User talk:Ciphers/Archive 1

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Dan Harkless in topic English fluency, again

Welcome!

Hello, Ciphers, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Meno25 (talk) 13:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

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Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 23:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Redirector edit

Please stop. At least two of your CHANGED redirectors are clearly incorrect. Besides, you appear to be running an unregistered bot. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

 
You have been temporarily blocked from editing for abuse of editing privileges. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make constructive contributions. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here}} below, but you should read our guide to appealing blocks first.

You have made 5 errors since my previous comment. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hi. would you please list the incorrect redirects for me so i could fix them! I am not running a bot, all my edits are manual. --Ciphers (talk) 08:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

{{unblock|I still do not know what are the "incorrect" edits i have done!!, plus i am not running a bot. --Ciphers (talk) 08:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)}}Reply

 

Your request to be unblocked has been granted for the following reason(s):

User agrees not to run the script without checking edits. I would prefer he talk to the bot people to verify this is something that should be done on en:Wikipedia, but this seems adequate.

Request handled by:Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Unblocking administrator: Please check for active autoblocks on this user after accepting the unblock request.

Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

  1. More than 10 edits per minute generally indicates a bot.
  2. The edits where you change a redirect or replace an article by a redirect are almost certainly errors.
  3. The rest of the edits may be redirects from other languages, which should not, in general, be automatically created, at least according to this Wikipedia's guidelines.
If you agree to stop using the redirector ( http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/redirector.php , according to your edit comment), without getting a ruling that it's legitimate here, I'll unblock. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
I checked the errors. you are right! i can not promise of stop using the script (because it was created in order to be used) but i can promise to use with much care, and on lower frequencies not to be mistaken as a bot.--Ciphers (talk) 09:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
It acts like a bot; If you promise not to use it without first getting approval from the bot group, I'll unblock. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
I'm going to delete the negative numbers, as well. We had someone do that before, and consensus is that -10 (or −10, to be more precise) should redirect to 10 (number), if at all; but it should only be created if there's a specific reason. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
As i mentioned in my previous reply, i would not use it on high frequency as i did before (it acts like a bot just because i am fast in saving pages ;) ). I over trusted the tool, but now i am checking the terrible edits ( i did not know it writes over existing pages). it should really be used with care. sorry for the troubles and thanks for your attentions and the revert as well. --Ciphers (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks again. --Ciphers (talk) 09:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hey Arthur, the automatic block is still active would you please remove the automatic block. --Ciphers (talk) 09:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Sorry. I think I got it now. Please check, as I'm heading off to bed shortly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
You might also want to check to make sure that you don't create any redirects to itself under the en:Wikipedia capitalization rules; dvips seemed to be redirected to Dvips. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Sure. Thanks --Ciphers (talk) 09:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

September 2009 edit

  Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia, but one or more redirects you created, such as with pdfTeX, have been considered disruptive and/or malicious, and have been reverted. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. Oneiros (talk) 11:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

  Please do not create malicious redirects, as you did with CY. They are disruptive and are considered vandalism, and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Oneiros (talk) 11:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

The Wikipedia Signpost: 28 September 2009 edit

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 01:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hi there edit

Hello Ciphers,

Wow, you seem to be quite a language genius! I have started to learn Arabic, so I was wondering if you could recommend any method to learn it quickly and efficiently? Thanks in advance,

all the best,

Heike (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:HeikeLoechel)

Hallo Heike,

Thanks for the message. I am not a genius, in fact it is just i have a plenty of time to practice languages :) . Arabic is just the same, you may learn reading and writing in a short time, however speaking it needs a lot of practice, and plenty of brave to practice. best luck. --Ciphers (talk) 05:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)Reply


The Wikipedia Signpost: 16 November 2009 edit

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Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 12:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Mughal Gardens edit

Just curious as to why you deleted my entry on Mughal Gardens. Was it somehow in error? I felt that the subject deserved more attention so I added some of my 8 months of graduate research on the subject. Leverett.lisa (talk) 00:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Yes you are true, the reason that led you edit to trigger the abuse filter was using (<ref>Insert footnote text here</ref>) without actually putting a reference. Good that you reverted my revert and i removed the test phrase anyway. best --Ciphers (talk) 06:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks :)Leverett.lisa (talk) 18:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

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User:Doktor Noo edit

Thanks for reverting that. I've brought it up with an admin User:Bettia to see what can be done about this. Welshleprechaun (talk) 09:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

sure, my pleasure! --Ciphers (talk) 09:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for reverting vandalism to my talk page. Oda Mari (talk) 09:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

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New Page Patrol survey edit

 

New page patrol – Survey Invitation


Hello Ciphers/Archive 1! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you.

