, e.g. {{cite news}} or {{citation needed}}. {{Hugo Award Best Novel}} doesn't have that, so I'll fix it up to bring it into compliance with the normal standards. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Good to know. Thanks for the info.

Will have to make myself familiar with it some other time. Take care, 165.1.194.41 (talk) 11:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello Sdkb, apologies for pestering you again. Similar to Template:Hugo Award Best Short Story 2001–2020, could you kindly create Template:Hugo Award Best Short Story 2021–2040 please? THanks and much appreciated, 199.253.103.242 (talk) 16:32, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Done. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:22, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks! 2A02:810D:9340:30B0:FD1F:9097:A653:E85B (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

RFA 2021 Completed

The 2021 re-examination of RFA has been completed. 23 (plus 2 variants) ideas were proposed. Over 200 editors participated in this final phase. Three changes gained consensus and two proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration. Thanks to all who helped to close the discussion, and in particular Primefac, Lee Vilenski, and Ymblanter for closing the most difficult conversations and for TonyBallioni for closing the review of one of the closes.

The following proposals gained consensus and have all been implemented:

Revision of standard question 1 to Why are you interested in becoming an administrator? Special thanks to xaosflux for help with implementation.
A new process, Administrative Action Review (XRV) designed to review if an editor's specific use of an advanced permission, including the admin tools, is consistent with policy in a process similar to that of deletion review and move review. Thanks to all the editors who contributed (and are continuing to contribute) to the discussion of how to implement this proposal.
Removal of autopatrol from the administrator's toolkit. Special thanks to Wugapodes and Seddon for their help with implementation.

The following proposals were identified by the closers as having the potential to gain consensus with some further discussion and iteration:

An option for people to run for temporary adminship (proposal, discussion, & close)
An optional election process (proposal & discussion and close review & re-close)

Editors who wish to discuss these ideas or other ideas on how to try to address any of the six issues identified during phase 1 for which no proposal gained are encouraged to do so at RFA's talk page or an appropriate village pump.

A final and huge thanks all those who participated in this effort to improve our RFA process over the last 4 months.

This is the final update with no further talk page messages planned.

01:47, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

thank you very much

		*The Signpost* Barnstar**
		for a very nice job this issue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

And thank you for all you've done and are continuing to do to keep Wikipedia informed! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:31, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

SdkbBot 2 approved

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SdkbBot 2 has been approved. Happy editing! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:38, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Question from CozmicLiving (02:36, 31 December 2021)

how do i get new info printed in wikipedia --CozmicLiving (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi CozmicLiving! It depends on what kind of new information you're trying to add. Please say more to help us better help you. General resources are at Help:Introduction. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:40, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Sdkb!

Happy New Year!

Sdkb,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Abishe (talk) 14:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Happy New Year, Sdkb!

Happy New Year!

Hi Sdkb, Thank you very much!

Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:27, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

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

Literally

	Admin t-shirt
	Thanks for the nom :) Best wishes in the new year! czar 00:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for nominating me for the Merchandise_giveaways. I tried to see how the nomination is going, but unlike User: Gac I do not have a nomination page. This here is Gac"s nomination page, see: [nomination page]. Don't worry I still appreciate what you have done. Wishing you and your loved ones a HAPPY NEW YEAR. Tony the Marine (talk) 01:18, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Tony! The nomination page is here; I just double checked and confirmed you're on it. Happy new year! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:23, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Hey wanted to chime in and say thank you for nominating me for that. It's a kind gesture. RickinBaltimore (talk) 01:37, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi -- thanks for the thought! And happy new year! Espresso Addict (talk) 03:19, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

About the merchandise giveaway nomination

Thank you for the merchandise giveaway nomination. Does this mean that if the nomination is accepted, I get an actual physical T-shirt? JIP | Talk 04:00, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

JIP, yep; happy new year!

{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:18, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Sdkb, and happy new year to you too! JIP | Talk 04:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Exciting, many thanks! Giant Snowman 10:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks also. Stifle (talk) 22:54, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you so much-- I appreciate the nominationMandsford 23:13, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the solstice season gift nomination!

Thanks for the nomination! Happy New Year! --Edcolins (talk) 09:47, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Question from Barllina (11:26, 2 January 2022)

Hi Sdkb, I work for a brand called 'Barllina", which is a fashion brand in the KSA, I am asked to create a Wikipedia page for the brand, and the content is ready. Would you please lead me through the process? here is the website of our brand: https://barllina.com/ --Barllina (talk) 11:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Barllina: You are a paid editor and I am a volunteer, and it is very presumptuous of you to expect that I give up my free time to help you promote your brand. There are ample help resources available at WP:PAID and elsewhere, and you are responsible for learning and following them. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:46, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the kindness of the Merchandise Giveaway Nomination, and wishing you a most Happy New Year! Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi

how are you, User:Sdkb can you review this article Draft:Suzana Joumaa and If it is good article, can you move it to the main space --Wikipeida From Saudi Arabia (talk) 07:30, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Wikipeida From Saudi Arabia, I've submitted the article for review on your behalf. Another editor will come along and assess it. The length of time can vary a lot, as there's no queue, so please be patient—sometimes it's hours, other times months. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Sdkb, are you aware that this is a sockpuppet of a banned editor? Pahunkat (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Pahunkat, I wasn't, but not exactly shocked to hear that lol. I've G5'd the draft. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:33, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I actually came across this account earlier in the week, considered if they were a sock for the canvassing and then decided that I was being to harsh to the newcomers.

Facepalm. Pahunkat (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

A beer for you!

