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How to get access to TUSC?[edit]

I've tried to get access to TUSC (I want to run a tool that cross-loads photos from geograph to creative commons).

When I try to create a TUSC account it asks me to edit my home page then save and close the tab. The TUSC page then says its checking for the edit but never does anything... Robevans123 (talk) 09:53, 15 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

At tools.wmflabs.org, you can see that TUSC is maintained by Magnus Manske; try leaving him a message on his talk page. Gryllida (talk) 11:35, 15 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Help Needed[edit]

I've been creating references to books, some of which are out of copyright and are now online, and I've included the original publisher and a link to the online version. Should/can you also acknowledge the organisation that created the online version?

For example, in my sandbox article Henllys, Torfaen I've got a reference to "A History of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest", with a link to the book on archive.org (Internet Archive). Should/how I acknowledge Internet Archive? Robevans123 (talk) 14:02, 7 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If it's a digitized version of a specific edition, you should credit the original publisher, not whoever put it online. If the online version reproduces the text without being based on a specific print edition, you could use ((cite book))'s "publisher=" parameter for the organization that published the online version. Huon (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Monuments[edit]

Great work on the Monmouthshire list. The sort order is much neater than my solution, and the content editing is great to see. I have found out how to reference a particular ggat page, but I think the best solution would be to make a template (that can be used on all 4 arch trusts), and then work out how to semi-automate applying it to the lists. It will feel much better to be able to click directly to the relevant page, now that there are so many PRNs. Putting the SAM No first also makes sense. RobinLeicester (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have gone live with Template:Watprn and so far applied it to Torfaen and Monmouthshire. If you spot anything amiss please let me know, but it seems to be working well. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It suddenly occurred to me it would streamline editing to use it on coflein too. The other big advantage is that if any of them revamp their websites a single update on the template will get everything working again. I will be doing a find and replace process to get the lists converted over the next few days.... RobinLeicester (talk) 23:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I have now transferred Monmouthshire and most South Wales lists to Watprn for coflein as well. I think refining the period is excellent, but I can't see the need for a separate note. The refs provide the published source of the dating information, which is clear enough. I have tended to use the 'Prehistoric (Iron Age)' layout on those entries I have clarified, partly because that was easiest when I was transferring from the spreadsheet. But just saying 'Iron Age' is fine so far as I can see. I would also encourage using the sort key to optimise a chronological order, rather than slavishly following the period name - so an 'unknown' site that is either iron age or early medieval is much better going somewhere near there than before the palaeolithic, whereas an 'unknown' that is probably post-medieval could be put there. Just a thought. RobinLeicester (talk) 00:39, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Will definitely use the sort key to "optimise a chronological order".

Wasn't sure about the note on Period myself - thought it might be overkill! Think you're right - it's not needed. But perhaps the general note on the Cadw details is useful. I was probably thinking ahead to maybe making some other edits that change, rather than refine, the Cadw details. For example, there's an enclosure somewhere that Coflein/GGAT classify as a Hillfort. Even that could be classed as a refinement - burbling now - thinking out loud! Will put some thoughts on the List of SMs in Monmouthshire Talk page. Robevans123 (talk) 11:11, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I agree entirely. Cadw 'decide' that a site is scheduled, which puts it on this list, but beyond that, for the name, type, period and anything else, the list should reflect the best state of published knowledge rather than what Cadw have mentioned. The only exception to that is to retain the Cadw name within the ref, as it is the scheduled name, and ties more firmly the Cadw listing to the site and the records. RobinLeicester (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

January 2014[edit]

Monmouthshire articles[edit]

It was good to chat at the recent meetup. I have recently worked on Llangwm, Monmouthshire and on Friends of Friendless Churches, where I modified the tables to allow them to be sorted by county.

You might like to take on new articles on Roger Edwards of Allt-y-Bela in Llangwm, and on Usk Grammar School which he founded in 1599. Here's one reference: Archives Wales. Verbcatcher (talk) 15:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Two good ideas for articles. Will add them to my To Do list. Nice work on the Friends of Friendless Churches page. Robevans123 (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

June 2014[edit]

Scheduled monument lists[edit]

Thanks for your comment about lists of Scheduled Monuments. I did lots of work on listed building lists last year (see for example: Grade I listed buildings in Somerset & Grade II* listed buildings in Somerset and their sub lists. I would follow the same divisions (unitary authorities and districts) for SAMs - Category:Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Somerset. What I was looking for (if we are not using EH templates this year) is examples of those already created & preferred formats for the lists - then I will make a start on the Somerset ones.— Rod talk 11:10, 22 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts and examples. I note the ones with a selection of pics on the right (rather than one per line) are FLs - they also follow the format I used for listed buildings (after comments at FLC) so I guess I will go for that. I will knock something up in a sandbox to play with formats etc. As far as lists go.. last year we had spreadsheets from EH, which although they had lots of errors did speed the process up a bit. I believe Katie has these now for SAMs. An alternative is to go to NHLE and do an advanced search where under location you use a district eg Bath and North East Somerset & then under heritage category select "scheduling" - this finds 58. For South Cambridgeshire this process finds 104 (it doesn't let you export a link with sthe search parameters otherwise I'd send a link).— Rod talk 16:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My playing about with this is at: User:Rodw/sandbox. I think one of the problems with have a pic on every row is where there are no suitably licenced pics (yet) for that site which makes the table look poorer. But I will try both in the sandbox which you are welcome to edit.— Rod talk 18:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Table summary[edit]

Hi, I notice that you've been adding a summary= attribute to the tables in GWR 5700 Class. This is valid HTML 4, but Wikipedia serves HTML 5, where the attribute is marked as obsolete. However, of the various alternative techniques for describing tables, I'm not sure which would be best. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:26, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Damn! I'd been adding them because I'd read that they were used by screen readers and so good for accessibility. I found this reference Wikipedia:Table_syntax#Summaries (which clearly states that they are good for HTML4 and not HTML5... [but there is a request in to make summaries compatible]). I'm fairly sure this is not the original bit of guidance I found - maybe there is another bit of WP help somewhere that isn't quite up to date (or possibly I saw mention of summaries outside of WP and just assumed they would work ok). I'll cease and desist for the moment. I don't often delve into the details of HTML so it'll take a while to look into. Presumably someone from Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility will have an idea of the current state of play... Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 13:47, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Found where I read about using summary= attributes - Help:Wikipedia:_The_Missing_Manual/Formatting_and_Illustrating_Articles/Creating_Lists_and_Tables#Making_tables_more_usable_and_accessible... Robevans123 (talk) 14:06, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah yes, the Missing Manual. Most of that (and the whole of the section on tables) dates back to the time when we served XHTML 1.0 - essentially HTML 4 with stricter rules. It's not been updated for HTML 5. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:20, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Its a shame it has not been updated. I find it combines information on style and technique topics in an understandable way. Will remember to cross-check with MOS and HELP if I find something useful in the Missing Manual. Robevans123 (talk) 17:01, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Going back to the main point... I came across Accessible names and descriptions which seems to say that the aria-describedby and aria-labelledby attributes are the way to go. I _think_ the other ways described in techniques for describing tables are more for when the table is being used for layout rather than data. It seems to me that it would be useful if the "wikitable sortable" and "wikitable" classes could include four attributes: caption=, caption_alt=, summary=, and summary_alt=.
The value of the caption= attribute would be displayed above the table as it is now, and would also be used by the aria-labelledby attribute unless the caption_alt= attribute was used (which could be used, for example, to replace "GWR No." with "Great Western Railway number").
The value of the summary= could be used to actually display a description of the table - would be useful to associate this with the table, and it could be used for tables that have very brief row and column headings (such as truth tables or times tables where you might have 0 and 1 as row and column headings or 1 to 12 as row and column headings). Similarly, the value could be used by aria-describedby for accessibility, or over-ridden by summary_alt= when required.
Getting carried away - but would it also be useful to be able to specify alt text for the text that is used for column and row headings? This was prompted by trying to think what it sounds like when a screen reader deals with a table - do they get thrown by abbreviations such as GWR or do they spell them out? Robevans123 (talk) 17:56, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There's no mention of abbreviations at MOS:DTT; and at MOS:ACCESS, it's mentioned once, in connection with plain text but not tables. I don't see why you shouldn't put e.g. 
!((abbr|LT Number|London Transport number))
!((abbr|GWR/BR No.|Great Western Railway and British Railways number))
etc. RexxS (talk · contribs) is probably a good person to ask, you met him at Oxford on 27 April. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've just remembered Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial which doesn't mention the summary= attribute at all. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:08, 27 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
But it does include a pointer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial/Internal guidelines (listed under Resources) which does mention the summary= attribute Providing a summary, and also a way of creating an alternative text for column headings Providing abbreviations for long headers which is sort of the opposite of what we talked about above, but also is what I was trying to get to - an alternative text for the column headings. Should we let the accessibility project know that the summary= attribute is not working at the moment? BTW I would like to know how screen readers cope with abbreviations such as "GWR" - would they make a ghastly attempt at pronouncing it as a word? If you defined the alt text as "G.W.R." would that force it to read it out as "Gee double-u ar" or something like that? I'm still trying to formulate my questions on accessibility for RexxS (talk · contribs) - I'll try to get something off to him tomorrow. Robevans123 (talk) 22:03, 27 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I didn't say that the summary= attribute is not working; I said that it was marked as obsolete. Obsolete in this instance means that browsers claiming compliance with HTML 5 need not support it, and people writing pages that claim compliance with HTML 5 should not use it. But most browsers that support HTML 5 also support HTML 4, not just because it will take a long time for everybody with a website to rewrite the content for HTML 5 (if it ever happens: there are still a lot of HTML 2.0 or 3.2 compliant pages out there that would fail a conformance check for HTML 4, let alone HTML 5), but also because HTML 5 has not yet reached the W3C Recommendation stage, so the current stable standard is HTML 4.01.
On some discussion pages (I know of at least three threads outside of User talk: space) there is a scaremonger going around telling people to stop using the <font>...</font> element ASAP, because it's marked as obsolete in HTML 5. Don't panic: it still works in every browser I've tried it in though, and will probably do so for a long time yet. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:42, 28 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks for the clarification, and sorry for the misunderstanding. I really should have known better having documented systems/specifications where things go through a number of phases, and many years, before actually getting to a state of not working/being ignored/breaking things.
So... as to using it - carry on? The accessibility project describe it in an "internal guideline" - but presumably they're happy for editors to use it if they feel they can write a reasonable summary of a table? Robevans123 (talk) 09:20, 28 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Users of assistive technology tend to adapt to what they find on Wikipedia, but very few of our tables have summaries and so visitors manage without them. Adding a summary (even though they are obsolete) will be an improvement, but for a simple table it is only a small improvement. The existence of a summary will be a good start point for whatever technique replaces it when html5 settles down and becomes fully adopted (or when we move to html6, etc.). So the answer to your question is to carry on, of course, but remember that complex tables derive the most benefit. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 17:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks RexxS. I'd put a basic summary on a couple of tables and this included a mention of the numbers of rows and columns. After a bit more research on screen readers, I've realised that at least some screen readers give this information by default, so it is probably superfluous and repetitive. I think that if the caption and column and row headers are descriptive and short then maybe the only useful information to give in the summary is a description of how the table is ordered (for example, something along the lines of "The data is ordered by row on the ascending value of engine number given in the first column"). Robevans123 (talk) 18:27, 28 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On alt text again

Hi; I've just spotted this edit by Graham87 (talk · contribs), which is a correction to this edit, and Graham is absolutely correct in his assumption. This is why we are very grateful to people like Graham who is not only a superb copy-editor, but relies on the alt text in ways that you or I do not (see his user page, section "About me", third sentence), and so has a vested interest in putting it right for those who are unable to do so. If you write alt text with people like Graham87 in mind, you won't go far wrong. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Future meetups[edit]

Hi, thanks for coming to Oxford 18 last weekend. At the meetup, some people were asking of a good way to find out about future meetups in other parts of the country. Visit one or more of the following, and "watch" it:

Then, as events get added, you'll find out through the watchlist of the relevant site. The next Oxford meetup is on 17 August. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:28, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is the book I was trying to remember. Gibson worked in the Loco Dept. of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you - I shall try to get access to a copy. Trying to get my thoughts together before doing a section on Design/Features for 5700s. Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 14:32, 29 July 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Suggest you are cautious with Gibson though, while he tells a good story and was there and had at least some of the training, he does get carried away sometimes and the evidence doesn't seem to support his conclusions. An obvious example is p98/99 where he says Collett should have put a No7 boiler on a Saint chassis rather than a star to make the weight limits, but a check of the weight diagrams tells you that almost all the extra weight of the 4cyls is over the front bogie, so a No7 boiler Saint (which Churchward drew and abandoned according to RCTS) would have been no better for weight limits than a No7 Star. 212.159.44.170 (talk) 21:13, 5 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Interesting. Thanks. He does seem to go off in opposite directions. One minute he's berating Collett for following Churchward slavishly, then for doing his own thing.... Robevans123 (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ISBN on RCTS GWR partworks[edit]

Hi, re this edit: where did you get ISBN 0-901115-35-5 from? It's correct (and following the WorldCat link, I find that |oclc=500544510 is also applicable); but I've checked my copy thoroughly, and can't find an ISBN anywhere, nor even a SBN (which was used in the UK for a few years before ISBNs were introduced). --Redrose64 (talk) 11:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On my copy the SBN is shown on the (outside of the) back cover. BTW I notice that some cites of the RCTS GWR partworks (possibly even Part Five) include White D.E. as editor. My copy mentions him as a contact for correspondence, but doesn't mention him as editor. Robevans123 (talk) 11:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah, yours must be a later printing than mine: the only parts which bore an ISBN on original printing were parts 13 and 14 (inside the front cover). As for White, on my original printing of Part Five (and on earlier originals), there's a note inside the front cover, at the bottom: "Any other correspondence ... to the Hon. Editor, Mr. D. E. White ...". On part six (published just over a year later), they altered it to "Any correspondence ... to Mr. D. E. White ...". On those earlier parts in my possession which I know to be reprints (they've got an ISBN on the back), they copied the whole of the inside front cover from Part 12, which is why there's a paragraph about "The FOREWORD, which is issued with this part for convenience, ..." - I have just one of these Forewords, and it came with part 12. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:47, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I did wonder if my copy of Part 5 was a reprint (although there is no print/edition/reprint information in it) - it would explain why some other references have Kenilworth as the location (my copy says it was produced and printed in Oxford). Presumably its ok (or even good) to add the OCLC value to any places where I've referenced Part 5. I guess if White was an "Hon. Editor" he didn't do a lot of editing?Robevans123 (talk) 13:06, 30 August 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Refs in infobox[edit]