  • If this invitation also appears on other accounts you may have, please complete the survey once only.
  • If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it.

Please click HERE to take part.
Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback.


You are receiving this invitation because you have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey

AFT5 newsletter edit

Hey again all :). So, some big news, some small news, some good news, some bad news!

On the "big news" front; we've now deployed AFT5 on to 10 percent of articles, This is pretty awesome :). On the "bad news", however, it looks like we're having to stop at 10 percent until around September - there are scaling issues that make it dangerous to deploy wider. Happily, our awesome features engineering team is looking into them as we speak, and I'm optimistic that the issues will be resolved.

For both "small" and "good" news; we've got another office hours session. This one is tomorrow, at 22:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office connect - I appreciate it's a bit late for Europeans, but I wanted to juggle it so US east coasters could attend if they wanted :). Hope to see you all there!

Page Curation update edit

Hey all :). We've just deployed another set of features for Page Curation. They include flyouts from the icons in Special:NewPagesFeed, showing who reviewed an article and when, a listing of this in the "info" flyout, and a general re-jigging of the info flyout - we've also fixed the weird bug with page_titles_having_underscores_instead_of_spaces in messages sent to talkpages, and introduced CSD logging! As always, these features will need some work - but any feedback would be most welcome.

The Signpost: 12 November 2012 edit

AFT5 newsletter edit

Hey all :). A couple of quick updates (one small, one large)

First, we're continuing to work on some ways to increase the quality of feedback and make it easier to eliminate and deal with non-useful feedback: hopefully I'll have more news for you on this soon :).

Second, we're looking at ways to increase the actual number of users patrolling and take off some of the workload from you lot. Part of this is increasing the prominence of the feedback page, which we're going to try to do with a link at the top of each article to the relevant page. This should be deployed on Tuesday (touch wood!) and we'll be closely monitoring what happens. Let me know if you have any questions or issues :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 19 November 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #33 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Updated demo system
    • Refactored and improved change propagation code
    • Add option for client and change propagations to work with job queue
    • Added filter and preference for recent changes on the client, to show/hide Wikidata edits
    • Pruning of changes table
    • Fixed some issues in the Wikidata Vagrant
    • Added puppet recipe for Wikidata on WMF labs
    • Worked on making statements editable in the frontend
    • JSON of entities is sent to the frontend now
    • Finalized DataTypes extension’s $.valueview system
    • Improved entity selector widget
    • Added Selenium tests for special pages
    • Tracking separate revision ids in Javascript to fix the edit conflict handling
    • Fixed fatal PHP error in Special:SetLabel
    • Entities with just whitespaces as label/description are not allowed anymore
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • upcoming: Offener Sonntag at WMDE’s membership assembly
    • upcoming: SWIB
    • foss.in
    • local meetup in Bangalore
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 09:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 November 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #34 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Added DirectSqlStore to client so that it can directly access the repository database, and not require creating any tables on the client
    • Bug fixing on the client extension, and preparing it for first deployment
    • Less edit conflicts due to a smarter conflict detection
    • Better recent changes comments on the client
    • Clean up on the backend for entity artefacts
    • The statement UI enables to create statements and displays them, but has still a few glitches
    • The client now accesses the data on the server directly, and the data is not replicated anymore
    • Added a number of profiler calls
    • Special:Contributions displays labels now
    • User preference on the client to hide Wikidata edits
    • Statements can be created and saved now
    • Statements are properly styled in JavaScript and non-JavaScript version
    • Improved JavaScript part of the templating engine
    • Improved entity selector widget
    • Client:Watchlist Selenium Tests
    • Client: RecentChanges Selenium tests
    • Added DataValues, DataTypes, jQuery.ui QUnit tests to Selenium
    • Some PHPUnit test fixes
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • Linuxday
    • Open Sunday after Wikimedia Deutschland’s membership assembly
    • SWIB
    • foss.in
    • upcoming: intro and Q&A in Bangalore
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 08:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #35 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 13:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 December 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #36 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Deployed new code on wikidata.org. All changes can be found here
    • Updated demo system
    • http://test2.wikipedia.org now uses http://wikidata.org for getting language links and wikidata.org edits affecting the existing articles on test2 show up in RecentChanges (if they are not hidden)
    • Statements (think of “population: 2.000.000” and similar things) are taking shape in the interface. They are still pretty buggy though at this point.
    • It is now possible to link to images on Wikimedia Commons in a statement (think of “image: sundown_at_the_beach.png” for example)
    • Links are now protocol-relative (bugzilla:42534)
    • No longer possible to create new items and set labels when database is set to read-only
    • Added more tests to the GeoCoordinate parser
    • Make use of EditEntity in removeclaims API
    • Removed many singletons to reduce global state
    • Made SpecialSetLabel work with non-item entities
    • Improved settings system
    • Improved options of ValueFormatters
    • Improved options of ValueParsers
    • Moved label+description uniqueness check out of transaction to avoid deadlocks and changed it to only be enforced for edits changing any violating values
    • Fixed serialization of SiteArray
    • ~=[,,_,,]:3
    • Had to fix reporting of aliases in wbsearchentities again
    • Implemented integration of baserevids for statements UI API calls for editconflict detection for statements/claims/snaks
    • Universal Language Selector fallback fix for Selenium tests
    • Report URL to entity in wbsearchentites API module
    • Moved the demo system to a larger server
    • Fixed several bugs in Statements user interface, most notably, adding Statements to existing sections and layout fixes
    • Added wikibase API module on the client to provide information about the associated repo (e.g. url, script path, article path)
    • A bunch of messages for autocomments were fixed (they are automatically added as an edit summary for edits on items and co in Wikidata - for example: “‎Changed [en] description: Finnish rock band”)
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • WhereCamp
    • Wikidata talk as part of a lecture on knowledge management in Karlsruhe
    • upcoming: 29C3
    • upcoming: Office hours
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
    • Want to help Lydia write the next weekly summary? Let her know.
    • Hack on one of these
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 14:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 December 2012 edit

