Five million

 
                                                  We've reached five million!!                                                  

The English Wikipedia now has over 5,000,000 articles! Woo-hoo!

Feel free to pass this message on! You can never celebrate too much.  

Eman235/talk 18:08, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Cheers, Eman235! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 October 2015

5 Million: We celebrate your contribution

 
We couldn't have done it without you
Well, maybe. Eventually. But the encyclopedia would not be as good.

Celebrate 7&6=thirteen () 13:41, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks and cheers! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:02, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 November 2015

WikiCup 2015: The results

 
 
 

WikiCup 2015 is now in the books! Congrats to our finalists and winners, and to everyone who took part in this year's competition.

This year's results were an exact replica of last year's competition. For the second year in a row, the 2015 WikiCup champion is   Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points). All of his points were earned for an impressive 253 featured pictures and their associated bonus points (5060 and 1695, respectively). His entries constituted scans of currency from all over the world and scans of medallions awarded to participants of the U.S. Space program.   Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came in second place; she earned by far the most bonus points (4082), for 4 featured articles, 15 good articles, and 147 DYKs, mostly about in her field of expertise, natural science.   Cas Liber (submissions), a finalist every year since 2010, came in third, with 2379 points.

Our newcomer award, presented to the best-performing new competitor in the WikiCup, goes to   Rationalobserver (submissions). Everyone should be very proud of the work they accomplished. We will announce our other award winners soon.

A full list of our award winners are:

We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2016 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · logs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · logs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · logs) 18:39, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Your thoughts?

Sorry to bother you, but I felt the nonsense has gone on long enough.

A range hopping IP has, since 12 October, been posting on talk pages of French articles(towns, counties, persons, etc) that these towns, counties, or persons were not really in France or French.
Example:

I believe this gives you an idea of the disruption.

When shown what reliable sources state[1], responds in a trollish manner. Resorts to personal attacks[2] when shown information that proves him wrong. Pushes their unsourced POV into articles. After checking the source and sentence in the Noyon article, I realized it had been copied word-for-word and that the source in question was not written by historians. The IP then proceeded to restored the plagiarism even after I had explained it on the Noyon article talk page.[3][4][5]

It would appear to me that this IP is not interested in what reliable sources state, not interested in working with other editors, and not here to build an encyclopedia. --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:53, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Kansas Bear, that's a nasty situation you have there. Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge needed to tell you if that's range blockable. Perhaps NativeForeigner can help? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Doesn't appear to be, unfortunately. NativeForeigner Talk 04:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, NativeForeigner. Kansas Bear, would applying pending changes to the targeted articles help? As I imagine that these pages don't get a lot of traffic, it could help limit the damage. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:00, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
I have no idea. Hopefully this IP will run out of energy and just go away. --Kansas Bear (talk) 07:26, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
This is probably better, actually: if they start hitting a large number of pages again, we'll bring it to AN to get wider attention on the situation. In the meantime, if you need any blocks or protections, let me know. :-/ Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Said IP is now edit warring their interpretation of Jean Calvin's ethnicity/place of birth.[6][7][8] They have received an edit warring notice, days ago.
I will let you decide what you think is best. --Kansas Bear (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: Blocked. Thankfully, pending changes caught the edits before anyone actually saw them on the page—although I had to leave a note on the talk page of an editor who accepted a revision from the IP. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you sir. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:39, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@Kansas Bear: Ping me if/more likely when this IP returns and I'll bring it to AN for you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:47, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from October 2015

Here are the highlights from the Wikimedia blog in October 2015.
 
About · Subscribe/unsubscribe, 20:03, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 27, 2015

Hi Ed, I'll get to this one later tonight or early tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 03:43, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Dank. You might consider mentioning that Almirante Latorre's was laid down and launched on 27 November (1911 and 1913). :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
I do like to mention that day's date when I can, I'll go see if I can fit it in. Thanks for the great article, we need more of those. - Dank (push to talk) 13:59, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Update. Another edit, not by me: see this edit. Do you have any problem with "Almirante Cochrane was converted to an aircraft carrier and finally commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Eagle in 1924."? - Dank (push to talk) 19:10, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Precious again, your telling "the tortured tale of two Chilean ships ordered during the South American dreadnought arms race of 1907–1914"!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: October 2015

 




Headlines
Read this edition in fullSingle-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:57, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 November 2015

update request

Can you update your User:The ed17/Good articles by wiki text, User:The ed17/Good articles by prose size and similar related lists?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:46, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Hey Tony, I'm slammed for the next couple of days but I'll try to do this on Thursday or Friday. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CXVI, November 2015

 
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 03:26, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

IP is back

The "John-Calvin-wasn't-French" IP is back posting the same tired crap on John Calvin talk page.[9]