I consistently enjoy your contributions and efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Cheers! JBchrch talk 00:20, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, JBchrch! I've appreciated your work on cleaning up the Main Page to remove portal links, and I hope that'll be completed in the future! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Template:Newspaper of record

Are you still developing and deploying {{Newspaper of record}}, or is it abandoned? A group of us are going through reports of untranscluded templates to clean up the template namespace, and this one is on the list. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

It still has the possibility of being developed and integrated into {{find sources}}, yes, so I'd oppose deletion. I've put it temporarily on pause, though, since I'm doubting whether we should be including as many links in Find sources as we do, and how that fits in with things like the WP:Library. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Question from Obird61 (15:12, 14 January 2022)

I can no longer access the Post Tribune daily electronic version of the newspaper, which I have a paid subscription to. Can you help me? --Obird61 (talk) 15:12, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Obird61: That would be a question for the Post Tribune staff, not for us at Wikipedia. We have no affiliation with them and no control over your subscription. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

A list in Draftspace

Moved to Wikipedia:Teahouse § A list in Draftspace

– {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Draft categories

There's no rule that merely disabling categories is preferred over removing them entirely. There are, rather, a lot of complicated considerations that go into the choice, so there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer.

For example, sometimes people try to add drafts to redlinked categories that don't even exist at all, such that there would be absolutely no benefit to leaving that category on the page in disabled form. Or they add drafts to categories that wouldn't be the correct ones even if the page were allowed to be in categories, such as adding a musician directly to Category:Music, again with absolutely no benefit to leaving that category on the page in any form.

Or the editor who's cleaning up bad categorization of draft/user pages is processing a large batch all at once, and can't be expected to take on added steps that make the job longer than necessary. For example, if I'm cleaning up a large batch of 30 or 50 drafts all at once via AWB, that tool offers no way to actually verify whether all of a page's categories actually exist, whether they're all the correct categories, and on and so forth — so the only thing I can do in that instance is either a blanket "remove all categories entirely" or a blanket "disable all categories but leave them there even if they're wrong or non-existent".

And while there isn't any 100 per cent foolproof way to totally prevent the readdition of categories by the page creator at a later date, in my experience it is a lot less common to see people readd categories that have been removed entirely than it is to see people re-enable categories that merely have been disabled — for example, one of the pages I removed categories from a couple of hours ago did feature categories that had previously been disabled by another editor and then re-undisabled by the page creator, while none of them featured categories that had previously been removed from the page and then readded at a later date.

So yes, I do also wish that there were a technical solution in place to automatically keep draft and sandbox pages out of mainspace categories, so that we wouldn't actually have to give a flying honk whether people were adding categories to draft or userspace pages or not — but there just isn't a rule that categories on draft or user pages have to be disabled rather than being removed, because sometimes both are necessary under different circumstances. Bearcat (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Bearcat! If we have to choose between mass-disabling vs. mass-removing, I think it's better to go with mass-disabling. While there are indeed many incorrect categories in draftspace, often they're a start, so better than nothing. Also, it's easier for editors working in draftspace to have their work altered as little as possible. This is especially true for newcomers who may not know how to access the page history to recall their category work if they've forgotten.

Hopefully there's a Phabricator ticket somewhere seeking a solution to draft categorization. I'll go search for it, and if I can't find anything, I'll open one. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T299286

@Bearcat, I created the ticket at phab:T299286. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Quotation marks

Hello. This change is not desirable. In Persian, like French, guillemets is used as quotation marks. Thanks 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @4nn1l2, and thanks for pointing that out! I've restored the guillemets, but the change to them came from the WP:GENFIX set rather than anything specific to my bot, so it's likely that the next time anyone using AutoWikiBrowser comes by that article, they'll restore the error unless the GENFIXes are corrected. I'd recommend reporting the issue at WT:GENFIX and creating a Phabricator ticket so that it can be handled from there. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:40, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) That may be a feature rather than a bug. See MOS:QUOTEMARKS. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not quite sure, since there is the except when such marks are internal to quoted non-English text exception. Maybe ask at an MOS/project talk page for clarification if there's uncertainty. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:California Metrolink link logo

Template:California Metrolink link logo has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Question from Piyoosh Yadav (02:08, 19 January 2022)

Hi How can add fotos when we r editing --Piyoosh Yadav (talk) 02:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Piyoosh Yadav, see Help:Introduction to images with VisualEditor/1. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Portrait credits

Continuing the conversation (not specific to infobox person}}, I recall one discussion I had about crediting the artist and cited MOS:CREDITS, and they said they believed all paintings should be captioned with the artist per MOS:ART#Image captions. What do you think of a hatnote there along the lines of

MB 03:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@MB, hmm, it seems like we have some conflicting guidelines there, as MOS:ART says it's necessary to include the artist but MOS:CREDITS discourages it. I'd recommend opening discussion to try to resolve the disparity. I'm a fan of hatnotes between guidance pages, as it helps tie them together and can be a step toward consolidation. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Mishka NYC

hello im writing you to ask why you edited Mishka NYC page with false information. Mishka was founded in 2003 not 2013. They were founded in Brooklyn New York and currently Headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Greg Rivera, the co founder of Mkishka is actually my brother and was just curious as to where you got that false information. Tfromm09 (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Tfromm09! Thanks for reaching out to report the error. I looked at the revision history of Mishka NYC. I came by it and made a semi-automated minor copy edit in October, which I presume is why you're coming to me. More recently, on December 29, an anonymous user from Indonesia vandalized the article. Most vandalism is quickly caught and reverted, but unfortunately in this case it was missed and lingered. I see you already boldly edited the article to correct it; thank you! If you'd like to make further changes, feel free to let me know or to place {{Requested edit}} on the article's talk page, but beyond simple factual corrections, I'd advise you not to edit it directly because of your conflict of interest as the founder's sibling. One other thing: articles on businesses are required to have sources establishing that they are notable under this guideline; the sources previously in the article weren't sufficient for that, so I added a few. I hope that helps explain; feel free to ask if you'd like to know anything else, and I hope you go on to make more contributions elsewhere! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

thank you for the reply. i learned alot from what you mentioned. im not a big editor i just stumbled upon some wrong info and decided to change it. if i came across as rude i apologize. thanks for the clarification and contributions. greatly appreciated Tfromm09 (talk) 02:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Want a bio I've summarized

Publication assistance Aajayi27 (talk) 23:17, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Aajayi27, you'll need to communicate much more clearly than that for me to be able to help you. If you're looking to write a new article, please see Help:Your first article. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Model article

Template:Model article has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 15:04, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Bot oil for SdkbBot!