The Signpost: 24 December 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #38 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. It's rather short this time because pretty much everyone enjoys some well-deserved vacation.
  • Development
    • Some of us unwrapped gifts (-:
    • Started working on supporting different kinds of Snaks in the user interface
    • Fixing support for PostgreSQL in core, which was broken with introduction of the sites stuff
    • Code reviewing of changes in MediaWiki core
    • Adding watchlist filter in client for Wikidata changes
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • right now: 29C3
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 19:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2012 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #39 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 21:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #40 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 16:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #41 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 15:52, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter edit

Hey all; another newsletter.

  • If you're not already aware, a Request for Comment on the future of the Article Feedback Tool on the English-language Wikipedia is open; any and all comments, regardless of opinion and perspective, are welcome.
  • Our final round of hand-coding is complete, and the results can be found here; thanks to everyone who took part!
  • We've made test deployments to the German and French-language projects; if you are aware of any other projects that might like to test out or use the tool, please let me know :).
  • Developers continue to work on the upgraded version of the feedback page that was discussed during our last office hours session, with a prototype ready for you to play around with in a few weeks.

That's all for now! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 23 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 21 January 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #42 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Updated demo system
    • Improved design of sites code in core
    • Fixed SQLite compatibility
    • Worked on implementing references handling in statements user interface
    • Useful error messages will be shown in statements user interface in case of data value mismatches
    • Switched the demo system to Labs’ puppet
    • Selenium tests for length constraint, claim edit-conflicts
    • Setting up dispatcher script on internal test machine
    • More work on wikibase.getEntities() function for Scribunto/Lua-Templates
    • AbuseFilter is now working with Wikibase
    • The change dispatcher script is now ready for use on the WMF cluster
    • Initial implementation of {{#property}} parser function for the client
    • Created a widget for the client to connect a page to a Wikidata item and add interwiki language links to a page
    • Preparing a page to list unconnected pages on the clients
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 14:52, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 January 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #43 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Deployment on the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedia ([1] [2] [3])
    • Switched the Wikipedias over to a new, more scalable dispatching changes script for propagating changes from the repository to the clients
    • Fixing various deeply buried bugs and a few minor bugs reported after deployment
    • Preparations for next deployment on wikidata.org
    • Working on property parser function for the client
    • Implemented robust serialization of changes for dispatching
    • Resumed work on linked data interface
    • References can now be created, edited and removed on existing statements
    • Several minor user interface fixes
    • Styling of the user interface for statements
    • Selenium tests for references
    • Selenium tests for non-JS SpecialPages
    • Worked on puppet
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
    • Test statements on the [demo system before the roll-out to wikidata.org on February 4
    • Hack on one of these
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 13:22, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #44 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Deployment of the first parts of phase 2 (infoboxes/statements) on wikidata.org done - see it live for example here, here and here
    • Diffs for statement edits can now be shown
    • Started work on query definitions
    • Edit links are now disabled in the interface when the user does not have the rights to edit
    • Edit links are now hidden when viewing old revision