Hi, if you add refs to the infobox, as here, it can get cluttered. Some people hold that the infobox, being part of the lead, should accord with MOS:LEAD. This says "Apart from trivial basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.", and so most of what is in the infobox should also be in the article text, which is where the ref would go. Of course it's impractical to repeat everything, but you can have a really good go: have a look at what I've done to LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater (and I'm only up to April 1932). At NBR 224 and 420 Classes, I gathered all the refs together at the bottom of the infobox, using the |notes= parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:45, 5 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Redrose. Thanks for your comments. I guess it raises some issues which I've been pondering, so I'm afraid this going to be a lengthy reply. I hope you'll bear with me. If at first it seems rather argumentative, please follow through to the end where I try to get to a summary of the state of play, and some unanswered questions...
I'll start off with a question. At what point do you think an infobox gets "cluttered" with references? I ask because I'd already added ~20 refs to the infobox of the article before your comment above, and I know you've been following the changes I've made to the article (as shown by your edits/corrections/talk page comments over the last couple of months which have all been very helpful and useful to me as a relative newbie). BTW I seem to remember that one of the first references I added to the infobox was for the locoweight, which was different from the value in the sources I had. So possibly an area of contention, so worthwhile adding a ref.
So, first, some observations:
  • My first observation is that WP:LEADCITE states "The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article". I do recognise that the lead often includes information that is covered in more detail later in the article and that this is often the best place for the citation. Looking at the current lead for GWR 5700 Class (and this is in retrospect after adding a lot more information to the article), I would suspect that a number of refs are now sufficiently covered in the body of the text, or in the case of the citations next to the two footnotes could be moved to the footnote itself. However, I did not have any plans to revisit the official designation quote, or to add any further information on the comparative glamour ratings of different GWR locomotive classes... I do think both statements provide some interest to the lead, but since not mentioned later, could be challenged and so should be verifiable through citations in the lead. Also, if (and its a big if) it is accepted that the infobox is part of the lead, then presumably the guidance on references in the lead should also apply to the infobox.
  • My second observation is on whether an infobox is part of the lead. Firstly you state "Some people hold that the infobox, being part of the lead, should accord with MOS:LEAD". So who are "some people"? Is this a consensus of editors? Is there a statement somewhere in the MoS that infoboxes are part of the lead? MOS:INFOBOX states that the infobox is usually next to the lead section (it doesn't say that it is part of it). However, it does also state that the purpose of infobox is to summarize key facts from the article, and that "the less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose". As an aside, it also says "Do not include links to sections within the article; the table of contents provides that function". I did not know that (and I've broken that rule, having seen it used in many pages that use the locomotive infobox...) - something else to fix... Coming back to main point with the real example of the GWR 5700, this includes about 40 parameters, and could usefully include maybe another five or so: maxspeed, consumption, watercons, poweroutput, factorofadhesion, acceleration and deceleration all spring to mind, and I would include them if I had a source for them. I'm not sure quite how forty five parameters squares with the "the less information it contains..." statement about infoboxes, but I feel that it does preclude the locomotive infobox from being part of the lead section. I think that a lead section which mentioned 40+ facts could not be regarded as a good lead.
  • Thirdly, References in infoboxes gives some guidance on the use of references in infoboxes (and does suggest that "editors should first consider including the fact in the body of the article").
So yes - I do agree that most of the information in the infobox should be in the article, and that this should be referenced there. I seem to have argued myself to agree with you, but through a slightly different route. I am also minded that there can be problems with infoboxes and screen readers (Help:Infobox#What_infoboxes_do), particularly with long columns of data, and <br> lists (which we've both been fixing).
However, lets look at how the locomotive infobox is used in reality:
  • many locomotive articles are far from complete, but do have a lot of unreferenced specification material in the infobox.
  • It does seem to me that many of us using the locomotive infobox have possibly fallen into the trap of viewing the infobox as part of the article rather than a summary of it.
  • It also seems that the locomotive infobox is rather large.
When I started working on GWR 5700 I looked at a few featured articles to get an idea of what the overall content and scope of locomotive articles should be. I've just revisited some of these to look at how they are referenced and how they make use of the infobox. I concentrated on two parameters; locoweight and length. The articles are the six locomotives from the Category:FA-Class UK Railways articles and use of the order of 25-30 infobox parameters (some with multiple values). The articles are:
All six articles include locoweight and length in the infobox. None of them mention weight and length in the article (apart from a discussion of the prototype weight and intended weight for SR Leader class).
All six articles include 1 reference as part of the value of the name parameter of the infobox. Three of these are to one page of a source, one is to a source with no page number, one is to 7 pages of one source, and 1 is to two pages of a source. I suspect that the sources given are for the technical specifications, rather than career details, but it is difficult to say, unless you go through the whole article and work out which parameters have comparable text (with a citation) in the article. Certainly weight and length do not...
The really interesting article is SR West Country and Battle of Britain classes which references Herring, Peter: Classic British Steam Locomotives (Abbeydale Press: London, 2000) Section "WC/BB Class" ISBN 1-86147-057-6 which, by happy coincidence, I borrowed from my local library on Friday. The article includes two infoboxes (one for later rebuilds), so I could check all the parameters. Both infoboxes use the same reference. Firstly, the source is a nice summary of about 80 locos, all presented on a two page spread, with some photos, and an information box with about 10 important parameters (build details, weight, driving wheel, boiler, cylinders etc), so its useful as a source, but far from exhaustive. For the two classes there is only one set of specifications, which unfortunately seems to be a merge of the initial build and the rebuild... So:
  • locoweight (from reference) - matches 1st infobox, different in 2nd infobox
  • tractiveeffort (from reference) - matches 2nd infobox, different in 1st
  • driverdiameter (from ref) - matches both
  • boilerpressure - matches both
  • cylindercount - matches both
  • cylindersize - matches both
So, at first it seemed as though the source had got confused with the rebuild. I then started wondering if the article was confused and had got the tractive effort the mixed up. My first thought was that a rebuild that made a locomotive heavier would give a higher tractive effort. I then realised that parameters for the tractive effort equation were all the same so there shouldn't be any difference. Except - the infobox doesn't include the piston stroke... So I went and re-read the article, and found that the rebuild included reducing the boiler pressure to 250 psi (mentioned in a referenced sentence, but infobox value is different). So the article is confused on boiler pressure, and yes - the source was confused (checked it against some other locos and it seems ok elsewhere.)
Going back to the rest of the parameters, both infoboxes include values for:
  • firegrate area
  • leading wheel diameter
  • trailing wheel diameter
These are not mentioned in the source or in the article, so it is completely impossible to verify if the given values are correct.
This (brief) investigation also highlights the problem of tracking sources when only some of the infobox parameters are covered by a generic reference. The data in a infobox covers a range of disparate information from build details to fleet numbers etc, but in terms of checking references, the data could be considered to been in one of five different types:
  • facts that are in the article and referenced
  • facts that are in the article and not referenced
  • facts that are in the infobox only and are covered by a generic reference
  • facts that are in the infobox only and are not referenced
  • and possibly, a few facts that are in the infobox that could be regarded as so obvious they do not need a reference (gauge and powertype spring to mind).
This makes it quite difficult to work out the real rogues - facts in the infobox only and not covered by the generic reference, and facts that in the article, but not referenced, but are repeated in the infobox - these are relatively easy to spot, but still rogues.
As an analogy, if I produced a paragraph with 30 different facts, some of which were repeated facts covered elsewhere in the article, and some that were specific to the paragraph, and then put one reference at the end of that paragraph, I'm sure there would be howls of protest.
So, where are we?
  • We can probably say that the locomotive infobox and the way it's used is rather stretching the guidelines on infobox size (in the number of parameters used), and it is being used as part of the article rather an summary of its contents, and this is being done in featured articles.
  • I find it rather disconcerting to find that the one featured article (out of a sample of six) that I could do a detailed check on had a number of specification details that are unverifiable. I could have been lucky (or is it unlucky?) to hit the one featured locomotive article in Wikipedia with such problems. I'm guessing there are a few more around...
So, where do we go?:
  • Should we look at the amount of detail that's included in the locomotive infobox and limit it to a certain number of parameters, say 10? If I'd asked myself this a few months ago I might have said yes - when I first put some more infobox values into the GWR 5700 page it seemed to overwhelm the article. Now, having added a lot more text and infobox values, and looked at lots of other loco articles, I've grown to like it as a handy useful quick reference, so personally I wouldn't like to see it limited. Its also a useful structure for microformats/data extraction. I could also think of at least one more parameter (driver position) to clarify and confirm the usual situation where, for example, trains tend to be driven on the left with the driver on the left, but highlight the fact that GWR locos were usually different (it had to be GWR) with the driver on the right...
  • Is it possible to have collapsible sections in an infobox? Would it be useful? Would it be disconcerting (as it would impinge on, and change, the layout of the rest of the article alongside/below the infobox)? I can envisage a section for some key features, and further sections of build details, wheel and valve arrangements, firebox/boiler details, performance, and, as we already have, Careers, but all collapsible. Also, some finer grouping would relieve the problem of one generic reference covering a wide numbering of infobox parameters I mentioned above, in that it might be possible to include a reference that covered just the boiler data. Sorry - slight diversion from the main thrust.
  • If we leave it the number of parameters as it is, should we add some guidance on usage? Specifically, if you want to put something in the infobox, it should be part of the article (and ideally referenced). And if you want the article to be featured, then pretty much everything in the infobox should be in the article, and referenced.
  • Or should we acknowledge the way the infobox is being used in lots of articles,and say that at least some parts of the infobox can be regarded as part of the article (rather than as a summary), but should be referenced in the infobox. For example:
    • Some parameters, for example, height, width, and length, can go in the infobox, with no mention in the article, but ideally should be referenced. This obviously doesn't preclude including this information in the article, especially if they are an important part of the design or operation.
    • Can we regard some information as so obvious that it doesn't need a reference and only needs to go in the infobox? I was thinking primarily of gauge. Most loco articles (including LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater and NBR 224 and 420 Classes!) include gauge in the infobox with no mention in the text.
So, in summary, I think I'm saying I'm happy to move references into the article as and when the information appears in the article but anything not yet in the article, stays referenced (and specifically not generically). But I'd also like to see some progress in seeing the same rigour being applied to other locomotive articles that are featured, with mid or high importance, (and so setting an example for others to follow), and not just to the poor little lowly Low importance B rated GWR 5700!
One final thought. I took a good look at the articles you mention, and commend your efforts to put infobox data into the article, but I did wonder whether it would be better to put some of that data into short, simple tables. For example, in LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater the boiler details could be in a table. It would be much easier to compare and contrast with the later details of the later boilers. Provided the tables are kept simple and follow all the accessibility guidelines they shouldn't present a problem to screen readers. If you've got to here - thank you for persevering! Robevans123 (talk) 04:01, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Oh, dear. A lot of the loco articles began as little more than an infobox, people created these as stub articles with the intention that they be fleshed out later. Many of these infoboxes were sourced from Casserley & Johnston, all four volumes of which contain demonstrable factual errors. This is why the infobox very often dominates: it was a convenient place to drop in all the key facts without worrying about presentation, because the infobox template handles the layout. I consider that an infobox is part of the lead because it's listed at WP:LEADELEMENTS.
Collapsible sections are permitted; see Help:Infobox where the image upper right is a screenshot of Norwegian Lundehund which presently has two collapsible sections. Be aware of the accessibility caveat. Don't bloat a parameter to the point where only a collapsible will make the infobox shorter than the article: at Javier Castellano (for example), if I expand the "Graded Stakes wins" row of the infobox, the infobox not only reaches right down to the category box, it pushes the cat box down by about 2+3⁄8 inches; if this were done at Lester Piggott it would be ridiculous - notice how it doesn't list any of his 4493 career wins in the infobox, but just gives the total wins for five particular races.
I'm thinking of reorganising LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater something along the lines of the RCTS partworks for the LNER - separate sections for: Development and rebuilding; Details (incl. boiler dimensions); Owners and operators; Liveries, numbering and naming; Allocation and work; Preservation. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Excellent - thanks for the link to WP:LEADELEMENTS - I shall follow that. It is a shame that MOS:INFOBOX doesn't explicitly say the same thing (and actually infers something slightly different). As someone still finding their way round the MOS and all the templates and tools, I find that most of the documentation is pretty good, clear, and sensible. However, there are minor things that don't quite line up (as above, also as we talked about sometime ago the outdatedness of the alternative MOS). I might have a go at dealing with these discrepancies (but only when I've had a few more years as an editor and know my round more). BTW where do we clarify that loco page titles do not follow the sentence capitalization rules (cf BR Class 66 versus BR class 66 name changes)?
I must say I really like the dog breed infobox. It breaks the information into sensible, collapsible sections. This also has the advantage having slightly different (unruled) tables in the different sections so you can have different column widths, with the potential of avoiding irritating line wraps on parameter names and values. The horseracing personality infobox also looks good on first inspection. I see what you mean about Javier Castellano - personally I think that's too much information in the infobox...
I've not yet strayed in to developing templates (only using them), but I might have a bash at an alternative loco infobox template!
Your thoughts on reorganising LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater sound good. I shall follow with interest.
Is there a case for a template for displaying some properties of a locomotive in a table in the article? I'm thinking along the lines of the sort of information shown on a typical GWR diagram (Cylinders, boiler, etc along with values that can be extracted from the diagram - wheelbase, weight on wheels, length etc)? As I said, I don't know much about template design, but is it possible to pass parameters from one template to another on the same page? It would be really helpful if, for example, you only had to add the length for a loco to the infobox to have it appear in a subsequent template that displayed some specifications in a table? Robevans123 (talk) 13:28, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]
My revert of the moves of British Rail Class 66/British Rail Class 67 to British Rail class 66/British Rail class 67 was based on the (unwritten) naming convention for all articles on BR non-steam traction: a check of All pages with prefix for British Rail Class shows something like 270 articles, whereas a similar check for British Rail class shows none. When there are so many pages with consistent names, a change from one form to the other should not be done as a one-by-one undiscussed move, but with a centralised move discussion (probably at WT:UKRAIL) followed by a move of all pages. The template ((brc)) also expects the capital C form, although redirects can be used to fix a redlink.
Before starting on a major change to something like Template:Infobox locomotive it's as well to propose changes at its talkpage, also at WT:RAIL.
Unfortunately, repeated information needs to be entered twice. There is a Variables extension, but that was never installed on English Wikipedia. For templates, there is a means to implement variables, but it does mean converting the template to Lua, which for me, would make the template unmaintainable. But be wary of using templates to include data in an article; there is a guideline (which I can't find) against that. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:21, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Renamed deprecated infobox parameters[edit]

Hi, just a heads-up to a possible problem. You recently renamed a LOT of deprecated infobox parameters in ((Infobox locomotive)). I suppose you used a BOT to do this since it would have been a major operation to tackle per individual article. Just now I discovered one small hiccup with that edit in South African Class NG G11 2-6-0+0-6-2, where the field "| fleetnumbers = 51-55" was left blank as "| = 51-55", with the result that the locomotive numbers failed to show up in the infobox in the article. If a BOT did it, there may be more similar errors in other articles. -- André Kritzinger (talk) 00:39, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Andre - no - I don't use a bot. Sorry I messed up South African Class NG G11 2-6-0+0-6-2 - I do check each one but that one slipped through the net. Thanks for spotting it Robevans123 (talk) 08:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good, in that case it's an isolated error. No problem, and thanks! -- André Kritzinger (talk) 11:44, 21 September 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Article titles for early UK diesel classes?[edit]

You're invited to comment at WikiProject UK Railways#Article titles for early UK diesel classes? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re: GWR 5700 Class[edit]

Hi Rob, no worries, and thanks for the kind words. The abbreviations are fine; the output of the abbr template isn't read out by screen readers unless they're told to do so, and even then this feature is rarely used. Screen readers spell out abbreviations when they can't figure out how to read them as words (e.g. "GWR" is read out as "G W R", so that one's fine. Graham87 14:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Link to OS map[edit]

Hi, re this edit: we don't normally use citation templates in the External links section (see WP:ELCITE). Also, please note that when adding an External links section, although it does go after any existing References section, it should still be placed before the categories, see WP:ORDER.