Currently, the IP has not tried to edit this change into the article. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Good, let them complain for as long as they want on the talk page. No content is affected and it's easy to revert. :-) I've moved the discussion to an archive to deny them recognition and have both pages on my watchlist now. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:51, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you sir. --Kansas Bear (talk) 06:02, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi user:The ed17. If this guy comes back under another IP or even with a username, can we give him the WP:deny treatment? Gerard von Hebel (talk) 04:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
@Hebel: Certainly. If you're certain that it's the same person (and it doesn't seem like it's difficult to tell with this individual), then by all means apply DENY. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:45, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Hello user: The ed17. Our Francophobe Crusader user:2.219.248.118 (blocked until 23-12-2015) has returned as user: 95.151.233.238. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 02:38, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Hello user: The ed17. Our Francophobe Crusader user:2.219.248.118 (blocked until 23-12-2015) has returned again. At least I have reason to believe that he did. He has now edited the same talkpages under the guise of user:5.68.243.249. See here: [10] I don't even think that he's allowed to do that after his block passes in three days. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
@Hebel: IP is blocked, and my apologies for missing your note from 27 November. Let me know if/when they pop up again. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello user:The ed17. Never mind, you can't always be on duty. I've started an SPI here. I think I missed this IP 5.65.142.56 however, which I think might be the original account. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 00:03, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone can tell what the original account is anymore. ;-) I've commented there. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:28, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 4, 2015

Ed, I'm aware I haven't followed all the developments on this over the years, but does this edit comply with WP:SHE4SHIPS? - Dank (push to talk) 16:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC) Another relevant link is WP:S/HE (at WP:MOS). - Dank (push to talk) 19:02, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Nope. Removing the "the" is fine, but not changing she to it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I assumed we'd want the front page to be free of gendered terms, which are controversial and are not a face of Wikipedia that we want to be showing, but it's your call Dank. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:45, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Everyone happy? - Dank (push to talk) 00:17, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Works for me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:24, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
+1. Good compromise, Dank. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 November 2015

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ACE voter guide template

I actually do have recent edits (e.g. Taylor Swift discography, and I don't see where there is any eligibility requirement to link a voter guide. So I will restore the link to my guide.

I may not have been editing between 2006-2015 but I do read the discussions across Wikipedia such as AfD, AN/I, ArbCom cases, etc. So I do believe I am able to assess the candidates, plus, in my opinion if voter guides are going to be removed without establishing eligibility criteria then that sets a bad precedent.

THEowner of a l l 15:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Signpost

Hello Ed, I was familiarizing myself with the whole ArbCom election at the English Wikipedia and all the fuss about civility and such in order to cast a well-informed vote in this year's election. I stumbled across this edition of The Signpost which features 10th anniversary of Persian Wikipedia. I got two questions:

  1. How were you informed about this anniversary? If any user of Persian Wikipedia informed you, didn't you think it was a better idea to post a message at our local Village Pump and let the community discuss about it?
  2. Was it really necessary to dedicate more than 60% of the news story to the political issues rather than cultural ones? I completely respect the freedom of speech and the freedom of press and all of your western values, but I think more discretion could be used to keep our efforts as low-key as possible. I personally don't like to see FaWp completely censored in Iran just as Chinese Wikipedia in Mainland China. We are doing a good job at Persian Wikipedia; Don't ruin it. All the best 4nn1l2 (talk) 22:18, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi 4nn1l2, when I used to do in briefs for the Signpost, I'd normally use Wikimedia-l as a starting point, so I imagine that I used the discussion there as a guide. If you look in the mailing list archives, I suspect you'll find that the discussion there revolved around censorship and related values. My apologies if I've offended you, and congratulations to the Farsi Wikipedia on all of its achievements so far! Best, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Re: Can you translate this?

Funny that I never heard of this topic, and I've attended a very good school and read many history books... And it doesn't exist on the Spanish Wikipedia either! I'll give it a start soon, thank you for the suggestion. Victão Lopes Fala! 04:06, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@Victor Lopes: Thank you very much! I don't think it's covered very well because the ships never really did anything, aside from the Chilean battleship that revolted in the 1930s, but it's important because of the monetary sums involved—at one point, Argentina was spending something like a fifth of its GDP on its two battleships. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Hello! Just thought I should let you know that someone else got the article started at the Portuguese Wikipedia, so now it's about making it as complete as the English one. Victão Lopes Fala! 05:55, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
@Victor Lopes: Thank you, even if you didn't have a role in it! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:24, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 November 2015

WT:MAIN

Sorry, I wasn't thinking about how it might make you feel to have specific edits at TFA pointed out. In part that's because I'm constantly fixing my own mistakes; mostly it's because the lack of a bot to handle the problem has always gotten under my skin. I've submitted a bot request ... keeping my fingers crossed. - Dank (push to talk) 16:20, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

No problem, Dank. You're doing great work at TFA—keep it up! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:55, 29 November 2015 (UTC)