    • Worked on search field for WikibaseSolr
    • More work on Lua templates for Wikibase entities
    • Worked on bugfixes in the statement user interface
    • New features in the statement user interface (references counter/heading)
    • JavaScript editing for table showing labels and description of the same item in different languages
    • Repaired and updated the demo system
    • Resumed work on Linked Data interface
    • Support for enhanced recent changes format in client
    • There are automatic comments for statement edits as well in the history now
    • Special page for unconnected pages, that is pages on the client that are not connected to items on the repository
    • Added permission checks for statements, so a user that can not edit will not be able to edit or that only a group can be allowed to do some changes like creating statements
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • FOSDEM
    • upcoming: office hour (English; German later)
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Open Tasks for You
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 16:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 February 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #45 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Deployment to English Wikipedia
    • Fix various minor bugs in client, including watchlist toggle with preference to default to always show Wikidata edits
    • Added the new Baso Minangkabau Wikipedia (min)
    • Fixed wrong revision of statements being shown in diff and old revision view
    • Diff visualization for claims (simple version for main snak)
    • Diff visualization for claims (extended version for references, qualifiers, ranks)
    • Tooltip that notifies about the license your contributions will be covered by while editing (can be disabled by each user)
    • Started with valueview refactoring
    • Started with user interface handling of deleted properties
    • Started with refactoring of local partial entity lookup
    • Started with refactoring of toolbar usage in jQuery.wikibase view widgets
    • Finished improvement on jQuery.wikibase.claimview’s edit mode handling
    • Improved search by using entity selector in search field instead of normal MediaWiki search field
    • More work on Lua-based templates for entities
    • Specified the capabilities of the query language we need
    • Created query object
    • Proper bot-flagging of edits (bugzilla:44857)
    • Use of ID to directly address an item or property
    • Search should give more of the complete matches now
    • Special:ItemByTitle should work for canonical namespaces and later on for local namespaces
    • More robust format for notifications of changes on the repository to the client
    • Started work on refactoring API and autocomments code
    • Started to maintain documentation of configuration options in git
  • Discussions/Press
  • Events
    • Upcoming: Wikipedia Day NYC
    • Upcoming: office hour in English tomorrow
    • Note: changed day of next German office hour to March 8
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • We have a time scheduled when Wikidata will be read-only for a database migration. The window for that is Feb 20 19:00 to Feb 21 2:00 UTC.
    • New features and bugfixes on Wikidata are planned to be deployed on Monday (Feb 18). This should among other things include:
      • Showing useful diffs for edits of claims (they’re currently empty)
      • Automatic comments for editing of claims (there are currently none)
      • Ability to add items to claims by their ID
      • Better handling of deleted properties
      • More results in the entity selector (that’s the thing that lets you select properties, items and so on) so you can add everything and not just the first few matches that are shown
    • We’re still working on the issue that sometimes editing of certain parts of items or properties isn’t possible. If you’re running into it try to reload the page and/or change the URL to the www. version or the non-www. version respectively.
    • Deployment on all other Wikipedias is currently planned for March 6 (a note to the Village Pumps of all affected projects will follow soon)
    • Check out a well-done item
  • Open Tasks for You
  • Help expand en:Wikipedia:Wikidata
  • Help expand and translate Wikidata/Deployment Questions
  • Hack on one these
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 21:27, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

New Article Feedback version available for testing edit

Hey all.

As promised, we've built a set of improvements to the Article Feedback Tool, which can be tested through the links here. Please do take the opportunity to play around with it, let me know of any bugs, and see what you think :).