	Bot oil
	Your bot comes across my ~~page~~watchlist sometimes. I think it deserves some motor oil so it can keep going like the energizer bunny. Just pour it in the gas tank. I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 20:57, 24 January 2022 (UTC) (Edited because of lack of caffeine at 20:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC))

@I dream of horses: Caffeine is definitely the bot oil of humans

Hope it's not cluttering your watchlist too much! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:38, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Yup, that's the truth! I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 22:39, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks for your edit on Template:Happy Birthday! I usually attribute, but forgot to on this one

🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 22:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper: Thanks for the kind feedback! I'm always happy to have more kittens

Revamping {{First Edit Day}} right now. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:57, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Navigating Wikipedia

Hi this is User:Nick Moyes I've just created a brand new account for understanding the current new user experience, and from which I'm contacting you. I've just followed a few links at Help:Getting started including Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia. It struck me that the information at the top of Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/6, which explains what the key elements that I see when logged in are, really ought to have much higher priority, as they're incredibly helpful to understand what one sees when one is logged in. It could even go into the lower half of an expanded version of Help:Introduction to navigating Wikipedia/1. I was wondering what you thought? Regards, Nick. NM Demo 2 (talk) 23:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Nick! I agree those are definitely important, and should probably have higher priority. They'll be changing soon when New Vector rolls out, so that might be a good time to change some stuff around. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:03, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Editnotices/Page/Dandelion Program

Template:Editnotices/Page/Dandelion Program has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 15:19, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

User:SdkbBot blanked three pages

SdkbBot blanked three pages: Célestin Harst, Catherine Dumas and Canton of Gordes.

These seem to be incidents, as other edits managed to be saved properly. —Mainframe98 _talk 12:01, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Mainframe98: Hmm, thanks for bringing that to my attention; that's quite odd. I've paused the bot and will investigate. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Resolved here at VPT. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Take the Lead contest 2021

Thank you for participating in the Take the Lead contest. You are one of the winners and to sort out the prize could you email me at karla.marte@wikimedia.org.uk to coordinate. Karla Marte(WMUK) (talk) 11:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:Marc Los Huertos

Hello, Sdkb. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Marc Los Huertos, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Help?

Hi. Can you perhaps help, and point me in the right direction? I'm at a loss as to where to post this request, and you seem to be a contributor to a related page.

I drafted an article, which was published a few days back. Stephen Kovacs. The fellow died in prison this month. An official report as to cause of his death will be announced when the immediately initiated investigation into the matter concludes. That could well be any day; in recent parallel situations, announcements were made within a week or two of death, from what I can see.

I was initially puzzled as to why when I google the name of the person who the article is about, the article does not appear in the google search. I'm told, and this is all new territory for me, that though the article went through the AFC process, that doesn't mean it was seen by a "NPP reviewer or admin" (I'm not sure what an NPP reviewer is, or how to post to them this request). I'm told that (it was my bad luck?) the reviewer was not one of those.

I'm also told that the article has to be marked as "patrolled" (the "magic word" added?)

Otherwise, it will not be picked up in google searches for three months.

While I understand that nobody at the project has to do anything, and that we are all volunteers, I was wondering if there is a place I can post where someone can perhaps help me, if they have time or interest?

As it is an article of current interest to our readers, and will be even more so quite imminently, I was hoping I could make the entreaty somewhere.

Thank you very much. 2603:7000:2143:8500:EC64:FB79:7C07:7BDE (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello! NPP refers to "New Page Patrol". For any unfamiliar acronym on Wikipedia, you can find out about it by typing "WP:" and then the acronym into the search bar. Here, that'll take you to WP:NPP. I happen to be an NPP patroller, and since the article looks good and your request is reasonable, I've gone ahead and marked it patrolled, so it should be indexed by search engines shortly. Thanks for your contributions! I hope you'll consider registering an account and continuing to contribute elsewhere. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:03, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

mail

Hello, Sdkb. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:42, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Suggested wishlist items

Hi talk page stalkers! I have misgivings about the decision to run another wishlist this year when so few items from last year have been resolved, but since it's happening, here are some items I've supported:

I encourage you to support these, too! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:36, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Mkibona Signpost article

Hello Sdkb,

Thanks for giving the Mkibona kerfluffle a write-up in The Signpost. I wasn't sure why Clark was mentioned by name in the article, while the AfD nominator was not. Was it an editorial decision not to name minors? If so, it may be worth explaining this in an editorial note. I suspect this may get coverage in other news sites. Schierbecker (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

(Courtesy link to the article) @Schierbecker, yes, it was an editorial decision given the overall context of the situation.

On off-wiki coverage, honestly, I really hope that doesn't happen. I wrote the article since I think it's an illuminating incident pertinent to our work as experienced editors, but I think non-Wikipedia readers would likely find the situation a lot harder to understand, since for them questions like whether the article on Black Women Radicals was within policy aren't clear the way they are to us. It's also one thing to shine the relatively moderate spotlight of the Signpost on an issue, whereas it would be very much another to pick it up elsewhere. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Evylena Nunn Miller