But rather than manually adding links to a mapping service in the External links section, have you considered making it accessible to all GB pages via the GeoHack page (that's the one that you reach by clicking the gridref in the infobox or either of the two coordinates links)? Here, there is already a link for OS maps held by the National Library of Scotland (right-hand side, row titled "National library of Scotland", link titled "OS maps"), perhaps it could go close to that. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Cheers - good points. I was probably thinking of "Further reading" sections which often use citation templates - I'll change it to something appropriate. Damn - I know categories go last - just forgot to actually check it...
Interesting point on the GeoHack page. I'd not thought of that (but I had pondered if there was some way of automating the process). I'll look into adding one or more selections from the National Library of Scotland website (or getting them added). Both the Ordnance Survey, 1:25,000 maps of Great Britain - 1937-1961 and Ordnance Survey, One-inch to the mile maps of Great Britain - Seventh Series, 1952-1961 are useful for viewing a lot of British stations since they still usually show stations that were lost through Modernisation Plans and Beeching cuts, but on relatively modern maps. I don't know if you could access a tiled version (as on the current entry for NLS on GeoHack) which seems to use Ordnance Survey, One-inch to the mile maps of England and Wales, New Popular Edition, 1945-1947 (but you can use their "Explore georeferenced maps feature"), for example, Pontypool Road in detail - but this can be a bit slow as it defaults to the map being overlaid on a Google hybrid map.
The main problem with using GeoHack is that it's a two step process, and the reader has to make a choice about the best map to pick (out of a choice of 14 in the first section, and 5 in the second section "More OS maps" (none of which seem to be working at the moment)).
Also, for earlier stations (that also disappeared early) you need to look at earlier map series. For example, if you wanted to include a map of the old station at Llantarnam (not Llantarnam railway station) you'd need to look at this 1886 map because it had disappeared by this 1902 map... The advantage of having an external link is that the editor has made a (hopefully) sensible decision about the best map to view.
Is there a case for adding a map parameter to the various station infoboxes that would link to an NLS map?
Ideally, I'd love to create a map for every station (using OS open data) showing it in relation to the current geography and in relation to nearby stations and junctions, but that's a lot of work! But I do think it's useful to have some sort of map of the station and its connections. Robevans123 (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The editable bit of GeoHack is Template:GeoTemplate, look for the Great Britain section and edit that. If you add another table, it needs to go before the </div> tag. Earlier maps are accessible through the GeoHack page, I normally use the one in the "Old OS maps" row, two down from "National library of Scotland". This gives (I think) a one-inch fifth edition map, usually from the 1918-39 period. But if you centre the feature of interest in the transparent square, and click "View at old-maps.co.uk" upper right, you get to a website that has large-scale (1:10560 and 1:2500) maps going back over 150 years.
Adding a mapping param to the infobox is possible, but it would probably be removed again because of the coordinates links. Even the |gridref= parameter was controversial. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Huge game[edit]

Woo-hoo!! 20–61 What a game. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:23, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The lad did good! Back to the TV. Robevans123 (talk) 14:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, a somewhat tense afternoon of rugby. Hard to look away! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:46, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I thought we'd set Ireland a hard task, but they managed it. Interesting to see what England manage... Robevans123 (talk) 16:57, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Naturally, I'd prefer a win by the shamrocks. Quite a few points required. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:03, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Allez les Bleus. But it's going to be damn close. Robevans123 (talk) 17:58, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
What an incredible three games. Poor England. Very good refereeing! Martinevans123 (talk) 18:58, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A-Ma-Zing! Clearly the most tries in a six nations weekend - but will need to check the records to see by how much. It is shame we'll never see a Wales game ref'ed by the best rugby union ref, but good to see someone keeping Balshaw quiet. Robevans123 (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, indeed. That game was incredibly tense, down to the very last seconds. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC) ... after writing off WP:ITN as a bad job (following a bad experience with some 400-year-old bones in a Spanish Convent), I couldn't resist offering support for it. On second thoughts, don't bother, it's not global enough. Reply[reply]
Several Six Nations records, apparently. Most points scored in a single weekend; most points in a single match; only the second time that the losing side had scored 30+. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes - and I suspect, but need to check, that the Italy v Wales game set the record for points in a match, only for it to be broken a few hours later by England v France... The world cup should be interesting! Robevans123 (talk) 21:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Waverley Line - substantial edit - seeking advice[edit]

As per Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification points 1 and 4.2, I am seeking advice on this substantial [1] edit on Waverley Line. Discussion at Talk:Waverley Line please.--KlausFoehl (talk) 15:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Clifton Down railway station[edit]

Regarding this revert, the reference for that sentence does not justify it, but the information is stated in the next sentence anyway, where it is cited. So the revert is still good, just not for that reason. -mattbuck (Talk) 21:44, 10 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks. Robevans123 (talk) 21:55, 10 April 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

No, it didn't[edit]

Hi, re this - no, it didn't *seem* to cause problems, but it did behind the scenes - the problems were invisible. On 8 October 2015, some code was added at MediaWiki level to detect these inconsistencies, and report an error. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 141#Citation error, particularly the first two posts. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Cheers. A sensible fix. I shouldn't have been so sloppy when adding the original refs! A cut and paste error I suspect... Robevans123 (talk) 16:26, 8 November 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

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) 17:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Season's Greetings[edit]

File:Xmas Ornament.jpg

To You and Yours!
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nadolig Llawen[edit]

Martinevans123Santas Grotto ... sends you warmest wishes for a:

"Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda"

May the true spirit of Christmas bless you with warmth and peace! ... And "Mele Kalikimaka" (Hawaiian Merry Christmas)!!

Thank you! Lovely artwork (I can see myself being pushed around like that in a few years) and the link to a classic popular christmas song with an interesting slide show with not a shell out of place. Went to a Carol Service in Waterbeach this afternoon and heard Myn Lyking in a setting by R. R. Terry, which was rather fine, and the first time in many years that I've heard a carol I've not sung or heard before. Must find a recording somewhere. Robevans123 (talk) 19:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How fascinating. User:Gerda Arendt might well be interested in that. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Apparently, it's in Carols for Choirs - Vol 2 (the orange book). I've only got Vol 1 (the green book). I must have a look at it when I see my organist/choirmaster nephew on Boxing Day. Robevans123 (talk) 19:40, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, do ask. No need to be shy! Martinevans123 (talk) 19:58, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
There is a vide o at [2] Robevans123 (talk) 20:08, 20 December 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's very lovely. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:31, 1 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ticklish Typos[edit]

Four editors race to fix a typo

I often gnome away on fixing typos; sometimes tedious, sometimes challenging, but occasionally amusing when the typo is more interesting or surreal than the correction. I think it might be useful to have an alternative DYK, along the lines of DYRTT (Did You Really Think That)...

or that:

Any additions gratefully received. Robevans123 (talk) 15:41, 1 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A Typo Team barnstar for you! ;-))[edit]

The Typo Team Barnstar
Dear Rob;
Welcome to the Typo Team and congratulations on hitting the ground running! Well done and thank you for all your contributions to our encyclopedia.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 21:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The original Urban Typo Spaceman!?Taverns Man I 123 (talk) 21:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
First Newport Wiki Meetup ..... (wtf!! I'm sure no self-respecting merinos would be seen dead drinking down Pill, mate!!)

Ha ha & Thanks! Actually I'm more the typo of man who when he tries running, hits the ground, and not just with the soles of his feet. I thought you might be a Taverns Man. Maybe we should have a drink someday. Unfortunately I don't get down to Newport as regularly as I used to. Robevans123 (talk) 21:38, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As we all know....Newport is just a State of Mind. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC) ... whoah!! you're not from ... up North are you?? Reply[reply]
No! I'm from Cwmbran (and born in the workhouse in Panteg), and currently exiled in the East. Robevans123 (talk) 22:10, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
No way! I "have relations" in the land of the Tractor Boys ... and once lived within stumbling distance of lazy water meadows: [3] Martinevans123 (talk) 22:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC) ... (but born in a luxury golf, spa and leisure hotel and resort, alas). Reply[reply]
My sisters were born in the same place. My parents never sufficiently explained my lowly start (but at least I was born within ear shot of the locomotive whistles of Pontypool Road which must make me a Taffney or something). I've been in the area about 5 years and I'm still trying to "have relations"... It's as I would imagine it's like living in the Gwent Levels, but without the interest of Twmbarlwm and the Severn Estuary, or having England in the way to break the East wind from the Urals...
Think yourself lucky! When there's a high tide, us folks down on the moors are a bit below sea-level! [4] Martinevans123 (talk) 23:02, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A problem shared...[edit]

Hi Guys (@Redrose64: @HJ Mitchell:),

I have a problem that goes across a number of areas. I wonder if you guys can help, or if not, point me to the right place to get an answer. Thanks in advance. Here goes...

I'd been attacking a list of misspellings (insitution > institution) and found myself editing an article on a Malaysian university with the title (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman), with not only a typo, but also a word order based on the original Malay. An obvious candidate for moving (probably to "Tunku Abdul Rahman University").

Before doing that, I did a global (Wikipedia) search for "universiti " to see how widespread the problem was (~1,100 hits) - which was more than I was expecting. A bit more digging showed that these were mainly related to a number of Malaysian universities, and that a few related Categories and Templates were also mis-spelt and with an unusual word order (there are also a number of files and categories affected on commons, but we'll come back to that later).

A bit more investigating showed that the main culprit for generating so many typos was a nav box ((Universities in Malaysia)) with about 80 blue links, of which about 20 have mis-spelt names. If all the universities listed used the nav box then there should be 1,600 typos (a bit more than were found, but obviously the source of a lot of the typos).

So, I'm guessing that it's ok for me to be bold and rename all these mis-spelt university articles to something like "University of some place in Malaysia" or "some-one/thing commemorated in Malaysia University", and to follow that up with some editing of the article so that the lede starts with "Fully anglicised name (and acronym)" in bold, followed by Malaysian name an acronym as a secondary title.

After that the rest of the article should use the anglicised name or acronym (although there may be occasional justifiable reasons for using the Malay version depending on context).

A good example of a correctly named article is National University of Malaysia which has a good first sentence in the lede but then consistently uses the Malay name...

Please let me know if I'm correct so far in my assumptions about what should be done.

Next, how to achieve this (with the least disturbance to Wikipedia) in a safe and trackable way. I think the best way is:

  1. Move article as mentioned
  2. Edit ((Universities in Malaysia)) to reflect the new name
  3. If present, edit the article to change ((Commons category)) to ((Commons category|Malay name|English name))
  4. Edit the article so the text uses the English name or acronym where necessary
  5. Repeat steps 1 through to 4 for each mis-spelt article
  6. Put in a request for speedy renaming of the 7 or so mis-spelt categories (reasons C2A, C2B, and C2D)
  7. Fix any remaining occurrences of "universiti"
  8. Go for a long lie down in a darkened room...

Interestingly, the article where I first saw this problem (Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman) is named after Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia after independence. This is not mentioned in the article (but I've got a source for that so I'll edit that in).

There's still the question of whether the categories and files on commons need renaming, but I'm less familiar with the naming conventions over there, but I do know that you can't do any of it yourself - it's all done by request. At least the procedure above should sort of the errors in Wikipedia and not affect the links to commons.

Many thanks in advance. Robevans123 (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This didn't notify me, perhaps because the ((ping)) was malformed, so it probably didn't notify @HJ Mitchell: either. Anyway, I tend to avoid the issue - the word order being "peculiar" to us might be "normal" to others. Consider A.F.C. Bournemouth - to me, that's peculiar (I parse it as Association Football Club Bournemouth), and has a foreign look like A.C. Milan, FC Porto or R.S.C. Anderlecht - an English football team would have a name like Bournemouth A.F.C. But the club itself apparently chose that inverted order, so I'm not going to move it to what looks "right" to me. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:57, 7 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks Redrose64 - probably should have been more specific. Quite a few of the articles in question list an English name as a secondary name in the first sentence of the lede (for example, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka includes Technical University of Malaysia Malacca as the secondary (English) name; Tun Hussein Onn University of Malaysia, which has an English title, then includes - Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM; English: Tun Hussein Onn University of Malaysia); International Islamic University Malaysia starts with The International Islamic University Malaysia (Arabic: الجامعة الإسلامية العالمية بماليزيا; Malay: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia); Universiti Malaysia Terengganu starts with The Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (English: University of Malaysia, Terengganu) or UMT, formerly known as Kolej Universiti Sains dan Teknologi Malaysia (English: University College of Science and Technology Malaysia) or KUSTEM, in Malaysia, and so on. And some, such as National University of Malaysia refer to themselves as that same title on their own (English language) website. So there is a clear trend in both the articles that have an English name and the those that have a Malay name that you usually move the "University" to the end and do some translation when not dealing with a name (eg Teknikal -> Technical). I'm just trying to get all these articles from one area into a consistent naming style (with the added bonus that we'd make all these articles more in line with the broad naming conventions used for universities in English speaking countries).
I think the AFC Bournemouth situation is quite different - they, at some time, chose to be different; it's their official name, and we should follow that. If the University of Liverpool decided to rename itself University Liverpool we would go along with that, (cf the recent change of First Great Western to GWR...). Robevans123 (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Personally I'd skip steps 1-7 and go straight to 8. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC) Reply[reply]
I'm inclined to agree with Martin, to be honest! That many instances of it makes me think it's probably not an accident, and it's a subject matter and geographical area I know nothing about. It could be a convention in that part of the world or it could just be a bad translation. If you wanted to fix it, I'd suggest finding someone who knows about Malaysian universities and asking their opinion first. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:46, 8 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Malaysia borders on to Thailand - is this something that Kudpung (talk · contribs) would know about? --Redrose64 (talk) 10:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks. They should pick up this discussion after being mentioning. However, I still think this is actually not about local knowledge but primarily about naming conventions in the English wikipedia, where we generally use English names: Stendhal University not Université Stendhal, unless the foreign name has substantial usage in the English language, for example, Arc de Triomphe, not Triumphal Arch or Arch of Triumph. Thinking about it the Stendhal example is particularly relevant since French and Malay seem to have the same style of naming. Robevans123 (talk) 10:35, 8 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Sorry, I live 2,000 km from the Malay border and Malaysia is one of the few SE Asian countries I've never visited. That sad, there is a strong tradition of using English i nthis former British colony and as this is the en.Wik, I would be inclined to take the page names from the universities' English language pages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:49, 8 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've raised this question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities under Naming of Universities from Countries that use languages other than English. Wikipedia:WikiProject Malaysia appears to be quiet at the moment. Robevans123 (talk) 18:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Autonomous Universitary Center of Brazil (UniBrasil) listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Autonomous Universitary Center of Brazil (UniBrasil). Since you had some involvement with the Autonomous Universitary Center of Brazil (UniBrasil) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Awaken the Dragon[edit]

Thanks. I really need some assistance in drawing up the core list and missing articles. You should feel free to move whatever you think belongs to Level 1 or 2 core. There may still be some names in Level 2 which you think should be level 1 too. There's still a ton of articles which need adding to them. It makes my task a lot easier if people can help identify the core articles. Difficult too to get a healthy range of topics. Also if there's any articles you can think of in particular you'd badly want to see improved you can add it to the bonus section and we can give extra points to anybody who does it. Paerhaps there's some rail ones you think are core articles? Even if contests aren't really your thing, you're welcome to contribute a few articles during it and put your name down too, no worries if not.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:44, 31 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks - good - I'm drawing up some lists! I want to put Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes up for DYK and then I've some bits and pieces I want to tidy up, but after that I'll add some articles/photos needed and articles that need some work. Oddly enough I haven't thought of railway topics yet (but there are quite a few small stations that need at least a start article). One day I want to tackle all the south wales valley lines but they are quite complicated with lots of changes of ownership and also often two and sometimes three different lines running up the same valley... Other topics that I will look at are: long distance walks; old parishes (very important for history for many years before the setting up of rural and urban district councils); scheduled monuments (need loads of photos) and quite a lot of articles (do sometimes overlap with listed buildings); works by Welsh composers; old parish churches; then there are all the registered areas that have some sort of regulatory monitoring and control (SSSIs, AONBs, Parks, Shipwrecks etc).
Also, I will sign up for it all and register what I do. I must admit I could spend £150 on books just for Gwent/Monmouthshire let alone the rest of Wales! Robevans123 (talk) 14:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thanks. There will be a Pevsner book on the county of the editors choice worth up to £30 on Amazon for whoever creates the most articles on missing listed buildings in the special prizes section! I was considering upping it to £200, £50 second place and a 1200 page Wales encyclopedia for third, but wanted to give some more consolation prizes to runners up. Perhaps the £200 might be a tad more inviting, we'll see.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:36, 31 January 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Do we honestly need to list articles that aren't needed? The entries stating that no new articles are needed for this county, seem beyond the scope of a "hotlist". Sionk (talk) 07:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I thought about that. Maybe we can take it out later, but while it's under development it will stop someone thinking "What about Blaenau Gwent?" and wasting time researching that. Also, I was thinking of cutting and pasting the overall structure for Grade II* buildings and Scheduled Monuments, and also for photos missing, for articles (existing and TBD, and also for the list articles). Maybe leave it in for now and remove it when the overall structure has been re-used once? Robevans123 (talk) 07:43, 2 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Okay point taken about the avoidance of time wasting, seems sensible. As for the photos of listed buildings, I'm generally not finding too many that are missing or can't easily be found online (geograph etc). But there is scope for requesting better photos than the ones currently available, so that may be an option. Sionk (talk) 12:38, 2 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you for your support[edit]