A final reminder that the Request for Comment on whether AFT5 should be turned on on Wikipedia (and how) is soon to close; for those of you who have not submitted an opinion or !voted, it can be found here.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

The Signpost: 18 February 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #46 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 17:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #47 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Extended diff view to include references now
    • Fixed bug where incorrect statements revision was shown in diff view
    • Added first version of Linked Data interface (RDF/XML); will be accessible from Special:EntityData
    • Updated the demo system
    • More work towards using Solr for our search
    • More investigation and fixes of search issues
    • Fixed several bugs in the entity selector and improved its behavior
    • Worked on refactoring of how our widgets use the toolbar
    • Worked on implementation of missing data model components in JavaScript
    • A lot of bug fixing
  • Events
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Rollout of phase 1 (language links) on all remaining Wikipedias is still planned for March 6
    • Next update on wikidata.org is also planned for March 6. This will have bugfixes and if all goes well string as a new available data type.
    • Proposal was made to the Hungarian, Hebrew and Italian Wikipedias to be the first batch to use phase 2 of Wikidata (infoboxes). Scheduled timeframe for this is end of March
    • d:Wikidata:Database reports has some useful reports like the list of most used properties
    • The interwiki shortcut :d was changed to always use www in the resulting link (to prevent editing issues on other URLs).
    • The list of available properties is growing and a whole bunch of new ones are being discussed
    • Reasonator gives you a nice adapted view of an item about a person
    • Items by cat helps you find missing items in a certain Wikipedia category
    • A few more additions to d:Wikidata:Tools that you should have a look at if you’re editing statements
    • We now have more than 2600 active users on Wikidata. Thanks for being awesome. <3
  • Open Tasks for You

The Signpost: 04 March 2013 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #48 edit

 
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

The Signpost: 11 March 2013 edit


revert of my change edit

You recently reverted my deletion of the Biohydrology section of the article on Dysart Woods. I started to revise this section, but since the whole section is essentially a very poorly plagiarized version of the Abstract of my MS thesis I felt uncomfortable with the amount self citation involved and decided the specific details presented are not useful without more background information. I don't have time to write this material or figure out how to format it for wikipedia. If someone thinks this specific information is notable they should take the time to get it right.

Specifically: sentence 1 is factually incorrect sentence 2 is plagiarized, with words rearranged, but is unclear because the previous sentence claims there has been no mining. Does not mining cause changes in hydrology? sentence 3 is plagiarized and out of context sentence 4 is vague and adds nothing meaningful sentence 6 is incoherent, and incorrectly defines volumetric water content sentence 7 is plagiarized verbatim sentence 8 is incoherent

Wikidata weekly summary #258 edit

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The Signpost: 9 June 2017 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #264 edit

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The Signpost: 23 June 2017 edit

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The Signpost: 15 July 2017 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #269 edit

July 2017 edit

  Thank you for your contributions. Please mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Boston, as "minor" only if they are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Please refrain from marking all your current edits as minor, when many of them appear to be extensive and complex. Thank you. Hertz1888 (talk) 01:22, 20 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

  Please refrain from making test edits in Wikipedia pages, such as those you made to Kolkata, even if you intend to fix them later. Your edits have been reverted. If you would like to experiment again, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Dl2000 (talk) 22:09, 20 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

  Please stop making test edits to Wikipedia, as you did to Doppler. It is considered vandalism, which, under Wikipedia policy, can lead to being blocked from editing. If you would like to experiment again, please use the sandbox. Dl2000 (talk) 22:32, 20 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Removal of maintenance templates edit