Contributed biography

Evylena Nunn Miller

Evylena was given the name Lena when she was born on July 4, 1888, in Mayfield, Kansas, to James and Mattie Nunn. She was the fourth and last child born in that family. As a young girl she preferred to climb trees, wander in the wheat fields often getting lost, or going rabbit hunting with her father. As far as James was concerned, Lena was ‘his boy’ and was treated as such. A story was often told about an early Christmas when Lena was around 4 years old. Her parents bought her a doll and with money left over purchased a box of crayons. Christmas morning Lena ignored the doll and spent the entire day coloring on all the scrap paper should could find. In 1902 the family moved to Santa Ana, California. Lena wanted a more sophisticated name for California. She legally changed Lena to Evylena with an unusual spelling so people would be sure to remember her. In 1906 Evylena graduated from high school and wanted to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, but her father wanted her closer to home. She was admitted to Occidental College in Los Angles. Before the first year was completed, the college announced it was in financial destress and would not be holding art or music classes the next term. Evylena transferred to Pomona and graduated with honors in 1910. She then attended Los Angles Normal School to receive her teaching credential. Besides teaching school and painting, she was a devote Christian and spent her free time with the youth groups of the Presbyterian Church. She taught two years in Claremont and returned to teach at the then new Santa Ana High School. During that year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The treatment was a radicle mastectomy. It was at that point she decided to devote her life to her painting, painting what she saw in nature as God’s handiwork. 1920 Evylena became a volunteer to go to Tokyo, Japan for the World Sunday School Conference. Only days after arriving she learned that the Presbyterian Mission school needed a teacher for three months. She agreed to stay because of all the new scenery to paint. She was so well liked; she ended up staying for two years holding several art exhibits and being written up in many publications. She had saved most of her money from teaching in Japan and began a world tour of painting. She traveled to China, Korea, Cairo, Jerusalem, Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, Florence, Rome, Milan, Switzerland, France, then to England to sail home. When she returned home she married Howard Earl Miller, someone who had pursued her for a number of years. Evylena became a very-well known En Plein Air impressionist painter, traveling every chance available to all the national parks, traveling up and down the west coast, making several trips to the south west painting the native Americans to teach the people back home about the Indigenous People. Evylena was always teaching and helping others. Evylena was a member of the Women Painters of the West, the Los Angeles Art Association, the National Association of Women Artists, the California Art Club and she helped form the Laguna Beach Art Association. She was also a board member of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, never a director. She is in Who’s Who in American Art, and the Who’s Who of American Women. Evylena Nunn Miller was the youngest person to have a painting, Where Desert and Mountain Meet, accepted into the Art Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute. The Forgotten Artist, Evylena’s story with many of her family pictures as well as her paintings from the Bowers Museum will be available the end of April, 2022. It is researched and written by Evylena’s great niece, Leslie Compton. She can be reached at her website, Facebook or Instagram.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by LeslieCompton (talk • contribs) 00:42, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:16, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Surname hatnotes

What's been going on lately with surname hatnotes? A while back it seemed like there was some movement to move that stuff to a footnote (which I support). Is that still ongoing? Crossroads ^-talk- 02:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Crossroads! I'm still interested in moving forward with that; I checked with Primefac a few weeks ago about the technical end of things, and now the next step is crafting a big proposal for VPR laying out the rationale. If you'd be interested, it'd be great to have help drafting that; we could work on it in a sandbox somewhere. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:04, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I'll have time to help draft it, but I definitely appreciate the effort you and anyone else can put in. Please ping me when this goes to VPR, per WP:APPNOTE. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Crossroads, as you asked to be notified, the proposal is live at VPR. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

A pair of wire clippers for you!

Thanks for defusing the situation at It's Elementary's TFA nompage—that could've been bad. I hope this pair of wire clippers helps with future defusals :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @Theleekycauldron!

It's an important topic, and it'll be nice to see some LGBTQ representation as TFA. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:14, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Montrea?

How did your 24 October 2021 VisualEditor edit manage to mangle the link to Montreal?! – wbm1058 (talk) 16:38, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Hmm good question lol; thanks for fixing it! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Stay aware with LTA Albert20009......

Sir, stay aware with LTA Albert20009...... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Albert20009 AdhiOK (talk) 19:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Jean Walton

The article Jean Walton you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Jean Walton for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of The Most Comfortable Chair -- The Most Comfortable Chair (talk) 05:01, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

10 years

Thank you! Love the portrait you've drawn of me... Giant Snowman 18:15, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman, my pleasure; congrats!

Link for anyone else curious. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Actors' names in plot summaries

On Dec 26 2021 you supported me when I asked about removing actor's names from plot summaries (see Teahouse/Questions Archive 1136 topic 68). User Marchjuly then left a long critique, and a strong response supporting me against them has been deleted before the section was archived. The upshot is user Beyond My Ken has just reverted all my many edits and has asked me to "not continue doing this."

They say on my talk page that "FILMPLOT is a MOS style guideline and not a mandatory policy. Many of us feel that having actors' names in the plot section is a service to our readers..." How do I find out is "many of us" is actually a consensus? (I guess there's no way to retrieve the deleted support for my suggestion.) -- Pete Best Beatles (talk) 07:13, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi Pete; thanks for reaching out! Link to the Teahouse discussion is here, for reference. I've left a reply to BeyondMyKen at the discussion at your talk page. To keep everything centralized in one place, let's continue further discussion there. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:04, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much! How do we know Beyond My Ken will see your response on my talk page? -- Pete Best Beatles (talk) 13:08, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

@Pete Best Beatles, whenever you mention a user's name in a signed comment, they get a notification (as you will for this comment). Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

That merchandise giveaway nomination you made :-)

Hi Sdkb! I hope you're doing well! I was just archiving some old user talk page discussions from my talk page, and I remembered that you left this message for me back in December. :-) A random fun fact: I'm still waiting for Seddon (WMF) to reach out to me in order to send me the shirt that I was nominated and approved for about four years ago... LOL! Oh well, no big deal - I wouldn't want to give the guy a hard time over something so small. I guess we'll see what happens with this nomination... I was just checking the nomination page, and it looks to still be active! ;-) Cheers - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:36, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Oshwah: Yep, that nomination is still active! I hope you get your shirt one way or another—it'll be well-deserved! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:44, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

LOL, after I left this message on your talk page, I went and (gently, of course) poked the bear. ;-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 10:42, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Request for Mentorship

Hello Sdkb,

I found you in the list from the Wikipedia:Growth Team features/Mentor list which I went through completely and chosen you mostly by your tech affinity. I'm specialized in IT topics and work in favor of civil rights and privacy as you can see as part of my self-introduction on my user page. Now I'm looking for a mentor to have a starting point here in the community. ARoseWolf is sadly not technical and thus I would flood her with IT topics.