Thank you for participating in the

Women in Music edit-a-thon

  • January 2016
  • More than 250 articles were created
  • Hosted by Women in Red

(... check out our next event)

--Ipigott (talk) 09:00, 3 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Watprn[edit]

Great to see you are still finding ((Watprn)) useful, and that you are tackling individual sites. Good work. I have followed up your suggestion, and managed to implement a long form of the reference. I couldn't get it to integrate with Cite web - it was determined to do wierd things, so it just creates a nice entry, to use within a <ref></ref> tag. Have a look at the documentation at ((Watprn)) and let me know if it doesn't make sense. RobinLeicester (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you! I've updated Twmbarlwm already. It will make it so much easier now when I grab refs from the various lists to put into articles. The documentation looked fine to me (although it might be useful to add a note that it can be wrapped in ((wikicite)) if you're using short footnotes). When I was learning to do referencing it took me ages to find ((wikicite)) when I was using the ((London Gazette)) template for an article that already used short footnotes. And I often find I can't remember the trick, search unsuccessfully for "cite wiki", and finally have to try and remember where I've used it and dig into the source... I've already used this trick on a draft I'm working on (War Memorials in Wales).
I have some (very minor) thoughts on the layout. Will post more later. Once again thanks expanding the template. Robevans123 (talk) 09:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

DYK nomination of Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes[edit]

Hello! Your submission of Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! —♦♦ AMBER(ЯʘCK) 21:03, 28 February 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

DYK for Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes[edit]

— Coffee // have a cup // beans // 12:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Precious[edit]

typos and Welsh music

Thank you for quality articles such as Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes and Charles Spagnoletti, for going after typos, "adopting" several, for working from draft and try-out, for welcoming new user, with a "mild warning" if necessary, for thoughtful replies, - Rob, you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:50, 7 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dear Rob,
Warmest congratulations to you on being identified as an awsome Wikipedian, which is richly deserved! Thank you for everything you do in support of our encyclopedia—including the Typo Team —and your fellow editors.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 15:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Four years ago, you were recipient no. 1342 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Pasg Hapus, Robo.[edit]

Some Easter Lead Belly for you!
"Pasg Hapus! ... Happy Easter to you!"
Martinevans123 (talk) 10:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Diolch. Great track! Robevans123 (talk) 10:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

((Railways in Bridgwater RDT))[edit]

Since you and UsedDenim mentioned this template, thought I'd ask about the British cellophane, as it seems to be off the side of the line. -mattbuck (Talk) 11:16, 7 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Mattbuck: and cc: @Useddenim: - wow - this very good template uses overlays to create icons - never tried that - way above my pay grade. I'm sure Useddenim will be able to fix it. There also does some to be a bit of a glitch at the line for Carriage works.

Allt y wern[edit]

Looks like ref 7 in Allt y wern is kaput. URL as shown in the references section is en.wikipedia :). Yours. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:08, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh. And you write a damn good SSSI article. I speak as one who writes slightly less damn good SSSI articles than you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And, since I have your attention: I generlly put together a couple of redirects per SSSI article - Allt y wern Site of Special Scientific Interest and Allt y wern SSSI - probably as much to massage my article creation score as to provide direct accesss to the article for anyone searching for either of these terms. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:12, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you! Only got into working on the SSSI articles through the Awaken the Dragon project, but I had a feeling before that it was an area that could do with a lot of work. I think there are 60+ SSSI stubs in Carmarthen alone... It's an interesting area - there are the standard sources from National Resources Wales, but a bit of googling can throw up some interesting bits - I have an article on ponies being left to graze at Clegir Mawr to improve the habitat which I'll add soon. I had thought that some redirects might be a good idea. Will add some soon unless you get there before me!
I hope I've fixed ref 7 - I did have the wrong page number - clicking on it should redirect to ref 3 - it seems to work for me. Are you getting a different result?
Thanks for fixing Map ref - the dangers of cut-and-paste. Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 08:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Ah, okay; I see the same thing on ref 7 ... ref 3 is highlighted. Not convinced that's a good thing, though, if only on the basis that if it confused me, it'll possible confuse other users. My preference would be for a distinct stand-alone reference, the anchor of which is linked to the third party site. Not sure what the prevailing wisdom on wikipedia is in this respect, so I leave the decision to you.
I like your nbn.org.uk map link. I've been using DEFRA's magic map - not the most intuitive design, but handy once grokked. Yes, many SSSI articles to improve. They're something of a backwater. 'tis a shame we don't have a single URL that would take us to the collection of Natural Resources Wales documents for use as an EL. I've been providing distinct ELs for the Citation, Map and 'Your Special Site' documents ... you linked to the Designated Sites page in Beddmanarch–Cymyran, nothing in Clegir Mawr and nothing from NRW in Allt y wern. I'm not sure, in the final analysis, what the best policy for ELs is. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:42, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes - I wasn't entirely sure about the referencing. My preference is to use shortened footnotes with a list of sources for all references, but it seems a bit over the top for shortish articles with only a handful of references. I also discovered that you could define the sources inside the reflist template, but then realised it's a bit limiting if you want to refer to different pages in the same source, hence the usage at Allt y wern. I think I'll switch to shortened footnotes with sources listed separately as soon as I start needing to ref different pages.
I only found the DEFRA magic map thing the other day (from List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Greater Manchester which includes a list of maps in a column of the table - neat trick). Will have to get to grips with it.
Mmm - I've not been entirely consistent on ELs - been making it up as I went along! I like what you've done at Smarts Quarry - listing three different maps - people who explore the SSSIs can pick the style they like! Can you put things in ELs that you've used as a ref? I thought there were rules against it? Not that I think it's a great rule - some readers won't want to look at the references in detail, and if something is in the ELs you have more freedom to describe what it is, rather where to find source (again as you've done in Smarts Quarry).
Still not entirely sure what the structure of the contents for an SSSI should be. Going to give all this a good long ponder over the next week or so! Robevans123 (talk) 10:04, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The refs at Allt y wern are of a style that I often use for short articles (see for example Spetchley railway station), with one difference: in such a case I wouldn't use ((sfn|Allt y Wern SSSI|p=4)) but <ref>((harvnb|Allt y Wern SSSI|p=4))</ref> instead. This is because some people don't realise that ((sfn)) is a referencing tag (see Shortened footnotes), but are likely to be familiar with <ref>...</ref>. The important params of ((harvnb)) are the same as those of ((sfn)). It's a pity that the SSSI PDF doesn't have credited authors. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:13, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I still have the problems with the UI aspect (clicking on R7 takes you to R3, not the source) and with the logic: in effect we're claiming that Ref 7 can be found in Ref 3, which is to say that info on p.4 of the document can be found on p.3. My head explodes. Messy. Not sure if the sfn vs ref change fixes this. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:25, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
We clashed with an edit conflict, just as I was going out..., followed by a wireless outage... Here's what I was going to say (with up to date comments like this)
Thanks Redrose64. I wasn't sure if TagishSimon was thrown by the output or the source? (ok - it's the UI that's the problem) But I'll go for the alternative format in future. As you say, it's a nuisance that there isn't always a credited author (and it's even worse as this doc doesn't have a date either...).
BTW do you think ((cite web)) is the best template to use for these sorts of documents? I toyed with ((cite report)) a while ago but found the added "Report" in the output a little distracting. The documentation says it's intended mainly for unpublished documents, but the docs from Natural Resources Wales are effectively published but don't have an isbn. Thanks again & cheers. Must get to an Oxford meetup soon. Robevans123 (talk) 17:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And back to current time, and back to normal text... Right, so the refs in Allt y wern are working as intended, but are confusing... Can I ask TagishSimon if you found Redrose64's example at Spetchley railway station (where ref 5 links to ref 3) just as confusing? It's basically doing what Op. cit. used to do in paper documents, where it means "in the work cited" (and not "on the same page in the work cites before"). Although Op. cit. is used less and less these days and something like "Jones 1999, p 7" is considered adequate. It is more confusing when you're referencing a source without an author or date, so you have to define the label to say something (hopefully) meaningful like "Allt y Wern SSSI" and "Allt y Wern SSSI, page 7" looks and feels quite different from the Jones example given above. Perhaps it's worth raising on a citation talk page.
I can remember finding many aspects of referencing confusing when I started on Wikipedia (& still do now and again), but the use of shortened footnotes in this way seemed quite straight forward... One man's fish and all that... Robevans123 (talk) 17:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Indeed. By now I'm comforable with the referencing trick (both on the SSSI and rail station articles) and wonder what all the fuss was about; but I'll carp on for Wales, thus: It would still work better in my mind's eye view of the naive user if each of the refs resolved to a distinct citation, so that there is a citation-list of sources with URLs linking to the source document, and a list of references which refer the reader to the source. Right now we seem to be at a half-way house where we have the logical puzzlement of an assertion that we'll find page 4 on page 3. I understand the Op. cit precedent, but I'm not thrilled by it. Equally, this is mainly an angels on heads of pins discussion when we have gaping holes in our SSSI artice collection, and I tend to think that anyone intent on pursuing the references will cope with whatever solution we throw at them.
In other SSSI-writing suggestions, having described the location of the SSSI with reference to nearby villages and towns, I'm dropping a pointer to the SSSI article into the town article, not least since I have the map & citation references to hand as I do it. [5], [6].
When bored, I'm trawling through WikProject Wales articles adding class= & importance= attributes ... which brings me to ponder the question of what an SSSI article needs in order to be a C or a B or higher. Clearly, mine are currently missing the management aspects. But having cleaned out the entire citation for some articles, I wonder what more could be added to move it above a Start; and wonder, if there is no more information, whether we're permitted to think in terms of C, B, GA and FA. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:32, 28 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes, I do agree that the mix of "ordinary" refs and refs/citations is a bit of a halfway house and so not maybe not as immediately obvious as a full set of refs linking to a full set of sources (but this 2nd option, which is my preferred way for substantial articles, also seems a bit OTT for a shortish article with a few refs). I'll sandbox Allt y wern (after Awaken the Dragon has finished), and have a look at all the options.
Nice idea to link the SSSI from the nearby town/village. Will follow suit for others. When there are more reasonable SSSI articles then some cross-links to other SSSIs will be good. For example, I think Beacon Bog (recently expanded) should link to Cors Goch National Nature Reserve (Llanllwch) and Cernydd Carmel since they are all raised bogs in Carmarthenshire - but I'd like to confirm this when expanding the last two (which are very stubby). Also may be useful to sometimes link from species page to SSSIs that feature the species.
I've not worked much on grading articles (it's definitely still an area of confusion for me!), but I agree that if you've said all there is to be said for an SSSI there is no reason for it to get to GA if it's comprehensive, well written and researched. Certainly some sites are sufficiently interesting to be FAs at sometime. I probably need to start with baby steps and work out what it takes to get starts to C or B. Robevans123 (talk) 10:41, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Assessing something as C-class (or lower) is very subjective and entirely up to the individual, nobody really quibbles over the distinction between c/start or start/stub. For higher classes, there are guidelines and other conventions - for example, anything that is assessed B-class should (perhaps "must") meet all six criteria at WP:BCLASS; see also WP:WIAGA, WP:ACLASS and WP:WIAFA. For example, something that meets all the FA criteria except for referencing (FA criterion 1c) cannot be higher than C-class (since B-class criterion 1 also requires refs). --Redrose64 (talk) 11:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you @Redrose64: for some useful links and thoughts. Will investigate more. In the past I've looked at some Good Articles and also Featured Lists which I'd not rated much (but then realised they had been rated a long time ago and maybe not absorbed later standards or had been noticeably changed). Definitely an area I'd like to look into more, but there is so much content to address (just doing decent articles just on all the SSSIs in Wales would be quite a task)! Diolch! Robevans123 (talk) 12:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I forgot to mention, the general quality scale is described at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Quality scale. Most WikiProjects copy this scale as it stands, changing only the examples. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:01, 29 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Contest award[edit]

The Wales Barnstar of National Merit

Congratulations on finishing 5th in the April 2016 Awaken the Dragon contest!! Thankyou for the hard work you've put in during this it is much appreciated! :-) ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:16, 3 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata items with references[edit]

Rather than clog up the RfC, I thought I'd give you an update on what I've done to look at Wikidata items with references. Just as a first step, I've written a module that will scan all of the Wikidata entries for an article and present them in a table. For each one there's a note showing whether references exist or not. I will try to decode the references themselves, but that's a job for tomorrow.

Still much to be done, but you can perhaps get an idea of how we could use what's there so far. Sneaking lots of html comments into an existing infobox is more work, and will probably require consent from the editors of the articles that we might target. Se what you think, --RexxS (talk) 01:52, 19 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi RexxS. Thanks for the links - looks great and very interesting. Firstly, what I was thinking might be useful is something like this: 

((Infobox person
| name         = Charles Spagnoletti
| birth_date   = ((Birth date|1832|7|12|df=y))<!-- imported from English wikipedia -->
| death_date   = ((death date and age|1915|6|28|1832|7|12|df=y))<!-- stated in http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48202 -->
))

where the imported data just has a simple, shortish comment showing the provenance of the data.

More importantly(!), I see Wikidata as (potentially) a very powerful resource that could be used extensively, but I have serious reservations about it (currently) as a reliable source... I do need to take a look at Lua. I'm not a programmer by trade, but I've done some C-shell scripting, and an amount of Perl for titivating and converting text sources for publishing programs like FrameMaker.

I do some work on articles on scheduled monuments and can see great potential with articles like List of Scheduled Monuments in Anglesey, with spin-off articles like St Gwenfaen's Well, and even status/tracking pages like this - the opportunities for re-using and updating information are great, and using defined sources in wikidata, you could quite easily create an infobox with appropriate data and references (there are a couple of standard ones for scheduled monuments).

I've been investigating War Memorials in Wales and someone mentioned it might be suitable for exporting to Wikidata when finished. Would also like to work on SSSIs in Wales - again eminently suitable for exporting to Wikidata.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I think it's impossible to regard Wikidata as a reliable source, and should only be used in infoboxes where the developers have reviewed the available data and regard it as of reasonably good quality. But I'll certainly be looking to add data to Wikidata in the near future to help address this problem. Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yikes - I gave you the wrong code to paste. I fixed it now. I'll go on further today and try to get the references decoded. Unfortunately the preset code that is supposed to format qualifiers and references only seems to work with qualifiers, so I'll have to write my own. Once I'm content we can do that reliably, I'll make a case to try out the idea of html comments that you're interested in. It can't quite work the way you envisage, because when you fetch information from Wikidata, it doesn't show up in the wiki-text, only in the display. Nevertheless I could make a test by placing html comments like "<!-- birth_date: 12 July 1832 -- imported from English wikipedia -->", but you'd still have to examine the page source to see them.
I've been looking at several Wikidata-related ideas concerning Wales and the Welsh Wikipedia with Robin Owain, whom you might know. Hopefully we'll be able to pull together the expertise needed to give the topics related to Wales the boost they deserve. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Good. I've not met Robin, but see his contributions on the Wales Project sometimes. It would be great to set up lots of Wikidata items that would be of benefit here and on the Welsh Wikipedia. Lots of the sources I use from Cadw, RCHAMW, the different archaeological trusts etc. have equivalent sources in Welsh (usually with just a small change in the middle of the file path). Also, when you work in a specific area like SSSIs there's a lot a standard terminology; a Welsh-English dictionary of technical terms for different areas of knowledge would greatly help anyone taking on translation work. Lots of potential.
Just tried ((#invoke:Sandbox/RexxS/WdRefs|seeRefs)) in St Gwenfaen's Well (I put a data item for it into Wikidata earlier today). Works a treat! Diolch. Robevans123 (talk) 17:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
A quick note to let you know that we are hoping to get some more examples of using references in the context of infoboxes up and running. @Julialturner: will likely be basing these on some of the code that she created in Module:Infobox_gene which is now driving most of the infoboxes about human genes via Template:Infobox_gene. (Note that all of the statements used for that are indeed referenced, but we haven't been explicitly testing for that in the code yet.)--Benjamin Good (talk) 17:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Thank you. Good to hear. Quietly adding to Wikidata by hand. Need to learn about enabling bots... Robevans123 (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
@BenjaminGood, RexxS, and Robevans123: I have created an example for based on the Template:Infobox_gene so that a user has a direct link to add a reference. Julialturner (talk) 20:56, 25 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
GCK
Genetically Related Diseases
Disease Name References
maturity-onset diabetes of the young

[7]

type 2 diabetes

click to add reference

maturity-onset diabetes of the young type 2

click to add reference

hyperinsulinism due to glucokinase deficiency

[8]

permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus

click to add reference

rare genetic diabetes mellitus

[9] [10]

diabetes

[11]

maturity-onset diabetes of the young type 9

[12]

The alternate rendering for the references can be found at line 252 in this source module Module:Sandbox/genewiki/generefbox
Very neat! Thanks. Robevans123 (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Nice work, Julialturner. We need lots more of these for other templates so that we can encourage more folks to add refs to Wikidata. --RexxS (talk) 23:37, 25 May 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Community Survey[edit]

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a committee to lead the search for the foundation’s next Executive Director. One of our first tasks is to write the job description of the executive director position, and we are asking for input from the Wikimedia community. Please take a few minutes and complete this survey to help us better understand community and staff expectations for the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director.