Hi Ciphers, did you have particular reasons for removing maintenance templates such as {{Use dmy dates}}, {{Use British English}}, and {{Pp-pc1}} from pages? I've restored several of them since they generally shouldn't be removed without good reason, and the reasons weren't clear to me from the edits. If you object to their presence in those articles, please remove them again. A rationale in the edit summary would also be helpful to other editors. Cheers.—Laoris (talk) 21:17, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Besides the above, I have concerns about some of the changes you've made on many pages you have edited:
  • The first time the article title is used in the lead sentence, it doesn't need to be capitalized if it's not a proper noun. WP:LEADSENTENCE gives some examples of this.
  • Metadata templates such as {{taxonbar}} and {{Authority control}} should appear after the last section and navboxes, and before the categories, as indicated in their template documentation and as outlined at MOS:ORDER.
  • The {{DEFAULTSORT}} template should appear directly before the list of categories, not after, per its template documentation and as outlined at MOS:ORDER.
  • Interwiki linking templates such as {{Commons category}} or {{Wiktionary}} should appear at the top of the last section in the article, not after navboxes. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout § Links to sister projects.
  • Categories whose name matches the article title are known as eponymous categories and when used in their eponymous article, should be sorted with a space so that the article appears at the beginning of the category. For instance, at the Verona article, the Verona category should be used as [[Category:Verona| ]].
The Manual of Style indicates the accepted placement for many of these templates, and each template typically has documentation indicating its correct use. Consistent use and placement of these templates help other readers and editors find them more easily.—Laoris (talk) 22:32, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Hi Ciphers, I just wanted to again encourage you to use the Wikipedia style guidelines as you edit, especially those mentioned above. While I am pleased to see that you are taking time to contribute to Wikipedia, and although it is not required to know and follow every guideline, since you are making significant contributions I think it would be even more beneficial to follow the guidelines above to help promote consistency and intuitiveness. Thanks for your time! —Laoris (talk) 17:01, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

UK Dialing Codes edit

This is just a quick note to say that UK dialling codes do not have dashes in them. I have taken the dash out of Guildford without reverting your whole edit. --DanielRigal (talk) 08:58, 22 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata weekly summary #270 edit

Gender dysphoria edit

Thanks for your change to Gender dysphoria. It was mostly pretty good and I liked the direction you were going, but I reverted it because of a couple of miscues here and there (e.g., not "a transgender", and something else). But since this is the lead of a controversial article, you have to tread very carefully. Either go to the Talk page and discuss, or else just try your same change again, but instead of all at once in one edit, break it up into five or more very small edits, each one doing just one, very specific thing: change or add one infobox param; change or add another infobox param; add the part about "as a result of a mismatch", and so on; just going a few words at a time, or a single thought at a time, and for each one add a complete explanation in the edit summary. If you have to write two sentences of Edit summary about why the six words "as a result of the mismatch" is better, than do it (I agree with you, it is better, but you're going to have to show you've put some thought into this, and why it's better.) If you break up your edit this way, then if someone comes along and has a quarrel with a couple of words or a param here or there, they can just revert or change that one, instead of the whole thing. In general, I like your changes, and I hope you will try again. Mathglot (talk) 01:17, 27 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

But see also User:Flyer22 Reborn's comments in the edit summary here. Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 27 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Danger of over-linking edit

Hi, thank you for your 'thanks' for my recent edits to some of your recent work. I hope you won't mind if I mention that I had my attention drawn to a few of those edits vie Recent Change review, and, in the main, I can see you've made some really useful contributions to a wide range of articles. Thank you, though it might help if you gave some more edit summaries when you're done. May I urge you also to show a little more restraint at times when adding wikilinks to some articles, please? I realise you're trying to add clarity, and that really is most welcome, and in most cases youi've done just that. I'm sure you'd agree that it's also a good idea not to link to the very obvious words if, in so doing, it fills the article up with too many blue links. You might find WP:MOSLINK of relevance here, especially the section on overlinking. By way of example, part of your recent edits to Gravity might be said to fall into this category though, to be fair, they only added to an already over-linked page. So, none of this is cause for reverting the edits you made, and I only draw your attention to it in order to help you contribute even more effectively in your future editing. If you're interested, there's a nice bit of script one can add to one's side toolbar which highlights duplicate links within an article. You can find it at User:Ucucha/duplinks. Please accept this feedback in the positive spirit in which it is intended. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:48, 30 July 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the note Nick Moyes. Understood, and will do. Thanks again. --Ciphers (talk) 06:45, 31 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
You're still overlinking. And you're changing correct English to incorrect. If a word or phrase is unfamiliar or new to you, don't assume it's incorrect or that it should be linked. Magic9Ball (talk) 18:59, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata weekly summary #271 edit

The Signpost: 5 August 2017 edit

MOS:SURNAME edit

Among other problems, your recent edits dont' follow WP policies about people's names. We don't refer to them by their first names, unless it's necessary to distinguish them in that sentence from other people with the same last name. Neil Armstrong is "Armstrong", not "Neil". Harry Elmore Hurd is "Hurd", not "Harry". Magic9Ball (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

