User talk:Malinaccier/April 2009

WikiCup Newsletter XI

Delivered for the WikiCup by  ROBOTIC GARDEN  at 21:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC). To report errors see the talk page.

Wikipedia Signpost: 6 April 2009

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Delievered by SoxBot II (talk) at 19:19, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...

Seems there's some support for me running pretty soon, per this. Pending a review from Balloonman/I'm Spartacus!, would you be happy if I ran in the coming week or so? —Cyclonenim | Chat  00:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll await the two reviews from Balloonman and SoWhy and decide further then. I'm also curious to hear Lankiveil's view. Hope you're well. —Cyclonenim | Chat  17:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

In case you're interested ;) Thanks for the support you've given me over the past few months of our coaching, it means a lot. —Cyclonenim | Chat  23:15, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll sign off on whatever tomorrow, perhaps around midday my time. Regards. —Cyclonenim | Chat  23:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm flattered, thanks. I'll enter the hellhole of RfA tomorrow when I've got a bit of time to answer the questions. Thanks again (I've said thanks a stupendous amount of times on this page...) —Cyclonenim | Chat  00:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Admin coaching

Hi! Could you be willing to admin coach me? I need some experience before running for adminship. MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 05:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cyclonebiskit

I might have transcluded early, but I'll remind him to answer the questions. --Dylan (chat, work, ping, sign) 16:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

RFA thanks

My RFA passed today at 61/5/4. Thanks for participating in my RFA. I appreciate all the comments I received and will endeavor to justify the trust the WP community has placed in me. Have a nice day. :-) AdjustShift (talk) 20:55, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge project summary, and future direction

In response to a friend on Wikipedia who was wondering about how I've been and what I've been up to, I got to spewing about our little endeavor, and well, I got so carried away I pretty much told him everything.  :) The message turned out to be a pretty good summary of what we've accomplished so far and the overall plan.

See User talk:The Rambling Man#What's up?

The Transhumanist    23:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy Easter!

On behalf of the Kindness campaign, I just wanted to wish my fellow Wikipedians a Happy Easter! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 07:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of philosophical theories, the editor who created the nominated page mentioned that the material he used to create that list was previously AfD'd.

Therefore, the page is subject to speedy deletion (WP:G4).

Had I known this, I would have tagged it for speedy instead of nominating it for AfD. What should I do now? Withdraw the nom, and tag the article for speedy?

The Transhumanist    23:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

RfA

Hey Malinaccier :) Thought I'd let you know that I have withdrawn from my RfA per some very good concerns raised by Jc37 (talk · contribs) which have resulted in me not feeling ready at this time. It was also clear that the RfA wouldn't pass, without his concerns. Sorry I didn't give you prior notice of this withdrawal, it happened quite suddenly after I realised the extent of his concerns. Thanks, I hope you will continue to coach me under upcoming months, but feel free to decline. —Cyclonenim | Chat  12:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that'd be great. Let's just take things slowly, one step at a time, and I'll run in the future if we all agree upon being ready again. --—Cyclonenim | Chat  22:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

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Delievered by SoxBot II (talk) at 16:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiCup Newsletter XII

Delivered for the WikiCup by  ROBOTIC GARDEN  at 17:03, 13 April 2009 (UTC). To report errors see the talk page.

Update on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject & Geography WikiProject (Country outlines workgroup) - 04/16/2009

Momentum in the development of the outlines is continuing to build, even though we haven't added any new outlines lately. Plenty of work is being done on the outlines we already have.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Inspiration!

Kudos go to Buaidh, who has dived head first into outline development, continuing improvement of the country outlines, and doing so vigorously. Take a look at his contribs. He has taken the initiative and has been expanding those outlines' design and coverage. Be sure to let him know what you think of his work!

Coming soon: the Super Huge Expansion (it will be really really big)

Excitement (mine at least) is building as we approach the Super Huge Expansion, during which notices will be placed on thousands of subject talk pages and their corresponding WikiProjects (see below concerning which ones). Though not all on the same day! - this will take place over a period of weeks or months, because it's best not to open the flood gates all at once.

The existing outlines should serve as strong examples for editors who wish to develop new outlines, and so we need to complete them as much as we can before we start to take this to the next level (in about 3 months). The rewrite of the outline article (the draft, which explains outlines in detail), and the guideline on outlines and outline development, also need to be completed before the transcendence begins. These will help guide the decisions and actions of editors, and reduce confusion.