Thank you, The Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Steering Committee via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anglesey[edit]

Just want to thankyou for your great support with Dragon and encouraging this. There's so many annoying people on this site that at times it's difficult to remain enthusiastic but with people like you around it's far easier to remember why we're all supposed to be here!♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:57, 6 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Dr. Blofeld:Thank you! But it's my pleasure. While it's quite pleasant tinkering away in the backwaters of Wikipedia, it's also good to come together now and then for concentrated efforts in certain areas. I've really enjoyed this year with Women in Red in Music and Awaken the Dragon and now with Women in Red in Entertainment and Anglesey/Gwynedd and the West Country Challenge coming up. Just need something for the Autumn/Winter now! Robevans123 (talk) 15:30, 6 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wales/Awaken the Dragon/The Anglesey-Gwynedd Challenge[edit]

Hi, can you try to beef up on the Gwynedd core list this weekend? Could use more articles. Some more biographies too I think. I'll have the rules drawn up this evening.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:11, 11 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Anglesey-Gwynedd Challenge[edit]

Just a reminder that this is now open!♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:31, 13 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

TWL HighBeam check-in[edit]

Hello Wikipedia Library Users,

You are receiving this message because the Wikipedia Library has record of you receiving a one-year subscription to HighBeam. This is a brief update to remind you about that access:

Finally, we would greatly appreciate if you filled out this short survey. The survey helps us not only better serve you with facilitating this particular partnership, but also helps us discover what other partnerships and services the Wikipedia Library can offer.

Thank you. 20:32, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Porth Wen Brickworks[edit]

We visited Porth Wen Brickworks when on holiday on Anglesey a fortnight ago and enjoyed scrambling around among the ruins. I could not understand why the brickworks had been built on this site, a thing your article makes clear, and in fact your article explained well the processes involved in making the bricks. Well done! I have nominated the article for DYK. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:23, 22 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Cwmhiraeth:. Thanks - I'd spotted the DYK nomination - that's great. Hope you had a good holiday (with new maps?). Did you take any photos?! And thanks for adding the ref to the article. Should have put a conglomeration of all the coflein refs together for that, but one is much better. Is Gwynedd: Inheriting a Revolution; the Archaeology of Industrialisation in North-West Wales good? How did you find access to the site? I was wondering about putting a section in, but one source said it was private property, another described how to access it, and another said it was now National Trust property (but in fact I think it's only the higher parts - the quarries, winding house, and incline). I did wonder about checking an OS map to see if any of the site is open access.
Also would like to add to the history section, but found the sources a bit confusing/conflicting. Is there anything useful in your book? I've got a paper on industrial archaeology in Anglesey on order.
Found it interesting to see how much industry there was in Anglesey. Will definitely do some work on Amlwch/Parys mountain/Copperopolis etc. Also hope to visit Anglesey sometime for a holiday - only been there on a day visit as part of a week in North Wales many years ago. The Anglesey/Gwynedd challenge has piqued my interest.
Glad you enjoyed the brickmaking process - took a while to piece it together from the sources. I once had a summer job working in a brickworks (making fire bricks) in Cwmbran, although I can't remember much about it apart from cleaning out the tunnel kilns during the shut down week... Robevans123 (talk) 10:02, 22 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I haven't actually read the book, but I could see from the snippet view that it provided an overview of the site. I found the book by searching for "Porth Wen Brickworks" in Google books. As for the site itself, we used my new Anglesey OS map to locate it and followed the Anglesey Coast Path. There were no signs, National Trust or otherwise, but a small path descended from the coast path through the bracken where others had explored before. There was no signage and it was all nice and informal. I took some photos but I doubt there is much of interest among them. (I have not yet downloaded them into my computer because Microsoft installed Windows 10 without my consent and I have not yet rediscovered how to download and access my photos.) Parys Mountain was interesting too. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:22, 22 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Porth Wen Brickworks has been nominated for Did You Know[edit]

Hello, Robevans123. Porth Wen Brickworks, an article you either created or to which you significantly contributed,has been nominated to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as part of Did you knowDYK comment symbol. You can see the hook and the discussion here. You are welcome to participate! Thank you. APersonBot (talk!) 12:01, 22 June 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

DYK for Porth Wen Brickworks[edit]

On 2 July 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Porth Wen Brickworks, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Porth Wen Brickworks on the north coast of Anglesey made fire bricks from locally quarried quartzite? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Porth Wen Brickworks. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, ), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. 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.

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:03, 2 July 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Table color schemes[edit]

Hi Rob, I'm just letting you know that I responded to your points at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Accessibility#Color_schemes_for_tables. If you are still interested in helping out please let me know and we can organize something. Betty Logan (talk) 04:39, 8 October 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi @Betty Logan: - yes - definitely. I'll set up a little test sheet so it's quick and easy to load and view without scrolling. Also I need to ask a technical question on the forum. Reading a bit more on that test program page, there is something about setting black and white colors (rather than using the defaults) that affect how easily a page can be adapted, and wikipedia seems to fail... I'm still trying to clarify the problem in my head before asking the question... Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Hi Rob, I don't think we need to do anything too technical. I had a play with the table and managed to get the scheme down to five colors by merging a couple of categories and using the suggestions you pointed out at Category:Articles with images not understandable by color blind users. You can see the result at Color-blind comparison table. Unfortunately it has been reverted so I will need to overcome the resistance, but I think it just about works. Betty Logan (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Related[edit]

Hi, what does this do? --Redrose64 (talk) 00:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi there. It sets the pages shown at the bottom of the page if you have the Related pages beta feature turned on, on your Preferences page. It uses some sort of algorithm to decide to show three "related pages" with pretty pictures at the bottom. It can work quite well, but seems to fall down for pages that aren't visited often. So, I used the option to manually set the related pages with the syntax shown. Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 11:31, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Isn't it redundant to a carefully-chosen "See also" section? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes - I think it is. Just tried it out as a beta tool test. The rationale behind the tool is to create a limited number of more noticeable links for anyone who gets to the bottom of the page, and get a higher click-through rate... You can comment on the project page on both it's usefulness and/or redundancy. I do remember when I didn't give the specific values, it linked to a different locomotive from a different company with a different wheel arrangement, from a different time etc. For the life of me, I couldn't work out why it would pick that locomotive rather than any other steam locomotive... Feel free to remove the values to see what you get (you have to save - what it suggests is not visible in preview). Or just give the tool a try and see what you get on some other pages. Robevans123 (talk) 16:53, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:Cantata Memoria.jpg[edit]

⚠
⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Cantata Memoria.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image 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 images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Majora (talk) 21:08, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Seems like we've got 8 days to produce an article! But I'm sure the image of the cover will be around for a lot longer.... Martinevans123 (talk) 21:20, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I've started a draft (User:Robevans123/sandbox/Cantata Memoria) - should have it finished in a day or two. Robevans123 (talk) 23:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Good stuff. Looks very promising! Martinevans123 (talk) 23:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]


Europe 10,000 Challenge invite[edit]

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:09, 7 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open![edit]

Hello, Robevans123. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority 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 in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oi!, Robbo, me ol' china[edit]

Martinevans123 (Santa's Drop-in Centre) ... sends you ...


... warmest seasonal wishes for ...
Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Hoping that Christmas may bless you with peace, love and understanding... and wishing that you may find your true star...

Merry, merry![edit]

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 04:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC) Reply[reply]

Pasg Hapus[edit]

Some Easter Gwyn Hughes Jones for you
"Pasg Hapus! ... Happy Easter to you" ... y geiriau. Martinevans123 (talk) 00:20, 16 April 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hygga House Dovecote, Trellech[edit]

It's gorgeous, isn't it! I picked it up on a Welsh trip last weekend, when I got a good few more for the Grade II* listed buildings in Monmouthshire article. But it's a long haul. KJP1 (talk) 09:58, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

KJP1 Yes - lovely. I'd seen it on the list, and had it as a target for photos of Gwent buildings and monuments. I've not had the chance to go back for a while to take more photos. Good work on filling in the gaps on Monmouthshire listed buildings. It can be a bit of a slog, but well worth it! Robevans123 (talk) 10:08, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And I'd not made the connection with the Hygge lifestyle until reading the article.Robevans123 (talk) 10:16, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
If you do get down again, do try for Mounton House and Moynes Court and Gatehouse. Not encouraging trespassing, of course, but I failed miserably. They are both very private, which is the owners' privilege, but it is frustrating that we have no decent pictures. I may have to invest in a drone! KJP1 (talk) 10:21, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Yes - a drone and large telephoto lens would be very useful, but you risk being categorised as an architecture paparazzo... There are pictures of Moynes court on the Cadw page here. I keep meaning to nag Cadw to release their images onto Commons... You could always book yourself in for a night at Moynes Court Gatehouse - only £165 per night in the low season! Robevans123 (talk) 10:38, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Church of St Dyfnog, Llanrhaeadr[edit]

Rob - this one's confusing me. Is it St Dyfnog's church, Llanrhaedr-yng-Nghinmeirch, in Debighshire, Clwyd, or is it St Dogfan in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Powys? Or are they the same church. They can't both have bloody Jesse Windows and be famous as the home of the translator of the Welsh bible! KJP1 (talk) 14:05, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@KJP1: I'll take a look when I get back from the shops! It can get confusing because the sources such as coflein and Cadw can use noticeably different names/addresses. It took me a while to sort out St Tanwg's Church, Llandanwg which had a picture of one church and an infobox and references from St Tanwg's Church, Harlech (which replaced the older church...). Great work on the missing churches! Robevans123 (talk) 14:14, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Many thanks. The Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant article talks of Powys/Clwyd(Denbighshire) boundary changes in 1974 and again in 1996, as does Pevsner's Clwyd. I think they might be the same. KJP1 (talk) 14:23, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Looking in the Powys Pevsner under Llanrhaeder-Ym-Mochnant it says, "The main part of the village, including the church of St Dogfan is in the historic county of Denbighshire. In 1996 the whole parish became part of Montgomeryshire (i.e. Powys)". But the entry for the Church is in the Clwyd Pevsner. So I think the answer is it is one church but we, being up to dat, should locate it in Powys. KJP1 (talk) 15:54, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
So - This Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch and this Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant refer to the same church? The first calling it St Dyfnog's and placing it in Denbighshire, the second calling it St Dogfan's and placing it in Powys. What a mess! Need to go and lie down before thinking how might we unravel it. KJP1 (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
But they're not the same place and are miles apart on the map!!! Just utterly confused and will await your orders on how to proceed. KJP1 (talk) 16:26, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
200

versus

200

I actually now think they are two churches and Wikipedia editors have confused the details?? KJP1 (talk) 16:37, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Was just beginning to think the same thing. There is a community called Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant in (today's) Powys, and a community called Llanrhaeadr Yng Nghinmeirch in (today's) Denbighshire. According to the Church in Wales site there is a St Dogfan, Llanrhaeadr-yn-Mochnant (Powys) and a St Dyfnog, Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmerch (Denbighshire). St Dogfan's is Grade II* and associated with William Morgan (Bible translator). St Dyfnog's is Grade I and has a Jesse window.
So - two different churches, and it's St Dyfnog's, Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmerch, Denbighshire (with its Jesse Window) that is the one on the Sacred Wales list (although St Dogfan's could do with an article one day...). I'd just call the Dyfnog article

"Church of St Dyfnog" or "St Dyfnog's Church". No need to disambiguate further as I'm pretty sure there is only one church named after Dyfnog. Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 17:33, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Rob - very sorry, I think the confusion was mine. Anyway, the Grade I blanks are now filled in and I'll polish up the existing Monmouthshire articles. All the best, KJP1 (talk) 18:16, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
That's really good. I'm strugging to wrap up St Tanwg's - architecture can be a bit of a struggle... Then onto to some of the grade II*'s. Thanks again. Robevans123 (talk) 18:23, 14 August 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello[edit]

Hello, Rob. Good meeting and talking with you at Sunday's meetup. Cheers, cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 08:18, 5 September 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Cmglee: Hi! Good to meet you. Hope the cycling and photography are going well. Don't forget WLM UK 2017! Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 08:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Robevans123. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority 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.

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Wikidata weekly summary #290[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:06, 11 December 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017

A new bibliographical landscape[edit]

At the beginning of December, Wikidata items on individual scientific articles passed the 10 million mark. This figure contrasts with the state of play in early summer, when there were around half a million. In the big picture, Wikidata is now documenting the scientific literature at a rate that is about eight times as fast as papers are published. As 2017 ends, progress is quite evident.

Behind this achievement are a technical advance (fatameh), and bots that do the lifting. Much more than dry migration of metadata is potentially involved, however. If paper A cites paper B, both papers having an item, a link can be created on Wikidata, and the information presented to both human readers, and machines. This cross-linking is one of the most significant aspects of the scientific literature, and now a long-sought open version is rapidly being built up.

The effort for the lifting of copyright restrictions on citation data of this kind has had real momentum behind it during 2017. WikiCite and the I4OC have been pushing hard, with the result that on CrossRef over 50% of the citation data is open. Now the holdout publishers are being lobbied to release rights on citations.

But all that is just the beginning. Topics of papers are identified, authors disambiguated, with significant progress on the use of the four million ORCID IDs for researchers, and proposals formulated to identify methodology in a machine-readable way. P4510 on Wikidata has been introduced so that methodology can sit comfortably on items about papers.

More is on the way. OABot applies the unpaywall principle to Wikipedia referencing. It has been proposed that Wikidata could assist WorldCat in compiling the global history of book translation. Watch this space.

And make promoting #1lib1ref one of your New Year's resolutions. Happy holidays, all!

November 2017 map of geolocated Wikidata items, made by Addshore

Links[edit]

To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see below.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda[edit]

Martinevans123 (Santa's Drop-in Centre) ... sends you ...


... warmest seasonal wishes for ...... Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Oi, Billy-hill-o-haz-beanz... Hoping that Christmas may bless you with peace, love and understanding... and wishing that you have a good run in 2018!!