We don't? :) You know .. I've spend a long time on those edits, so I'd appreciate if you could fix them for me instead of reverting them. Thank you. --Ciphers (talk) 21:04, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
No, we don't. It's WP-EN policy.
It's unfortunate that you've spent (not "spend") time making those changes to Apollo 11, but the effect of them was to reduce the quality of the article. Using first names instead of last names was inappropriate. MDY format on an article about the US space program is correct. The "nbsp" character between numerals and units prevents them from being broken up, which can confuse the reader. Your phrase "the lunar orbit" would refer to the orbit of the Moon around Earth; simply "lunar orbit" refers to any orbit around the Moon. The word "broadcasted" might seem logical, but it's incorrect; it should be "broadcast". Why? Because that's how English says it. These are subtle distinctions, and they may not make sense to someone who didn't grow up speaking the language, but they make a difference in the readability of the article. Your user page states that you have "near-native" fluency in English, but I think you're over-estimating yourself a little there. Regardless, someone with "near-native" fluency should not try to correct editors who speak and write the language natively. Jason A. Quest (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
A few of your changes were slight improvements; I'll remake them. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 21:51, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Jason. I appreciate that .. really. --Ciphers (talk) 22:31, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata weekly summary #272 edit

English fluency edit

You read and write English well enough to make worthwhile contributions to the English WP, and I encourage you to keep doing it. But you are not fluent, and you should not be trying to change the wording of people who are. For example, "in the meanwhile" is a phrase that doesn't work in English: it's either "in the mean time" or "meanwhile". "Consensual" is the adjective form of "consent", not of "consensus"; they are different words with different meanings. A "licence" is awarded to a "licensee". These are mistakes that someone who speaks English natively wouldn't make... but you are. And worse: these are things that were correct before you changed them. You are wasting your time – and others' time – by introducing these changes. Stick to fixing the things you know better than other editors of the English WP. English grammar is not one of them. Thank you. Magic9Ball (talk) 15:28, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello Ciphers. Please stop vandalism on Wolf Warriors 2 edit

Hello admin,

Please stop this random IP from vandalizing the page.

171.36.18.44

Thank you,

--2606:A000:86CC:4100:3512:9D00:6858:2D0D (talk) 12:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi, unfortunately I'm not currently an admin on English Wikipedia. For further assistance please visit this page. Thank you. --Ciphers (talk) 02:21, 15 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Dinner table edit

Hi there, I have just seen your recent addition of an article about dinner tables. It seems a similar article for Dining table previously existed and was merged into Table (furniture). I believe the same may analogously be valid for this new article. Similarly, Kitchen table seems to redirect to Kitchen, so it may be an idea to redirect to Dining room if the main focus is the cultural significance of dinner rituals as opposed to the funiture. Regards pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 12:40, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Jake. You're actually right. The original purpose was to focus on the metaphorical aspect of the dinner table (i.e. buffet), rather than the physical table itself, so perhaps we should move the page to "Dinning Table" instead? any other suggesstions? Best, --Ciphers (talk) 02:27, 15 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think that the cultural aspect is covered in the article Dinner, though that one could use some work to highlight different regional aspects and go a bit deeper. This is a bit western-hemisphere-heavy right now. I really struggle with an article about "dinner table" or "dining table" as it will inevitably overlap with Dining room, Dinner and Table (furniture) - without adding anything unique that cannot also be logically found in any of the others. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 07:32, 16 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Jake. I appreciate the detailed feedback, and I understand your honest angle of the subject. With that being said, it is indeed hard to constantly generate new contents for creating new articles given the high complexity of our modern world which occasionally results in combining multiple -or otherwise distinct- things into a fewer number of abstract concepts or things, the fact that sometimes overshadow some of the details and might result in clouding our judgment to what or what not should be included in the final copy of the article. Please feel free to move, merge or otherwise split the Dinner table's content into however you see fit, or otherwise like. Please feel free to reach out in case you have any further questions. Thank you. --Ciphers (talk) 22:07, 17 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wikidata weekly summary #273 edit