Are you available for mentorship? Are you by chance available on IRC?

Greets GavriilaDmitriev (talk) 10:06, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi Gavriila! It looks like you've asked several editors to be your mentor. I'm happy to answer any questions anytime, but I wouldn't say I'm particularly knowledgeable about technical IT topics. One forum you may wish to know about is the technical village pump, where a lot of technical editors hang out and can answer advanced questions. For encyclopedic content on technical topics, there's WikiProject Computing and its associated talk page, although it doesn't look particularly active. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:10, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:If administrator

Template:If administrator has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Mz7 (talk) 22:16, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Tahir R. Andrabi for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tahir R. Andrabi is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tahir R. Andrabi until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Yousef Raz (talk) 21:24, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Trimming Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/5/Society_and_social_sciences#United_States_(135_articles)

the general consensus on vital article talk is that this list needs to be trimmed a lot, but I'm not sure which ones should go. (t · c) buidhe 13:09, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for reaching out, @Buidhe. Yeah, I've looked at that list before, and it's intriguing but clearly not fully optimized. The fact that the list is organized by sports conference rather than geography or something else makes me a little suspicious off the bat. Some articles like Xavier University don't appear to have anything particularly notable about them apart from being part of a Division I conference. There are a lot of music/arts schools—as elite as places like the tiny Colburn School are, I'm not sure we can justify nine articles there rather than just Julliard and maybe a small handful of others. There are also clearly some omissions. I added women's college way back, but the absence of any individual women's colleges sticks out—Wellesley College would be the obvious candidate. I'm not sure there's a particular standout member among HBCUs, but I'd certainly prefer to list the article for the group over plenty of institutions that are currently listed (we should also probably list Higher education in the United States).

I'm more familiar with smaller schools than I am with larger ones, and there's rightly only a few of those listed, so I'll call in ElKevbo here—would you be interested in helping refine and prune the list? Buidhe, do we have a target number? For reference, the U.S. currently has 12 out of 32 articles at level 4 and 135 out of 303 at level 5. Overall, I think we're justified in having the U.S. overrepresented to some extent given how dominant it is in global higher education, but not to this extent. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. I totally agree that sports isn't the right way to organize universities since most are not "vital" for sports-related reasons. I don't think there's a target number, just reducing excess and bringing it in line with the coverage of other countries. See the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5#Split the "Society and social science" category, and relevant changes (t · c) buidhe 21:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't know enough about what exactly is meant by "vital" in this context to be immediately helpful. In other contexts, it could be reasonably interpreted or defined in many different ways: highest ranked, oldest, most influential (no, I don't know how to operationalize that), most alumni, etc. I agree that many of the common metrics do have blind spots; any list of the most vital few hundred articles about U.S. colleges and articles that doesn't include Howard University and Spelman College, for example, has some critical shortcomings. On the other hand, many of the oldest, wealthiest, and largest institutions have indeed had an outsized influence in the nation and the world so just having them overrepresented isn't necessarily unreasonable. ElKevbo (talk) 23:40, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@ElKevbo, see WP:VAFAQ for the definition of vital. It's somewhat amorphous, but one way to frame it is if had to choose only 100ish articles to keep, which would we choose? I think factors that we can consider include size (maybe have a cutoff enrollment?), history (e.g. College of William & Mary as second oldest), prestige in a particular domain (e.g. MIT/Caltech as the best known tech schools or Julliard for music), and uniqueness/extent of appearance in popular culture (e.g. Brigham Young University as a Mormon institution or Arizona State for its reputation for partying). I pared down the list to only the schools I'm familiar enough with to judge and think should be included, which takes it down to a base of 59, but I think there are probably lots of others to add to it. Maybe add all AAU institutions above a certain enrollment, all flagship universities above some higher cutoff, and all universities period above some higher cutoff? Feel free to tinker with my sandbox to show your preferences. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:58, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Buidhe and Sdkb: Thanks for being interested in WP:VA/L5 and your constributions there but I would avoid from massive removals of all houndrets coat of arms and national flagues. While some users have agreed each other that most (if not all) Coat of of arms are not vital and I will probably not councur that anymore then some also pointed that national flagues can be vital at this level (for example, user:DaGizza or User:John M Wolfson on level 4 talk page). We did not remove all video games by WP:Bold but we are slovely discuss this stuff even though on academic perspective TVseries or Video Games seems be much less vital than national flagues! Online Encyclopedia Britannica has article about every single national flague from China to national flag of Tuvalu, and a lot of countries which are listed at the level 3 have own article on Britannia (Great Seal of the United States currently has 57 references on Wikipedia and own article in Britannia). If you review outlines on Britannica then Flag and Anthems of the World is something about 10% bigger than List of games (combinetly all games from anient games, golf to modern video games). What do you think to we make difference proportionally (of course 50 000 articles is not the same what say 250 000 on Britannica but should not we have proportionally more nationa flagues and anthems than games? What is problem "proportion" of flagues or fact that there is everywhere too many non-vital articles and sometimes list more remind encyclopedia of 300 000 articles than 50 000?). I would consider articles like National Flag of USA or National Flag of China as important part of culture. Cheers. Dawid2009 (talk) 11:03, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Dawid2009 We recently delisted some flag articles at WP:FAR. It turns out that it's actually really hard to find RS coverage on flags sufficient to support a featured article. IMO, very few flags (US and China might be an exception) have sufficient coverage in reliable sources to justify vital status. (t · c) buidhe 11:16, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@ElKevbo, just quickly following up, let me know if you plan to take a look at the list in my sandbox. Having a good representative vital article list would be helpful for us at WP:HED at times when we need to focus our efforts. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:46, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

This would require a lot of thought and work. Maybe start with the members of the Association of American Universities (perhaps the founding members if that's too many institutions) and the institutions listed in the Black Ivy League article. I don't know what comparable group there is for liberal arts colleges (Little Three is in the right direction but much too small and regional; Annapolis Group is too large...). But that still leaves a lot of important types of institutions unrepresented e.g., community colleges, tribal colleges, regional universities. Maybe the list should include representation from each of the Basic Carnegie classification categories? I'll think about this some more; it's an interesting question.