Wikidata weekly summary #304[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
  • Development
    • Looking into current Lua usage to see where we can improve the Lua functions we provide (phab:T189506)
    • When there is a constraint violation in a reference, the reference is now automatically expanded to make it more visible (phab:T177970)
    • Looked into issues around notifying the Wikipedias about changes happening on Wikidata (sometimes delayed due to too quick bot editing) (phab:T189772)
    • Fixed some translation issues in the embeded part of the Query Service (phab:T188990)
    • Fixed an issue with usernames being broken for Wikidata changes in watchlist and RC on Wikipedia (phab:T189320)
    • Optimizing a heavily used database table (wb_terms) (phab:T188279)
    • Polishing a lot of things for lexicographical data first deployment
    • Make it possible to remove a Form (phab:T173332)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #305[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
    • Closed request for adminship: Putnik, Okkn. Welcome on board!
    • Closed request for comments: Former ATE
  • Development
    • New search code for Wikidata merged. You may notice the improvement in the search results output for Wikidata item. However, new code for search is not enabled, only new results format. The search code will be enabled next week.
    • Improving formatting of language and lexical category in diff for Lexemes (phab:T189679)
    • Allow to remove a Form (phab:T189675)
    • Translate the grammatical feature properly on Lexemes (phab:T189143)
    • Investigate and fix a bug on Lexemes when undoing an edit (phab:T187215)
    • Progress on refactoring the table wb_terms (phab:T189777, phab:T188993, phab:T188279)
    • Fixing an error on the caching of the constraint checks (phab:T189842)
    • Improving the performance of a table in the database (phab:T180834)
    • Improving the way we're building dumps (phab:T177550)
    • Investigate on improving Lua functions (phab:T143970)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #306[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • if you're working with Lua modules, you can give input here about new functions
    • you can still fill this page if you encounter a problem with suggester ranking

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 12:20, 3 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #307[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Differences between range constraints now work only if both properties are present (phab:T185480)
    • Work on a new constraint unit which defines which units are alowed for a given property (phab:T164372)
    • Make the Special:ConstraintReport easier to understand (phab:T188728)
    • Work on a Lua function which checks if an item is a subclass of or instance of another item (phab:T179155)
    • Started deleting old autopatrolled from the loggin table (phab:T190447, phab:T184791)
    • More work on setting up permissions for Lexeme (phab:T189480)
    • Fixing a bug about removing the last Lemma (phab:T189185)
    • Disabling the possibility to move a Lexeme (phab:T189481)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:03, 9 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Prose list[edit]

As you asked for the ability to have a list of values read as normal prose, I've added that functionality to the sandbox for testing:

I don't think it will find much use in infoboxes, but it's there if needed. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 15:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@RexxS: Many thanks. I had a look at, and tried, ((Pagelist)) but that added (an extra layer of) wikilinks. I was going to suggest that it might be a good source for code though. And I also later realised it wasn't necessary for infoboxes. Still useful to have for the future (or even to subst when generating some text for an article).
The rogue city of Zaporizhia proved interesting. I nosed around a bit more and realised that it was cropping up as a sister in a few places but very little else immediately findable on the web. It seems to be a twinning that is not active. The twinning started in 1973. Birmingham considered pulling out around 1980 (Russian invasion of Arghanistan), and the twinning probably faded away after Ukraine gained independence (1980). Seemingly impossible to find a date that the arrangement formally ended though. There can be a surprising number of nuances with this sort of data.
All probably a bit nuanced for the RFC though - it seems to have descended into editors being berated for how they voted and what the are, or are not, going to do. Sigh. At least we manage sensible and thoughtful discussions... Cheers Robevans123 (talk) 17:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018

The 100 Skins of the Onion[edit]

Open Citations Month, with its eminently guessable hashtag, is upon us. We should be utterly grateful that in the past 12 months, so much data on which papers cite which other papers has been made open, and that Wikidata is playing its part in hosting it as "cites" statements. At the time of writing, there are 15.3M Wikidata items that can do that.

Pulling back to look at open access papers in the large, though, there is is less reason for celebration. Access in theory does not yet equate to practical access. A recent LSE IMPACT blogpost puts that issue down to "heterogeneity". A useful euphemism to save us from thinking that the whole concept doesn't fall into the realm of the oxymoron.

Some home truths: aggregation is not content management, if it falls short on reusability. The PDF file format is wedded to how humans read documents, not how machines ingest them. The salami-slicer is our friend in the current downloading of open access papers, but for a better metaphor, think about skinning an onion, laboriously, 100 times with diminishing returns. There are of the order of 100 major publisher sites hosting open access papers, and the predominant offer there is still a PDF.

Red onion cross section

From the discoverability angle, Wikidata's bibliographic resources combined with the SPARQL query are superior in principle, by far, to existing keyword searches run over papers. Open access content should be managed into consistent HTML, something that is currently strenuous. The good news, such as it is, would be that much of it is already in XML. The organisational problem of removing further skins from the onion, with sensible prioritisation, is certainly not insuperable. The CORE group (the bloggers in the LSE posting) has some answers, but actually not all that is needed for the text and data mining purposes they highlight. The long tail, or in other words the onion heart when it has become fiddly beyond patience to skin, does call for a pis aller. But the real knack is to do more between the XML and the heart.

Links[edit]

To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see below.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #308[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Disable Senses in the API for the initial version of the WikibaseLexeme extension (phab:T187198)
    • Create a new data type to allow linking to Forms (phab:T165579)
    • Fix a bug happening when editing a Form (phab:T187215)
    • Enforce permission checks when editing Lexeme (phab:T189480)
    • Make not possible to remove the last lemma (phab:T189185)
    • Make not possible to move a Lexeme (phab:T189481)
    • Implement “Units” constraint (phab:T164372)
    • More work on the possibility to pick an item's parent in Lua (phab:T179155)
    • Show a thumbnail for image/video/audio properties in statements (phab:T46727)
    • Add “no bounds” constraint (phab:T170610)
    • Make the “difference within range” constraint not requiring “item requires claim” constraint (phab:T185480)
    • New Lua function to test for validity of Wikidata entity IDs (phab:T143970)
    • Include checksums in dumps (phab:T190457)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:34, 16 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #309[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Track the number of constraints by type (phab:T191891)
    • Include thumbnails in image statements (phab:T46727)
    • Install Query Service on Factgrid (phab:T189863)
    • Page creation and edit rates (phab:T184948)
    • Implement unit constraint (phab:T164372)
    • Implement no bounds constraint (phab:T170610)
    • Started working on the constraint violation type to restrict to indicate that certain properties can only be used on items or lexemes (phab:T164744)
    • Creating a Docker container for QuickStatements (phab:T192079)
    • Removed hardcoded demo data in Wikibase Lexeme (phab:T188899)
    • New data type for linking to Forms (phab:T165579)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 08:15, 24 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #310[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:44, 30 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #311[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:10, 7 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #312[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
    • Open request for adminship: Adminor
  • Development
    • Fix the bug where changes in the watchlist and Recent Changes on Wikipedia should have been shown but were not (phab:T192673)
    • Clarify error message for the merge API (phab:T180296)
    • Add violation type to restrict which entity types a property can be used (phab:T164744)
    • Added a constraint to blacklist values for a property (phab:T183092)
    • Fix a bug showing the wrong alias in the edit summary when editing an alias (phab:T190492)
    • Fix some bugs related to displaying thumbnails in statements (phab:T193880, phab:T192667, phab:T193499)
    • Continue looking into dispatch issues (phab:T194602)
    • Working on adding an integer constraint (phab:T167989)
    • Preparing to deploy WikibaseLexeme extension on Wikimedia cluster (phab:T168260)
    • Making sure that the form ID counter is preserved when clearing the lexeme via the API (phab:T192264)
    • Applying the same validation to the language code of the Lemma and the representation (phab:T191504)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #313[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Past: Europeana Tech Conference (including a lot of Wikidata workshops and discussions)
    • Past:Wikimedia Hackathon 2018, 18-20 May in Barcelona
      • Check the hashtag #wmhack on Twitter to see what has been worked on regarding Wikidata
      • List of the projects that have been demoed during the showcase
    • Next Wikidata IRC office hour: May 29th at 18:00 (UTC+2, Berlin time) on the channel #wikimedia-office
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • Development
    • Hackathon!
    • Work on adding “integer” constraint (phab:T167989)
    • Fix a bug expanding the references with a constraint violation (phab:T193669)
    • Add a "mis" code language to enable uncoded languages in Wikibase Lexeme (phab:T194754)
    • Improve the different language fields in the interface of editing a Lexeme (phab:T191504)
    • Finish work to edit Forms via the web API (phab:T190906)
    • Include special Lexeme IDs (phab:T187060)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 06:57, 22 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018

ScienceSource funded[edit]

The Wikimedia Foundation announced full funding of the ScienceSource grant proposal from ContentMine on May 18. See the ScienceSource Twitter announcement and 60 second video.

A medical canon?

The proposal includes downloading 30,000 open access papers, aiming (roughly speaking) to create a baseline for medical referencing on Wikipedia. It leaves open the question of how these are to be chosen.

The basic criteria of WP:MEDRS include a concentration on secondary literature. Attention has to be given to the long tail of diseases that receive less current research. The MEDRS guideline supposes that edge cases will have to be handled, and the premature exclusion of publications that would be in those marginal positions would reduce the value of the collection. Prophylaxis misses the point that gate-keeping will be done by an algorithm.

Two well-known but rather different areas where such considerations apply are tropical diseases and alternative medicine. There are also a number of potential downloading troubles, and these were mentioned in Issue 11. There is likely to be a gap, even with the guideline, between conditions taken to be necessary but not sufficient, and conditions sufficient but not necessary, for candidate papers to be included. With around 10,000 recognised medical conditions in standard lists, being comprehensive is demanding. With all of these aspects of the task, ScienceSource will seek community help.

Links[edit]

OpenRefine logo, courtesy of Google
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see below.
Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here.
Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. ScienceSource pages will be announced there, and in this mass message.
If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #314[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • IRC office hour, on May 29th at 18:00 (UTC+2, Berlin time), on the IRC channel #wikimedia-office. Special topic: Lexemes on Wikidata
  • Development
    • Deployed and activate WikibaseLexeme on wikidata.org so you can now store the first lexicographical data on Wikidata (phab:T191457)
    • Fixing the encoding issues on labels of items linked on Lexemes (phab:T195470, phab:T195359)
    • Fixed an issue that was preventing adding Forms and Lexemes in statements (phab:T195402)
    • Suppressed the browser's autocomplete that covers WikibaseLexeme's suggestion on Special:NewLexeme (phab:T195383, phab:T191526)
    • Worked on a bug about representation overwriting other representation with the same language code (phab:T193636)
    • Changed title of the field of a lemma language to make it less likely for people to add a translation as a second Lemma (phab:T193603)
    • Working on the RDF mapping of WikibaseLexeme (phab:T160260)
    • Working on implementing fulltext search for Lexemes (phab:T189739)
    • Working on showing Lemmas for linked Lexemes instead of just their ID on special pages like Special:AllPages (phab:T195382)
    • Fixing issues that happened after dropping an index from the wb_terms table (phab:T194270, phab:T195642, phab:T195611)
    • Made constraint check result appear directly after adding a new statement (phab:T194247)
    • Working on looking up entities by external identifiers on Special:Search (phab:T99899)
    • Added Docker image to Wikibase website (phab:T189936)
    • Added WikibaseImport script to Docker images to make it easier for people to start their own Wikibase install with some data imported from Wikidata (phab:T192080)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #315[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • The API respond for maxlag will in the future also include the dispach lag (phab:T194950)
    • Add Elastic and CirrusSearch in the Wikibase Docker image (phab:T192813)
    • Add OAuth extension to wikibase bundle container (phab:TT192364)
    • Work on showing constraints in the QueryService (phab:T194762)
    • Make the PropertySuggester use CirrusSearch (phab:T195490)
    • Add integer constraint in the constraint checks (phab:T167989)
    • Add “citation needed” constraint type (phab:T195052)
    • Make Special:EntityData should handle form IDs (phab:T192149)
    • Fix encoding problems for labels displayed in Lexemes (phab:T195359)
    • Improve the text in the grammatical feature field (phab:T193604)
    • Work on showing Lemma on Special:AllPages and other pages (phab:T195382)
    • Work on better handling use of statements linking to Lexemes on client (phab:T195615)
    • Fix a bug that breaks Lexeme when language or lexical category items don't have a label (phab:)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:57, 4 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #316[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Press, articles, blog posts
    • Learning to Generate Wikipedia Summaries for Underserved Languages from Wikidata, presented at the Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics by Lucie Kaffee and Hady Elsahar (see the poster and the paper)
  • Development
    • Developing a prototype for usability testing for how the term box (labels, descriptions, aliases) could work on mobile
    • Investigating how we can do the display of items (their label and sometimes description when linked to in a statement or in listings like Recent Changes) in a way that is less of an issue for the database
    • Working on including the dispatch lag in the maxlag API to make it easier for bots to see when they should stop editing because of performance reasons (phabricator:T194950)
    • Working on adding a Lua function to check if an item is a subclass/instance of another one (phabricator:T179155)
    • Created an API that returns constraint violations for an item in TTL format in preparation for making constraint violations queryable in the query service (phabricator:T194762)
    • Started planning for support for Senses
    • Added more helpful text on Special:NewLexeme to make it easier to understand what information is required (phabricator:T193602)
    • Working on pre-filling the spelling variant for a new Form's representation (phabricator:T195708)
    • Worked on showing the Lemma of a Lexeme instead of just its ID in Special:AllPages, Recent Changes and diffs (phabricator:T191600, phabricator:T195382, phabricator:T195511)
    • Made the representation of a Form in a diff link to the Form (phabricator:T195512)
    • Fixed an issue on the Wikipedias and co when a statement in an item that was used there linked to a Form or Lexeme (phabricator:T195615)
    • Made the "publish" button stay disabled for a Lexeme's header when there is nothing to save (phabricator:T196342)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:20, 11 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #317[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Wikibase meetup on June 17-19 in Berlin
    • Past: Wikidata Lab VIII in São Paulo
      • Images, metadata, and gamification of Wikidata by Magnus Manske (video, slides)
      • Discovering and modeling knowledge in Wikidata by Andrew Lih (video, slides)
  • Development
    • Prototype for mobile termbox
    • Moving away from wb_terms table
    • Continued work on making WikibaseLexeme compatible with Wikibase clients (T195615)
    • Error handling and usability for entering lemmas was improved (T196342, T197453)
    • Lexemes no longer randomly pop up in rdf dumps (T194627)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:41, 19 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #318[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Include Wikibase dispatch lag in API "maxlag" enforcing (phab:T194950)
    • Run full constraint check when saving a statement (phab:T194760)
    • Show map on items to preview coordinates (phab:T184933)
    • Implement property scope constraint to say if a property should be used on main snak qualifiers or references (phab:T197473)
    • Investigate on replacements for some parts of wb_terms table (phab:T197161)
    • Fix a UI glitch on Lexeme editing interface (phab:T195298)
    • Add names and descriptions for Lexeme, Form and Sense datatypes on Special:ListDatatypes (phab:T189935)
    • Display a warning message and prevent entering of lemmas with the same spelling variant (phab:T195372)
    • Work on showing description in Item selector in Special:NewLexeme (phab:T165597)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
Respecting MEDRS

Facto Post enters its second year, with a Cambridge Blue (OK, Aquamarine) background, a new logo, but no Cambridge blues. On-topic for the ScienceSource project is a project page here. It contains some case studies on how the WP:MEDRS guideline, for the referencing of articles at all related to human health, is applied in typical discussions.

Close to home also, a template, called ((medrs)) for short, is used to express dissatisfaction with particular references. Technology can help with patrolling, and this Petscan query finds over 450 articles where there is at least one use of the template. Of course the template is merely suggesting there is a possible issue with the reliability of a reference. Deciding the truth of the allegation is another matter.

This maintenance issue is one example of where ScienceSource aims to help. Where the reference is to a scientific paper, its type of algorithm could give a pass/fail opinion on such references. It could assist patrollers of medical articles, therefore, with the templated references and more generally. There may be more to proper referencing than that, indeed: context, quite what the statement supported by the reference expresses, prominence and weight. For that kind of consideration, case studies can help. But an algorithm might help to clear the backlog.