Wikidata weekly summary #274 edit

English fluency, again edit

Two other editors have noticed (as have I) and discussed above, that your level of English fluency is not as high as you think. The userbox you set, en-4, "near-native", is obviously incorrect and I have taken the liberty of reducing it to a level I feel is appropriate. Please take a look at WP:Babel/Levels, which defines the levels of language proficiency intended in the userboxes. The purpose of these is to enhance collaboration among Wikipedia editors by informing them of your capabilities. I do not speak Japanese and thus have no idea what your fluency in it is, but I would also be surprised if it is "near native", and I would ask you to consider if ja-3 would be more appropriate. JustinTime55 (talk) 19:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Justin, I understand what you're trying to say, but please do not alter my userpage without asking for my consent first. I guess you wouldn't like anyone doing the same to yours, now do you? --Ciphers (talk) 17:24, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Regardless of whether or not I would like it, the fact is, our user pages do not belong to us. Please read WP:UP#OWN: ...pages in user space belong to the wider community. They are not a personal homepage, and do not belong to the user. They are part of Wikipedia, and exist to make collaboration among editors easier. Bots and other users may edit pages in your user space or leave messages for you, though by convention others will not usually edit your user page itself, other than (rarely) to address significant concerns or place project-related tags. I felt I was within rights to edit your page to address a significant concern: your userbox misleads the Wikipedia community by overstating your English fluency as near-native. These userboxes are used to generate lists used to direct editors to people with a given skill level. I will not edit war, but I ask you to consider changing it yourself. JustinTime55 (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Ciphers, maybe you can use this as a learning experience: How do you think another editor feels when you "correct" their perfectly good English with your mistakes? Your self-evaluation is incorrect; please change it, and more importantly, leave the English (and Japanese?) corrections to people who are truly fluent. Magic9Ball (talk) 21:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Justin, Ball; who said anything that I should care about what either of you has to think or say? More importantly, how can I tell that either of you is actually a native speaker, not to mention having any ability to assess other's language skills? I am a scientific researcher, and I'm here to enrich Wikipedia with my skills and knowledge, not to nitpick other people's grammar or syntax. Do either of you know anything about Quantum physics or high-dimensional geometry?
The bottom line is, if you see something I've edited that you think is wrong you've got three options, fix it, revert it, or leave it. I prefer the third. Otherwise, I'm more than happy to file a complaint against any user comes to my user page or talk page to harass, or intimidate me. You are free to reference, cite or otherwise recite all the policies you like, but I think I made my point clear here. --Ciphers (talk) 23:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Ciphers, speaking as another native English speaker, and one with unusually good proofreading skills, I must say that I concur with the other editors. After reverting your recent edit to Cryptography, which consisted mostly of incorrect English changes (along with a serious language-neutral error), I took a look at your list of recent edits. Examining the diffs of two of your edits at random, on Acne and 1912 Detroit Tigers season, I found that in both cases you had changed correct English to severely incorrect English, and I have now reverted these changes.
Unfortunately I don't have time to go through the rest of your voluminous edits, but from what I've seen so far, and bolstered by the other editors' comments, I expect a large percentage of them involve changing correct English to incorrect English. You claim you're here to enrich Wikipedia with your scientific research skills and knowledge, not to attempt to fix other people's grammar or syntax, yet all of your edits I've looked at so far consist mostly or entirely of the latter. Some of your English errors have been so bizarre that I must concur that you are objectively not "near-fluent" in English, especially when it comes to copyediting.
Personally, I'm not overly concerned about what you claim your language skills are on your user page, but I am concerned about you spending lots of time making articles worse with your faulty English proofreading skills, and in turn wasting the time of other editors that need to clean up your mess. I would urge you to try to stick to factual changes, rather than laboring under the incorrect assumption that you have the ability to copyedit English like a native speaker. I would also note that your attitude in your last comment is inappropriate. Wikipedia only works when people cooperate, so rejecting the observations of native English speakers, accusing them of misrepresenting themselves, and saying you don't care about what they have to say or what Wikipedia's policies are is not a good way forward.
You have a userbox on your page saying "This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let them know." I would suggest you try to actually adopt said attitude rather than forcing things to escalate needlessly. --Dan Harkless (talk) 09:47, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, Dan. I guess your argument makes more sense to me than the above two. I'll try to be more cautious in my edits moving forward. Thanks again for the note. --Ciphers (talk) 03:50, 28 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for taking my observations and suggestions in a positive spirit, and I wish you luck in your further editing efforts. --Dan Harkless (talk) 19:50, 28 August 2017 (UTC)Reply