I also think that it's insufficient to solely include articles about U.S. institutions. There are some critical U.S. innovations and developments that should also be included. For example, the Morrill Land-Grant Acts should be at the top of that list as a unique U.S. contribution to the mission and development of colleges and universities. I think it would be acceptable to include that in the "General" subsection of the "Education" section; I see at least one other country-specific article listed there already. I also note that associate degree is missing. I'm sure if I spend some more time I can come up with other suggestions and questions. I'd also be curious to know why some articles are included (e.g., Master of Business Administration) but others aren't (e.g., Master of Arts). And nothing about tenure, accreditation, financial aid, student affairs, and athletics? ElKevbo (talk) 05:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the Welcome!

Hello Sdkb!

I'm getting used to this! Thank you for the welcome. I might lean on your expertise as we work on our projects. --AyitiKiskeya (talk) 23:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)AyitiKiskeyaAyitiKiskeya (talk) 23:06, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@AyitiKiskeya, absolutely; best wishes! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:21, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Question from Sandew LA on User:Sandew LA (07:16, 19 February 2022)

Hi! I would like to know if there is a article of something already, can't I creat an another article that related to it. I create an article of Glassy Tiger Life Cycle but it was deleted because there is a page named Glassy Tiger already exist. Can I create an Article related to it ? I hope you will help me with this question. --Sandew LA (talk) 07:16, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Sandew LA! Wikipedia generally only wants one article on any given topic, since having multiple articles is an unneeded duplication that increases the amount of work it takes to maintain the encyclopedia. Since parantica aglea already exists, I'd generally recommend just improving it instead of creating a new article. If you're writing about a subspecies or something else different, the calculus becomes a little trickier; in that case, you could ask what to do at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lepidoptera. I hope that helps! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:22, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

@SdkbThank You so much for your help! Sandew LA (talk) 07:37, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

TFA

Hello. Would you be able to move your nomination of Pomona College to the 8th? I've listed beaver for April 7 which is International Beaver Day. LittleJerry (talk) 02:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi LittleJerry! I'm sorry to see the date conflict there. I nominated Pomona for the 7th earlier this month because the topic has a strong tie to that date, which unfortunately would be lost if I moved it to the 8th. I would certainly love to see beaver on the Main Page—as I've mentioned you before, I love how you've worked on so many TFAs for popular animals—so I'd suggest nominating it for another date or for April 7 next year. My apologies again—to make it up to you, I'd be happy to take a look at one of your open FACs and leave some comments (just let me know which). Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:27, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, how about looking at red panda? LittleJerry (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

@LittleJerry, absolutely! I'll get to it shortly. Thanks again for your graciousness on this! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:33, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Marc Los Huertos

Hello, Sdkb. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Marc Los Huertos".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:12, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Bad page for beginners

Template:Bad page for beginners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Nigej (talk) 08:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Request for your insights and input

Hi. If it is okay for me to do so, then I would like to ask if you could please kindly provide some input. Are there any conditions under which I could please ask you to support the template below, perhaps here, or at the discussion at Village Pump? The proposed template is below.

Please note, I will gladly make any, and all changes and revisions to this template above that you may request, seriously. I simply want to get the basic concept and idea behind this template into a working form, namely, to approach the goals listed at Village Pump.I would like us to really try to reach some positive consensus on this. I will welcome any revisions that you may request. Is it possible for us to please have a collaborative dialogue on this, where we might work through any possible issues and problems,. and arrive at a mutually beneficial consensus, that allows us to add this as a positive community resource?

I would welcome any input you may have. Please feel free to reply. thanks.

Template:

Thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:35, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Sm8900, just as it is not possible to save a non-notable article no matter how much one edits it, you won't be able to make adjustments to that navbox that would cause me to support it, as the fundamental issue is its existence: we do not need a new introductory navbox, as we already have {{Basic information}} and several others. Myself and several other editors have patiently explained this to you at the village pump discussion and deletion discussion, but you continue to ask questions that we have already answered (e.g. here) and seem determined to persist, which raises concerns that you are not listening. Please take in the advice you have been given and drop the proposal to create this navbox. Regards, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:23, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

ok, fair enough. I have begun to create a revised version of Template:basic information, in my user space, as you recommended. below is the draft so far.

--Sm8900 (talk) 04:22, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Pomona College scheduled for TFA

This is to let you know that the Pomona College article has been scheduled as today's featured article for April 7, 2022. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 7, 2022, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1000 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so.

For Featured Articles promoted recently, there will be an existing blurb linked from the FAC talk page, which is likely to be transferred to the TFA page by a coordinator at some point.

We suggest that you watchlist Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors from the day before this appears on Main Page. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Your requests for spoken articles