Evidence pyramid leading up to clinical guidelines, from WP:MEDRS
Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:19, 29 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #319[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Celtic Knot Conference, dedicated to Wikimedia projects and minority languages, July 5-6, in Aberystwyth (Wales). A lot of Wikidata workshops will take place during this event.
  • Development
    • Working on prefilling spelling variant of new form representation (phab:T195708)
    • Start breaking down stories in order to implement Senses
    • Finding a better solution for dewiki's Modul:Wikidata isParent (phab:T179155)
    • Adding support for linking to a particular statement (phab:T169224)
    • Implement property scope constraint (phab:T197473)
    • Track maxlag for wikidata on grafana dashboard (phab:T196868)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:29, 2 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #320[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Making progress towards being able to query for constraint violations in the query service
    • Included the dispatch lag in the maxlag parameter to give better feedback to tools and bots if they can edit at the moment (phab:T194950)
    • Added support for linking to a particular statement (not just a statement group) (phab:T169224)
    • Set up L as an alias for the Lexeme namespace (phab:T195493)
    • Worked on making lexical category, language and grammatical feature show up on WhatLinksHere (phab:T195302)
    • Worked on Persistent IDs for Senses (phab:T198033)
    • Improve placeholder text for Lexeme language and lexical category field on Special:NewLexeme (phab:T195439)
    • Show description on the item selector on Special:NewLexeme (phab:T165597)
    • Add "mis" language code to the list of language code options on Special:NewLexeme (phab:T194771)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 08:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #321[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Worked on persistent storage for Senses on Lexemes - started by giving them a stable ID (phabricator:T198033)
    • Adding "mis" language code to the list of language code options on Special:NewLexeme (phabricator:T194771)
    • Made the Items used for Language, Lexical Category and Grammatical Feature show up on Special:WhatLinksHere (phabricator:T195302)
    • When adding a new Form the spelling variant is now filled out automatically based on the Lemma's (phabricator:195708)
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) 16:21, 16 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
Plugging the gaps – Wikimania report

Officially it is "bridging the gaps in knowledge", with Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town paying tribute to the southern African concept of ubuntu to implement it. Besides face-to-face interactions, Wikimedians do need their power sources.

Hackathon mentoring table wiring

Facto Post interviewed Jdforrester, who has attended every Wikimania, and now works as Senior Product Manager for the Wikimedia Foundation. His take on tackling the gaps in the Wikimedia movement is that "if we were an army, we could march in a column and close up all the gaps". In his view though, that is a faulty metaphor, and it leads to a completely false misunderstanding of the movement, its diversity and different aspirations, and the nature of the work as "fighting" to be done in the open sector. There are many fronts, and as an eventualist he feels the gaps experienced both by editors and by users of Wikimedia content are inevitable. He would like to see a greater emphasis on reuse of content, not simply its volume.

If that may not sound like radicalism, the Decolonizing the Internet conference here organized jointly with Whose Knowledge? can redress the picture. It comes with the claim to be "the first ever conference about centering marginalized knowledge online".

Plugbar buildup at the Hackathon
Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #322[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions
    • Open request for adminship: Lakokat
  • Development
    • More work on showing Lexemes and Forms in Special:WhatLinksHere (phab:T195302)
    • Fix wrong translations of Form related strings (phab:T191614)
    • Fix error message for non empty item (phab:T194371)
    • More work on storing Senses (phab:T198032)
    • More work on easy Wikibase Docker instance config generation (phab:T198841)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 09:09, 25 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #323[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • EditGroups can now revert batches which created items. These items are deleted in the revert batch. This feature is only available to administrators but other users can easily request revert from the tool.
    • populationWDvsOSM: a new script that compares the population in OSM place nodes and boundary relations with Wikidata
    • user:Lakokat is back to adminship, congratulations!
    • Terminator, a tool by Magnus Manske that finds Wikidata items that lack a label, description, or article in a specific language, has now a version 2 (blog post)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #324[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Allow to show incoming links on the graph explorer dialog on WDQS (phab:T197778)
    • Fulltext search for Lexemes and Forms (only in Lexeme namespace) has been merged (phab:T196188)
    • We are now collecting click data when completion search on Wikidata is used (phab:T196186) which would serve us to improve search relevancy
    • Fix a lot of issues with our test system (phab:T200693)
    • Disallow merging of items that link to each other in references and qualifiers (phab:T119614)
    • More work on merging Lexemes (phab:T200884)
    • Provide useful HTML title for Lexemes (phab:T195386)
    • Improve the validation and error message when a label, description or alias is too long (phab:T145932, phab:T200780)
    • Expose constraint violations to WDQS (phab:T192567)
    • Add the possibility to download result of a query from the embed mode (phab:T176797)
    • Get persistent editing of Senses done (phab:T196270) (you can try it now on the beta system)
    • Work on edit summary of Senses (phab:T196290)
    • Work on diffs of Senses (phab:T196289)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:33, 6 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #325[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:09, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #326[edit]

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

This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2018-08-20.

  • Development
    • Show Senses in WhatLinksHere (phab:T200980)
    • Build ability to remove Senses (phab:T196283)
    • Reference a Sense in a statement (phab:T196263)
    • Improve the language code check for Lexemes (phab:T198202)
    • Prepare item/property link formatter that uses cache instead of wb_terms DB table (phab:T201831)
    • More work on merging Lexemes (phab:T198104)
    • Showing the Lemma or Representation when Lexemes or Forms are mentioned in constraint reports (phab:T195315)
    • Add new monolingual language codes: uga (Ugaritic), rar (Rarotongan), gmy (Mycenean Greek), mnw (Mon), mid (Modern Mandaic), haz (Hazaragi)
    • Fix a bug on the Query Service interface (phab:T201951)
    • Add number of results in embed map view of the Query Service (phab:T201908)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
Neglected diseases
Anti-parasitic drugs being distributed in Côte d'Ivoire
What's a Neglected Disease?, ScienceSource video

To grasp the nettle, there are rare diseases, there are tropical diseases and then there are "neglected diseases". Evidently a rare enough disease is likely to be neglected, but neglected disease these days means a disease not rare, but tropical, and most often infectious or parasitic. Rare diseases as a group are dominated, in contrast, by genetic diseases.

A major aspect of neglect is found in tracking drug discovery. Orphan drugs are those developed to treat rare diseases (rare enough not to have market-driven research), but there is some overlap in practice with the WHO's neglected diseases, where snakebite, a "neglected public health issue", is on the list.

From an encyclopedic point of view, lack of research also may mean lack of high-quality references: the core medical literature differs from primary research, since it operates by aggregating trials. This bibliographic deficit clearly hinders Wikipedia's mission. The ScienceSource project is currently addressing this issue, on Wikidata. Its Wikidata focus list at WD:SSFL is trying to ensure that neglect does not turn into bias in its selection of science papers.

Links
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Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:23, 21 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #327[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • Structured Data on Commons: A draft specification for using Depicts statements on Commons is up for community feedback.
    • It's possible to add somevalue and novalue using QuickStatements, and to use the tool on test.wikidata.org as well.
    • More properties can be searched using haswbstatement. This includes all properties with "external identifier", "string", "item", "property", "lexeme", "form" and "sense" datatypes, except published in (P1433) and cites (P2860). In addition you may make queries without a specified value.
    • The page creation and edit rate limit imposed in April will be removed in the next days. However, users who are not bots or administrators are throttled to 90 edits per minute (which was set up on all Wikimedia wikis in May).
    • These new languages are now supported for monolingual text strings: mid, mnw, gmy, rar, haz, uga. The language doesn't show up in the suggester, but you can save the statement and it will be stored properly.
    • Reminder: Wikidata's sixth birthday happens in two months. It's time to think about organizing a meetup with your local community, or preparing a gift (see the list of presents last year).
    • Lexicographical data: you can now try Senses on beta
    • 25% of the labeling campaign to improve the vandalism detection on Wikidata has been done. Please help by reviewing a few edits!
  • Development
    • More work on merging Lexemes
    • More work on data types and edit summary for Senses
    • Improve qualifier suggestions using constraint definition (phab:T201288)
    • Improve constraint property item suggestions for property constraint values (phab:T199672)
    • Remove ratelimit from Wikidata for some groups again (phab:T198396)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:13, 27 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #328[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Final polishing on first version of Senses support for Lexemes. (phabricator:T201000, phabricator:T202729, phabricator:T198036, phabricator:T203334)
    • Continued work on merging Lexemes. Merging via the SpecialPage is done and will be rolled out soon. Merging via the API is still being worked on. (phabricator:T189129)
    • Long Lemmas in Lexemes look bad because they are not flowing to the next line and instead break the layout. Working on a fix. (phabricator:T195367)
    • Improving the validity of the HTML of the Lexeme headers. (phabricator:T196228)
    • Worked on showing the Lemma(s) or Representation(s) when Lexemes or Forms are mentioned in constraint reports. (phabricator:T195315)
    • Got a new beta feature ready for deployment that will improve the suggestions for properties like sex/gender by first suggesting the values defined in the one-of constraint. (phabricator:T202712)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 08:15, 4 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #329[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:52, 10 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #330[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Continuing through September and early October: Andy Mabbett is touring Australia for a series of open-science and GLAM Wiki-focused talks, workshops, and meetups.
    • New events added for the sixth birthday of Wikidata: Berlin, Oslo, Tehran, Beijing
  • Development
    • Fix a problem with the language of the lemma (phab:T194347)
    • Improving the diffs for Lexemes (phab:T185481)
    • Exclude es-formal and hu-formal from monolingual text codes (phab:T203311, thanks to MarcoAurelio)
    • Implement the contemporary constraint (phab:T141859, thanks to Abiàn)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:51, 17 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #331[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Work on editing Form statements using the API (phab:T194732)
    • Show the Lemma(s) or Representation(s) when Lexemes or Forms are mentioned in constraint reports (phab:T195315)
    • Add hyphenation for long Lexeme lemmas and representations (phab:T195367)
    • Normalize SPARQL queries (phab:T204122, thanks to Abiàn)
    • Fix a bug on the Query Service about exported query results being different from the displayed result (phab:T195258)
    • Fix a bug on the Query Service about empty map results returning error (phab:T178786)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 10:10, 25 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
The science publishing landscape

In an ideal world ... no, bear with your editor for just a minute ... there would be a format for scientific publishing online that was as much a standard as SI units are for the content. Likewise cataloguing publications would not be onerous, because part of the process would be to generate uniform metadata. Without claiming it could be the mythical free lunch, it might be reasonably be argued that sandwiches can be packaged much alike and have barcodes, whatever the fillings.

The best on offer, to stretch the metaphor, is the meal kit option, in the form of XML. Where scientific papers are delivered as XML downloads, you get all the ingredients ready to cook. But have to prepare the actual meal of slow food yourself. See Scholarly HTML for a recent pass at heading off XML with HTML, in other words in the native language of the Web.

The argument from real life is a traditional mixture of frictional forces, vested interests, and the classic irony of the principle of unripe time. On the other hand, discoverability actually diminishes with the prolific progress of science publishing. No, it really doesn't scale. Wikimedia as movement can do something in such cases. We know from open access, we grok the Web, we have our own horse in the HTML race, we have Wikidata and WikiJournal, and we have the chops to act.

Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #332[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Fix a bug when the "language of Lemma" box doesn't appear after failed submit of Special:NewLexeme (phab:T194347)
    • Fix the order of elements in Lexeme edit diffs (phab:T185481)
    • Enable constraint checks for Lexemes and Forms (phab:T195828)
    • More work on editing Form Statements using API (phab:T194732)
    • More work on a beta feature for suggestions based on constraints (phab:T202712)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #333[edit]

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

Other Noteworthy Stuff[edit]

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 11:48, 9 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #334[edit]

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

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 14:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #335[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • A Wikidata workshop will be led by Shani Evenstein, in collaboration with Wikimedia Israel & and the Israel Internet Association, on 18th & 25th of October in Tel Aviv. The first meeting will be dedicated to an introduction and adding information to WD, and the second meeting will focus on querying & SPARQL.
    • An Introduction to Wikidata by Harmonia Amanda, an Introduction to Wikibase by Sandra Müllrick and a Wikicite workshop by Miriam Redi at the Wiki Techstorm in the Dutch National Library in the Hague on the 26th & 27th of October
    • Many events to celebrate Wikidata's birthday around the world. You can check the full list and the map to find one near you

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:27, 22 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
Wikidata imaged

Around 2.7 million Wikidata items have an illustrative image. These files, you might say, are Wikimedia's stock images, and if the number is large, it is still only 5% or so of items that have one. All such images are taken from Wikimedia Commons, which has 50 million media files. One key issue is how to expand the stock.

Indeed, there is a tool. WD-FIST exploits the fact that each Wikipedia is differently illustrated, mostly with images from Commons but also with fair use images. An item that has sitelinks but no illustrative image can be tested to see if the linked wikis have a suitable one. This works well for a volunteer who wants to add images at a reasonable scale, and a small amount of SPARQL knowledge goes a long way in producing checklists.

Gran Teatro, Cáceres, Spain, at night

It should be noted, though, that there are currently 53 Wikidata properties that link to Commons, of which P18 for the basic image is just one. WD-FIST prompts the user to add signatures, plaques, pictures of graves and so on. There are a couple of hundred monograms, mostly of historical figures, and this query allows you to view all of them. commons:Category:Monograms and its subcategories provide rich scope for adding more.

And so it is generally. The list of properties linking to Commons does contain a few that concern video and audio files, and rather more for maps. But it contains gems such as P3451 for "nighttime view". Over 1000 of those on Wikidata, but as for so much else, there could be yet more.

Go on. Today is Wikidata's birthday. An illustrative image is always an acceptable gift, so why not add one? You can follow these easy steps: (i) log in at https://tools.wmflabs.org/widar/, (ii) paste the Petscan ID 6263583 into https://tools.wmflabs.org/fist/wdfist/ and click run, and (iii) just add cake.

Birthday logo
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #336[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Several developers and members of the team attended to the Wikimedia Technical Conference
    • Fix an issue with interwikilinks and connection between Wikidata and sister projects (phab:T208077, phab:T208124)
    • Refactor Wikibase so that it can use alternative termbox views (phab:T206863)
    • Pass the entity data on the client side (phab:T207462) and server side (phab:T207467)
    • Investigate an error on some Wikidata pages (phab:T208142)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 10:58, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #337[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Helped get MediaInfo deployed on Commons
    • Reduced load on the query service from the constraint checks (phabricator:T204469)
    • Worked on getting constraints checks run regularly in the background so their results are complete in the query service (phabricator:T204714)
    • Enabled access to arbitrary items and properties for Wiktionaries
    • Working on infrastructure parts of the new termbox (the one showing labels, descriptions and aliases) on mobile
Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) 23:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #338[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Displaying Senses before Forms (phab:T208592)
    • Making quality constraints play nicer with the Query Service
    • Putting in the ground work to have quality checks run in jobs
    • Enabling arbritrary access on oldwikisource
    • Allowing configuration of the licence in .ttl output
    • Configuration of more string limits, such as URL and mono / multilingual texts
    • Moving wdqs frontend to a blubber deployment (phab:T192006)
    • Asserting a users name so they can't edit when accidently logged out (phab:T124451)
    • Showcase a termbox placeholder in the mobile frontend of m.wikidata.org (phab:T206200)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 15:23, 12 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message[edit]

Hello, Robevans123. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority 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 in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #339[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Other Noteworthy Stuff
    • A new tool to display Wikimedia Commons categories (and Wikipedia/Wikidata tags) with coordinates on the OSM map
    • The Association of Research Libraries published the draft of a Wikidata Task Force White Paper on how libraries and Wikidata/ Wikibase con join forces aroud linked open data for both library discovery systems and Wikipedia, and advancing a diversity and inclusion agenda in the cultures of both libraries and Wikimedia. The draft is open for public comment until 30 November.
  • Development
    • Fixed a bug that was saving the statement too early when trying to add a qualifier with the keyboard (phab:T154869)
    • Made changes to disallow edits (until the user reloads) if they accidentally get logged out. (phab:T124451)
    • Turn the new change tag back on wikidatawiki (phab:T208846)
    • Better linting against things that don't work in IE11
    • Fixed the wdqs-frontend docker image (phab:T208681, phab:T209206)
    • Fixed html elements in the table result of wdqs (phab:T207257, thanks to user:Frog23)
    • Getting ontology changes deployed to wikiba.se
    • Using maplink or mapframe to view coords on wikidata (phab:T184933)
    • Consistent capitalization of Lexeme/Form/Sense/Item/Property in UI messages
    • Make Lexemes appear in global usage of Commons files (phab:T204066)
    • Work on a new interface for the termbox on mobile (phab:T207150)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 11:18, 20 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #340[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Fix an error when entering an incomplete filename (phab:T199420)
    • Fix the unreadable references for unpriviledged users (phab:T186006)
    • Create new page properties for number of Forms and Senses of a Lexeme (phab:T199611)
    • Adapt the API to efficiently format large numbers of entity IDs (phab:T207484)
    • Switch "save" to "publish" in the Lexeme interface (phab:T203354)
    • Fix a bug showing outdated link formats in the history of Lexemes (phab:T208423)
    • Add Special:MergeLexemes to Special:SpecialPages (phab:T204397)
    • Add Wikipedia link in the other projects sidebar of Wikisource (phab:T180303, thanks to Tpt)
    • Work on displaying the language of the gloss with the language name, both in reading and editing mode (phab:T203457, phab:T209931)
    • More work on improving the interface of the termbox on mobile

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 11:39, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
WikiCite issue

GLAM ♥ data — what is a gallery, library, archive or museum without a catalogue? It follows that Wikidata must love librarians. Bibliography supports students and researchers in any topic, but open and machine-readable bibliographic data even more so, outside the silo. Cue the WikiCite initiative, which was meeting in conference this week, in the Bay Area of California.