Projected outline, at the OOK WikiProject page

What's next? Where is the Outline of knowledge headed?

Well, it will grow, to encompass all of human knowledge.

But, is there a plan?

YES!!!

Currently under construction on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject page is a version of the outline that will display links to all the outline pages currently in the encyclopedia proper, links to all outline drafts, and redlinks to all planned outline drafts.

You can help. Please place links to the remaining drafts in there (with complete pagenames so we can easily tell they are drafts). Once all the draft pages are placed, please look over the overall outline for gaps in coverage, and add missing subjects. I expect there are thousands of missing subjects extensive enough to benefit from being outlined. New subjects should be included as red draft links. Thank you.

But it's not just an editing task list...

During the upcoming "Super Huge Expansion" (mentioned above), the article talk page and WikiProject for each of the subjects listed on the projected outline will receive a notice requesting the creation and development of the outline page for that subject. Each notice will also explain how a subject's outline will integrate into the Outline of knowledge and into Wikipedia's navigation system as a whole.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#Projected outline.

Topic lists

The nice thing about a reverse outline is that it turns up problems that exist in the publication being outlined, which provides opportunities to fix them. Since we get very little or no opposition to fixing problems even on sets of hundreds of pages, we've been plowing through them.

One of the biggest problems in Wikipedia that our work on the Outline of knowledge has uncovered so far is with the set of topics lists. Their titles, in the forms "List of x topics" and "List of x-related topics" are ambiguous, and they are not the most common terms for describing their content. See WP:COMMONNAME. To make matters worse, the set is divided between 2 competing types/sets of pages: alphabetical indexes, and outlines.

In an effort to sort out this mess, the indexes are being renamed, and the outlines are being reformatted and moved, or merged, into the Outline of knowledge.

So far, almost 300 topic lists have been renamed to indexes. Nobody has objected to the names chosen, but one editor has expressed reservation on the approach - he was concerned it would cause confusion by having 2 title standards in place at the same time for these. Though he himself was not confused, nor did he object to the titles. And nobody else has expressed confusion or dissatisfaction with the new titles either. It has been over 2 weeks since the renaming has begun, and since no confusion seems to have been caused, and since there is no opposition to the new names, I plan to continue with the renaming.

Also, one topic list has been merged into its corresponding outline so far: List of transport topics was merged into Outline of transport. It turned out very good. List of cell biology topics is currently being merged into Outline of cell biology (see the link dump in hidden comments at the end of the outline).

I'm not sure how many lists have "topics" in their titles, but Google turned up 788, and these appear to include the ones that have already been renamed to indexes. Subtracting those renamed so far, there are about 500 more to go.

Watching tips

I thought you might want to compare notes on the methods we use to watch over the outlines. Here's how I keep an eye on things...

My watchlist had so many thousands of articles in it that I finally just deleted them all. Now I have it set so that I have to manually add pages to be watched, and I use it only to watch trouble spots and collaborations I'm participating in.

Because I like to watch specific sets of pages at a time, I use "Related changes" on list pages. That way the results are not watered down with edits from pages I'm not immediately concerned with.

I always use WP:POP and Related changes together. With POP installed, you go to a link list, like User:Buaidh/Country outlines of the Americas, then click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu, and then hover the mouse cursor over the diff and hist links so you can look at those without clicking on them.

It's pretty fast.

The technique turns Wikipedia's list system into a crystal ball.

Update Scanner

Penubag recommends Update Scanner, which is a Firefox add-on that periodically scans pages and pings you when a change is detected. You can even set its level of sensitivity for each scanned page (e.g., "ignore changes of 100 words or less").

I'd use it, but I don't have a computer.  :(

See also WP:OTS for more power tools and techniques, and User:Penubag/optimum toolsets for some more nice addons, that do a variety of things.

I'm always looking for new power tools and power skills, so if you know of any, please share (let me know)!

The Transhumanist    04:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Half of a Yellow Sun cover.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:Half of a Yellow Sun cover.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 06:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

RfA Thankspam

Thanks to everyone who took the time and trouble to take part in my RfA whether support, oppose or neutral. All comments are valued and will be considered carefully in the coming weeks. Feel free to add more advice on my talk page if you think I need it. SpinningSpark 23:52, 16 April 2009 (UTC) In case you're wondering, the image is a smiley, just a little more aesthetic, but not as serious as the Mona Lisa

Do not read this one - The Hunt - Outline of knowledge WikiProject - 04/17/2009

Here's a trivia question for you...