Hello. I see you've requested several prominent articles be spoken allowed by someone willing to read them. I recently joined the Spoken Wikipedia project, and rather enjoy doing so. I've read only one article, and one stub so far: Tehachapi_Energy_Storage_Project and I rather think I mangled some of the sentences and especially the last paragraph. I've been looking for feedback on my work but it seems no one is really willing to listen to a thirty minute talk to criticize it for speech errors, myself least of all. Before attempting any of the rather large articles you've requested, I do hope to get some feedback, or perhaps even assistance in finding and editing out any problems in the recording, as well as any suggestions for improvement. Finally, may I ask your opinion on whether articles such as English_Language should be broken into multiple recordings or posted in one long blast? It is my intent to keep all original audacity files for future modification as needed. Thanks for your eyeballs, and perhaps for your eardrums. Gallomimia (talk) 06:12, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Gallomimia; thanks for reaching out! I have to say that my thinking on spoken articles has evolved somewhat since I posted those requests. Fundamentally, the issue is that (as you've discovered) it takes a ton of work to create them, and consequently they almost never get updated, thus going out of date and diminishing in value over time. Given that text-to-speech technology is constantly improving, I think the best thing we can do for spoken Wikipedia is to encourage developers to pursue support for machine reading of articles and to promote practices good for accessibility like image alt text, rather than reading out big articles ourselves. If we're going to read out any more articles manually, English language is probably the one that'd be most useful (I'll happily offer the {{Spoken Barnstar}} to anyone who reads it), and I'd say single files are better than multiple. But overall, if you're trying to find a high-priority task, I'd have to say you'd be better off looking elsewhere. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:24, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb Thanks for getting back to me! It's actually my finding that actually speaking the article and recording it is very easy; it is the refining and editing mistakes that takes a long time. Or at least, I think it takes a long time, because I have not done it yet. The article I linked as an example, my first try, took just over an hour to complete, and I like volunteering for this specific work in order to make a resume. So, I will plod on, and hopefully anyone who listens might point out errors in the text which I can revise. Gallomimia (talk) 21:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Best wishes! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:25, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

		COVID-19 Barnstar
		Awarded for efforts in expanding and verifying articles related to COVID-19. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Cdjp1! Was there a particular edit of mine that prompted this? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi, it's for your collective edits to the article COVID-19 pandemic. I've been going through COVID related articles and giving stars to some of the most prevalent editors helping to expand, verify, and maintain the articles. --Cdjp1 (talk) 23:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Got it; thanks again! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Views/Day	Title	Tagged with…
31,875	Kyiv offensive (2022) (talk)	Add sources
82,857	War in Donbas (talk)	Add sources
12	Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations (talk)	Add sources
576,524	Volodymyr Zelenskyy (talk)	Add sources
14	Feza Gürsey (talk)	Add sources
95	Oor Wullie (talk)	Add sources
114	History of the Jews in Afghanistan (talk)	Cleanup
9,507	2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine (talk)	Cleanup
85	Hasty Pudding Theatricals (talk)	Cleanup
9	State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. (talk)	Expand
417	U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking (talk)	Expand
485,519	Russo-Ukrainian War (talk)	Expand
420	Attack the Block (talk)	Unencyclopaedic
204	Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie (talk)	Unencyclopaedic
170	Wikipedia in culture (talk)	Unencyclopaedic
2,741	Disinformation in the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis (talk)	Merge
329	Criticism of Wikipedia (talk)	Merge
1,784	Molon labe (talk)	Merge
3,812	Reactions to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (talk)	Wikify
16	Cambridge Public Library (talk)	Wikify
45	Traquair House (talk)	Wikify
6	Mathieu Laplante (talk)	Orphan
1	Li Jindou (talk)	Orphan
6	Dipen J Parekh (talk)	Orphan
461	Turkey–Ukraine relations (talk)	Stub
77	State Street Bank and Trust Company (talk)	Stub
47	Tula pryanik (talk)	Stub
11	Moses Cabrera (talk)	Stub
3,472	Sergey Kozlov (politician) (talk)	Stub
373	SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (talk)	Stub

Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation and please get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.

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) 09:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Those Little "I am a mammal" boxes

Please teach me how to do that... I've tried, just take a look at my user page... the formatting is off and I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing wrong... Please help... :/

Tschau, Dwightol102 (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi Dwightol102! Those are called userboxes; see WP:Userboxes. The mammal one is Template:User mammal; to add it to your userpage, just place the code {{User mammal}} and save. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Replace with English language reference

I have not paid a great deal of attention to the section of Russian information war against Ukraine about the Russian-language Wikipedia since this is the only part of the article that anybody else seems interested in editing, but in general, unless the Russian or Ukrainian source is clearly unreliable for what it’s being used for, I am letting the sources in these languages stand and adding additional sources in English. I am not concerned enough about this to go see what happened with this particular source, but please be aware that I am not necessarily in favor of replacing sources, even POV sources, unless there is a clear reason to do do. So please do discuss if you feel a need to do this in the other article sections, as the entire article is about POV pushing and the references are often used as examples. That said, if you speak Russian or Ukrainian I do encourage you to help in the rest of the article. The talk page is full of questions Elinruby (talk) 20:55, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Elinruby! I've followed the Mark Bernstein arrest fairly closely and read the coverage of it both in English and (through Google Translate) in Russian/Belarusian. The reason I made this edit was that, per the WP:NONENG policy, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when they're available and of equal quality and relevance. In this case, I felt that the Verge article was a comprehensive overview of what's known so far, so I replaced the other sources with it. I hope that helps explain! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:00, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I somewhat disagree with your reading of that policy, especially for this article. However, Verge is offhand fine, and I have not looked at the Russian article. That section is a small subset of the article that seems to have a lot of volunteers and there are more urgent fish for me to fry. I am simply asking that if you work on other parts of the article you refrain from doing this without discussing as there are many many foreign-language sources which have non-Anglophone points of view and that is usually why they are still there. As to this edit, I left a message for the editor who used the Russian-language reference, and as far as I am concerned if he has an issue you two can discuss. If he doesn’t then great. I am happy to have somebody working on at least that part of the article and am going to go back to figuring out what to say about all the closed, deplatformed and blocked media outlets on the various sides. TL;DR the article needs help but is being actively worked, so please discuss any other changes and by all means feel free to opine on some of the questions on the talk page. Elinruby (talk) 21:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Endurance (1912 ship)

On 14 March 2022, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Endurance (1912 ship), which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Black Kite (talk) 11:52, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Growth Newsletter #20

Welcome to the twentieth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.

Suggested edits

As of February, 300,000 suggested edits have been completed since the feature was first deployed in December 2019.