Wikidata training for librarians at WikiCite 2018

In fact there is a broad scope: "Open Knowledge Maps via SPARQL" and the "Sum of All Welsh Literature", identification of research outputs, Library.Link Network and Bibframe 2.0, OSCAR and LUCINDA (who they?), OCLC and Scholia, all these co-exist on the agenda. Certainly more library science is coming Wikidata's way. That poses the question about the other direction: is more Wikimedia technology advancing on libraries? Good point.

Wikimedians generally are not aware of the tech background that can be assumed, unless they are close to current training for librarians. A baseline definition is useful here: "bash, git and OpenRefine". Compare and contrast with pywikibot, GitHub and mix'n'match. Translation: scripting for automation, version control, data set matching and wrangling in the large, are on the agenda also for contemporary library work. Certainly there is some possible common ground here. Time to understand rather more about the motivations that operate in the library sector.

Links
Account creation is now open on the ScienceSource wiki, where you can see SPARQL visualisations of text mining.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #341[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Upcoming: "Researcher meets Curator", with a subquestion: "What are the consequences of collecting born digital sources, working with digital network analysis and engaging with linked open data initiatives such as Wikidata", in Maastricht on 22 March 2019. Call for papers
    • Upcoming: Advanced Wikidata Training in India, December 15-16
    • Past: "Wikibase: configure, customize, and collaborate" workshop at SWIB 18 in Bonn, Germany on November 26, 2018. Workshop materials
    • Past: EveryPolitician event to identify political data sources for Wikidata in Madrid, Spain, on December 1, 2018.
  • Development
    • Add Lexeme to Wikibase's ontology.owl (phab:T195368)
    • Prepare to drop change_tag.ct_tag column (phab:T194163)
    • Create Federated Wikibase instance on Beta Commons (phab:T204748)
    • More work on preparing a new termbox for the mobile version of Wikidata

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:35, 4 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #342[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • We are now showing the language name instead of the language code of a Gloss (phabricator:T203457, phabricator:T209931)
    • We added a Page property for easier programmatic access to the number of Senses and Forms of a Lexeme (phabricator:T199611)
    • The code samples in the query service have been improved (phabricator:T207749, thanks abian!)
    • We're working on tracking how often the different Lua functions that Wikibase provides are used in the Wikimedia project to see how that changes over time (phabricator:T191416)
    • We worked on and fixed a security incident related to blocking (phabricator:T210953)
    • We are continuing to bring the termbox (showing labels, descriptions, aliases) to mobile viewers

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 16:05, 10 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Merry Christmas[edit]

Redrose64 🌹 (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! 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 Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding ((subst:Xmas6)) to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:42, 25 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Wikidata weekly summary #344[edit]

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Writing a maintenance script to make configuring WikibaseQualityConstraints easier (phab:T209958)
    • Working on new ID generator using different SQL to attempt to stop lock errors when creating lots of items (phab:T194299)
    • Making more parts of the Query Service UI more configurable such as the copyright page, title, and started work on the favicon / logos (phab:T194175)
    • Adding tracking for Wikibase Lua functions so we can see how they are used on various different projects (phab:T191416)
    • Working on fixing alignment issues with glosses (phab:T207401)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.


Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Lea Lacroix (WMDE) 13:04, 27 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.
Back numbers are here.
Learning from Zotero

Zotero is free software for reference management by the Center for History and New Media: see Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero. It is also an active user community, and has broad-based language support.

Zotero logo

Besides the handiness of Zotero's warehousing of personal citation collections, the Zotero translator underlies the citoid service, at work behind the VisualEditor. Metadata from Wikidata can be imported into Zotero; and in the other direction the zotkat tool from the University of Mannheim allows Zotero bibliographies to be exported to Wikidata, by item creation. With an extra feature to add statements, that route could lead to much development of the focus list (P5008) tagging on Wikidata, by WikiProjects.

Zotero demo video

There is also a large-scale encyclopedic dimension here. The construction of Zotero translators is one facet of Web scraping that has a strong community and open source basis. In that it resembles the less formal mix'n'match import community, and growing networks around other approaches that can integrate datasets into Wikidata, such as the use of OpenRefine.

Looking ahead, the thirtieth birthday of the World Wide Web falls in 2019, and yet the ambition to make webpages routinely readable by machines can still seem an ever-retreating mirage. Wikidata should not only be helping Wikimedia integrate its projects, an ongoing process represented by Structured Data on Commons and lexemes. It should also be acting as a catalyst to bring scraping in from the cold, with institutional strengths as well as resourceful code.

Links
Diversitech, the latest ContentMine grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation, is in its community review stage until January 2.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
Everything flows (and certainly data does)

Recently Jimmy Wales has made the point that computer home assistants take much of their data from Wikipedia, one way or another. So as well as getting Spotify to play Frosty the Snowman for you, they may be able to answer the question "is the Pope Catholic?" Possibly by asking for disambiguation (Coptic?).

Amazon Echo device using the Amazon Alexa service in voice search showdown with the Google rival on an Android phone

Headlines about data breaches are now familiar, but the unannounced circulation of information raises other issues. One of those is Gresham's law stated as "bad data drives out good". Wikipedia and now Wikidata have been criticised on related grounds: what if their content, unattributed, is taken to have a higher standing than Wikimedians themselves would grant it? See Wikiquote on a misattribution to Bismarck for the usual quip about "law and sausages", and why one shouldn't watch them in the making.

Wikipedia has now turned 18, so should act like as adult, as well as being treated like one. The Web itself turns 30 some time between March and November this year, per Tim Berners-Lee. If the Knowledge Graph by Google exemplifies Heraclitean Web technology gaining authority, contra GIGO, Wikimedians still have a role in its critique. But not just with the teenage skill of detecting phoniness.

There is more to beating Gresham than exposing the factoid and urban myth, where WP:V does do a great job. Placeholders must be detected, and working with Wikidata is a good way to understand how having one statement as data can blind us to replacing it by a more accurate one. An example that is important to open access is that, firstly, the term itself needs considerable unpacking, because just being able to read material online is a poor relation of "open"; and secondly, trying to get Creative Commons license information into Wikidata shows up issues with classes of license (such as CC-BY) standing for the actual license in major repositories. Detailed investigation shows that "everything flows" exacerbates the issue. But Wikidata can solve it.

Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
What is a systematic review?

Systematic reviews are basic building blocks of evidence-based medicine, surveys of existing literature devoted typically to a definite question that aim to bring out scientific conclusions. They are principled in a way Wikipedians can appreciate, taking a critical view of their sources.

PRISMA flow diagram for a systematic review

Ben Goldacre in 2014 wrote (link below) "[...] : the "information architecture" of evidence based medicine (if you can tolerate such a phrase) is a chaotic, ad hoc, poorly connected ecosystem of legacy projects. In some respects the whole show is still run on paper, like it's the 19th century." Is there a Wikidatan in the house? Wouldn't some machine-readable content that is structured data help?

File:Schittny, Facing East, 2011, Legacy Projects.jpg
2011 photograph by Bernard Schittny of the "Legacy Projects" group

Most likely it would, but the arcana of systematic reviews and how they add value would still need formal handling. The PRISMA standard dates from 2009, with an update started in 2018. The concerns there include the corpus of papers used: how selected and filtered? Now that Wikidata has a 20.9 million item bibliography, one can at least pose questions. Each systematic review is a tagging opportunity for a bibliography. Could that tagging be reproduced by a query, in principle? Can it even be second-guessed by a query (i.e. simulated by a protocol which translates into SPARQL)? Homing in on the arcana, do the inclusion and filtering criteria translate into metadata? At some level they must, but are these metadata explicitly expressed in the articles themselves? The answer to that is surely "no" at this point, but can TDM find them? Again "no", right now. Automatic identification doesn't just happen.

Actually these questions lack originality. It should be noted though that WP:MEDRS, the reliable sources guideline used here for health information, hinges on the assumption that the usefully systematic reviews of biomedical literature can be recognised. Its nutshell summary, normally the part of a guideline with the highest density of common sense, allows literature reviews in general validity, but WP:MEDASSESS qualifies that indication heavily. Process wonkery about systematic reviews definitely has merit.

Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
When in the cloud, do as the APIs do

Half a century ago, it was the era of the mainframe computer, with its air-conditioned room, twitching tape-drives, and appearance in the title of a spy novel Billion-Dollar Brain then made into a Hollywood film. Now we have the cloud, with server farms and the client–server model as quotidian: this text is being typed on a Chromebook.

File:Cloud-API-Logo.svg
Logo of Cloud API on Google Cloud Platform

The term Applications Programming Interface or API is 50 years old, and refers to a type of software library as well as the interface to its use. While a compiler is what you need to get high-level code executed by a mainframe, an API out in the cloud somewhere offers a chance to perform operations on a remote server. For example, the multifarious bots active on Wikipedia have owners who exploit the MediaWiki API.

APIs (called RESTful) that allow for the GET HTTP request are fundamental for what could colloquially be called "moving data around the Web"; from which Wikidata benefits 24/7. So the fact that the Wikidata SPARQL endpoint at query.wikidata.org has a RESTful API means that, in lay terms, Wikidata content can be GOT from it. The programming involved, besides the SPARQL language, could be in Python, younger by a few months than the Web.

Magic words, such as occur in fantasy stories, are wishful (rather than RESTful) solutions to gaining access. You may need to be a linguist to enter Ali Baba's cave or the western door of Moria (French in the case of "Open Sesame", in fact, and Sindarin being the respective languages). Talking to an API requires a bigger toolkit, which first means you have to recognise the tools in terms of what they can do. On the way to the wikt:impactful or polymathic modern handling of facts, one must perhaps take only tactful notice of tech's endemic problem with documentation, and absorb the insightful point that the code in APIs does articulate the customary procedures now in place on the cloud for getting information. As Owl explained to Winnie-the-Pooh, it tells you The Thing to Do.

Links
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
Completely clouded?
Cloud computing logo

Talk of cloud computing draws a veil over hardware, but also, less obviously but more importantly, obscures such intellectual distinction as matters most in its use. Wikidata begins to allow tasks to be undertaken that were out of easy reach. The facility should not be taken as the real point.

Coming in from another angle, the "executive decision" is more glamorous; but the "administrative decision" should be admired for its command of facts. Think of the attitudes ad fontes, so prevalent here on Wikipedia as "can you give me a source for that?", and being prepared to deal with complicated analyses into specified subcases. Impatience expressed as a disdain for such pedantry is quite understandable, but neither dirty data nor false dichotomies are at all good to have around.

Issue 13 and Issue 21, respectively on WP:MEDRS and systematic reviews, talk about biomedical literature and computing tasks that would be of higher quality if they could be made more "administrative". For example, it is desirable that the decisions involved be consistent, explicable, and reproducible by non-experts from specified inputs.

What gets clouded out is not impossibly hard to understand. You do need to put together the insights of functional programming, which is a doctrinaire and purist but clearcut approach, with the practicality of office software. Loopless computation can be conceived of as a seamless forward march of spreadsheet columns, each determined by the content of previous ones. Very well: to do a backward audit, when now we are talking about Wikidata, we rely on integrity of data and its scrupulous sourcing: and clearcut case analyses. The MEDRS example forces attention on purge attempts such as Beall's list.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019[edit]

Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019
Text mining display of noun phrases from the US Presidential Election 2012
The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Back numbers are here.
Semantic Web and TDM – a ContentMine view

Two dozen issues, and this may be the last, a valediction at least for a while.

It's time for a two-year summation of ContentMine projects involving TDM (text and data mining).

Wikidata and now Structured Data on Commons represent the overlap of Wikimedia with the Semantic Web. This common ground is helping to convert an engineering concept into a movement. TDM generally has little enough connection with the Semantic Web, being instead in the orbit of machine learning which is no respecter of the semantic. Don't break a taboo by asking bots "and what do you mean by that?"

The ScienceSource project innovates in TDM, by storing its text mining results in a Wikibase site. It strives for compliance of its fact mining, on drug treatments of diseases, with an automated form of the relevant Wikipedia referencing guideline MEDRS. Where WikiFactMine set up an API for reuse of its results, ScienceSource has a SPARQL query service, with look-and-feel exactly that of Wikidata's at query.wikidata.org. It also now has a custom front end, and its content can be federated, in other words used in data mashups: it is one of over 50 sites that can federate with Wikidata.

The human factor comes to bear through the front end, which combines a link to the HTML version of a paper, text mining results organised in drug and disease columns, and a SPARQL display of nearby drug and disease terms. Much software to develop and explain, so little time! Rather than telling the tale, Facto Post brings you ScienceSource links, starting from the how-to video, lower right.

ScienceSourceReview, introductory video: but you need run it from the original upload file on Commons
Links for participation

The review tool requires a log in on sciencesource.wmflabs.org, and an OAuth permission (bottom of a review page) to operate. It can be used in simple and more advanced workflows. Examples of queries for the latter are at d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource project/Queries#SS_disease_list and d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource_project/Queries#NDF-RT issue.

Please be aware that this is a research project in development, and may have outages for planned maintenance. That will apply for the next few days, at least. The ScienceSource wiki main page carries information on practical matters. Email is not enabled on the wiki: use site mail here to Charles Matthews in case of difficulty, or if you need support. Further explanatory videos will be put into commons:Category:ContentMine videos.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom 2019 election voter message[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon[edit]

Hi. The Wikipedia:The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon is planned for March 2020, a contest/editathon to eliminate as many stubs as possible from all 134 counties. Amazon vouchers/book prizes are planned for most articles destubbed from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland and whoever destubs articles from the most counties out of the 134. Sign up on page if interested in participating, hope this will prove to be good fun and productive, we have over 44,000 stubs! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:37, 2 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week[edit]

Hello there. This is an invitation to join the 50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week. £250 (c. $310) up for grabs in May, June and July with £20 worth of prizes to give away every week for most articles destubbed. Each week there is a different region of focus, though half the prize will still be rewarded for articles on any subject. Articles may be submitted for this as well as the regional Challenge you usually contribute to at the same time. Sign up if you want to contribute at least one of the weeks or support the idea! † Encyclopædius 19:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message[edit]

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Precious anniversary[edit]

Precious
Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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Seasons Greetings![edit]

Hello there, thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia! Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas and here's to a happy and productive 2024! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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