While surveying libraries, their outline-related resources, and our coverage of them, I came across something funny...

What subclass is the Bible in the Library of Congress Classification?

Do you think they'd like this one at WP:DYK?

(Nope. They didn't.)     :)

Libraries

For months, I've been sitting at a terminal in one of the largest libraries in the country, and I haven't even looked around at the available resources.

Until a few days ago.

I'm overwhelmed.

When compared to libraries, Wikipedia is small. (See Digest of Education Statistics 2008, Chapter 7:Libraries and Educational Technology Libraries, and turn to page 617).

But is that a fair comparison?

Yes.

Why?

Because we have growth potential.  :)

And we cover everything, including libraries!

Guess what else I found?

Hunting for outlines

I began to study libraries and librarians, since they are experts in organizing knowledge. And of course I turned to Wikipedia to see what we had on the things I came across...

And while doing so I kept running into outlines on Wikipedia that are not (yet) part of the Outline of knowledge.

When I come across non-OOK outlines, generally I rename them, and reformat them to our standard outline format. But there is the occasional exception.

Here are some outlines I just added:

1. List of energy topics --> Outline of energy (it converted great)
2. List of Dewey Decimal classes --> Outline of Dewey Decimal classes (no conversion)
3. Library of Congress Classification --> ??? (no rename, no conversion)

The last 2 are outlines by their very nature, and so our standard outline subheadings didn't seem to fit. So I left them as is.

I renamed the first 2, but the last one is the name of the outline, that is, the topic itself is an outline, and that outline is presented as the article's content, so I left the name as is. For now. This needs more thought.

Of course, that's not all. Concerning those last 2 outlines above...

Alternate outlines of knowledge

...not only are they outlines, but they are outlines of knowledge! Well, the top few levels, at least.

Uh, so?

What happens if we linkify them?  :)

That is, what happens if we linkify their classifications to Wikipedia's outlines?  :)   :)   :)

They become alternate top ends to the OOK

Yep.

What can you find?

I challenge you to find some "hidden" outlines.

I dare you to take a look around Wikipedia for hidden outlines (that is, outlines not yet hooked into the OOK), and add your kills to WP:WPOOK#The hunt for hidden outlines.

My trophies are already there.

May the hunt begin!

The Transhumanist    20:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiCup Newsletter XIII

Delivered for the WikiCup by  ROBOTIC GARDEN  at 09:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC). To report errors see the talk page.

Wikipedia Signpost: 20 April 2009

• Book reviews: Reviews of The Wikipedia Revolution
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• Dispatches: Valued pictures
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Delivered by SoxBot II (talk) at 18:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A doubt

Hi there MALINACCIER, VASCO from PORTUGAL here,

I have a question for you regarding Mateen Cleaves' article: why was the OFF-COURT ISSUES section removed, as you cited some guideline in the process? I thought it was highly informative.

I also tell you i am in no way defending my work, as i did not write that text, just curious (ah and i also reassure you by saying i did not re-instate anything, it stayed as it was before you removed that bit).

Have a good time, ty for clearing me,

VASCO AMARAL - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 20:37, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiCup Newsletter XIV

Delivered for the WikiCup by  ROBOTIC GARDEN  at 14:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC). To report errors see the talk page.

Re: Swine influenza

I have tried to structure the article as per MOS:MED. Also, I added a bunch of review articles under "Further reading" incase someone wants to read through them and add some facts. ---kilbad (talk) 14:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost: 27 April 2009

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Delivered by SoxBot II (talk) at 04:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

PERSONAL INFO

Hi there MALIN, VASCO here again,

Regarding your response to my doubt about personal info being added to articles, i clearly see your point, sometimes it can get rather ridiculous, and you are correct, WP is not the Daily Mirror or akin.

My opinion is that sometimes, such info (drug abuse battles, assaults (see for instance former New Jersey Nets Jayson Williams) can provide insightful, dare i say psychological details as to why these folk did what they did in a given point in their lives, sometimes still during their active careers, in any given field of "expertise".

To wrap it up, i repeat i do see your point. What could be defined as a "common ground" in these matters, in your opinion?

From Portugal, kind regards, keep up the good work,

VASCO AMARAL - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 19:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)