Add a link is the team's first structured task, deployed in May 2021. It has improved outcomes for newcomers. The team is now working on a second iteration based on community feedback and data analysis. Improvements will include: improved algorithmic suggestions, guardrails to prevent too many similar links to be added, and clearer encouragement for users to continue making edits. After adding these improvements, we will deploy this task to more Wikipedias.

Add an image is the second structured task built by our team. It was deployed in November 2021 to four pilot Wikipedias. This is a more challenging task for newcomers. However, it adds more value to articles (so far, over 1,000 images have been added). We are currently learning from communities and from the data on what is working well and what needs improvements. The project page contains links to interactive prototypes. We are very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea as we build and test the early versions. We will soon deploy this task to more Wikipedias as a test.

"Add a link" and "Add an image" now both have a limitation on how many of these tasks newcomers can do per day. It is meant to discourage careless newcomers from making too many problematic edits.

Positive reinforcement

Over the last two years, the Growth team has focused on building suggested edits: easy tasks for newcomers to start with. We have learned with this experience that these tasks help many newcomers to make their first edits. Now, the team is starting a new project : "positive reinforcement". Its goal is to make newcomers proud of their editing and to make them want to come back for more of them. With the positive reinforcement project, we are considering three kinds of features:

Impact stats: give newcomers the ability to see how many people read the articles they edit.
Leveling up: encourage newcomers to progress from easier tasks to harder tasks.
Personalized praise: encourage mentors and other editors to "thank" and award newcomers for good work.

This project is just beginning, and we hope for community thoughts on the direction. We know that things can wrong if we offer the wrong incentives to newcomers, so we want to be careful. Please visit the talk page to help guide the project!

News for mentors

The mentor dashboard is available at all wikis. It helps mentors see who their mentees are and keep track of their activity. It is automatically activated where a list of mentors has been created. If you need assistance to create a list of mentors, please contact us.
The mentor dashboard has a new module: settings. It is now possible for mentors to define their status (active or away). They can specify the volume of questions they want to receive, and they can claim mentees in an easier way. It is also possible for mentors to quit, which will automatically reassign their mentees to other mentors.
We are working on an ability for a mentee to opt-out (and back in) to having a mentor.
Previously, in the table that displays mentees activity, the filters displayed all mentees, even the ones with zero edits or lots of edits. We have changed this so that only mentees with between 1 and 500 edits are visible by default. Mentors can change this value in their filters.
We are currently working on a special page for mentors to sign-up.

Some wikis have created userboxes that mentors can display on the user pages. If your wiki has one, please link it to Wikidata!

Scaling

Previously, at most Wikipedias, only 80% of newcomers were getting the Growth features. This was done for experimentation, to have a control group. We have changed this setting. Now 100% of new accounts at all Wikipedias get the Growth features (except a few, kept as test wikis). We invite communities to update their onboarding documentation and tutorials. Please include the Growth features in it. To help you, we have created an help page that can be translated and adapted to your wiki.

How to help

Do you have questions about the Growth features? This translatable FAQ contains answers to the most common questions about the Growth team work. We regularly update it.

Interface translations are important for newcomers. Please help for your language, by translating or copyediting interface translations for the Growth features.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Reviewers Award
		By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award in recognition of the thorough, detailed and actionable reviews you have carried out at FAC. This work is very much appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:14, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Gog! It's an interesting area and I'm happy to be able to help! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:24, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

v t e Proposed changes for Template:Basic information
Help directory menu
Basics	Basic information category About Wikipedia Why create an account? In brief FAQs Purpose Who writes Wikipedia? Organization Administration Censorship General disclaimer What Wikipedia is not
Reader's resources	Readers' FAQ Readers' index Reader's guide Researching with Wikipedia Citing Wikipedia Student help Parental advice Copyright Book creation Navigation Searching Viewing media Help Mobile access Other languages
Introductory pages	Main introduction Contributing to Wikipedia List of tutorials and introductions The answer Dos and don'ts Learning the ropes Common mistakes Newcomer primer Simplified ruleset Your first article Wizard Young Wikipedians The Adventure The Missing Manual
Policy procedures	Principles Policies and guidelines Overall list List of policies List of guidelines Five pillars Simplified ruleset Simplified MoS Etiquette Expectations Oversight Ignore all rules The rules are principles Core content policies Vandalism Appealing blocks
Questions, discussions	Asking questions Requesting help Teahouse (new editors' help forum) Reference desk Help desk Ask for help on your talk page (a volunteer will visit you there) Forums: IRC live chat Tutorial Village pump Disputes resolution requests Contact us
Community	Wikipedia community Community portal Departments Meetups WikiProjects Group tasks and processes: Dashboard Noticeboards Maintenance Task Center
References	Sourcing referencing Finding sources Combining sources Referencing tutorial Citations Citation Style 1 Citation templates Footnotes Page numbers Cite errors
Basic functions	Information Logging in Reset passwords Email confirmation Diffs User contribution pages Using talk pages Archiving Namespaces Page name Editing Toolbar Conflict VisualEditor User guide Category Infoboxes Linking Link color Manual of Style Simplified URLs Image and media files Images Media files Category for how-to pages
Pages	Guide to page deletion Image deletion Merging pages Page renaming Requests Redirecting Reverting Simple vandalism cleanup Uploading images
Wiki editing	Wiki markup Wiki markup Cheatsheet Tools Barcharts Calculations Columns HTML Lists Magic words For beginners Music symbols Sections Sounds Special Characters Tables Visual file markup Tutorial Templates Documentation Index Transclusion
Directories	List of directories and indexes Essays Directory Contents Editor's Index Information pages category Related wikis Abbreviations Edit summaries Glossary Shortcuts Tips Tip of the day
Research	The Wikipedia Library Request Resources Research desk Free resources Access to prominent databases WikiProject Resource Exchange Shared resources; lists links provided by numerous editors
News and data	Newsletters: Signpost Library Newsletter Data: List of database reports Statistics
Related articles: Wikipedia History of Wikipedia History of wikis Wikipedia in culture Bibliography