User talk:James Allison/Archive 7

Latest comment: 8 years ago by MediaWiki message delivery in topic The Signpost: 04 August 2016
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Wikidata weekly summary #214

Wikidata weekly summary #215

Editing News #2—2016

Editing News #2—2016 Read this in another languageSubscription list for this multilingual newsletter

 
Did you know?

It's quick and easy to insert a references list.

 

Place the cursor where you want to display the references list (usually at the bottom of the page). Open the "Insert" menu and click the "References list" icon (three books).

If you are using several groups of references, which is relatively rare, you will have the opportunity to specify the group. If you do that, then only the references that belong to the specified group will be displayed in this list of references.

Finally, click "Insert" in the dialog to insert the References list. This list will change as you add more footnotes to the page.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has fixed many bugs. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving support for Arabic and Indic scripts, and adapting the visual editor to the needs of the Wikivoyages and Wikisources.

Recent changes

The visual editor is now available to all users at most Wikivoyages. It was also enabled for all contributors at the French Wikinews.

The single edit tab feature combines the "Edit" and "Edit source" tabs into a single "Edit" tab. It has been deployed to several Wikipedias, including Hungarian, Polish, English and Japanese Wikipedias, as well as to all Wikivoyages. At these wikis, you can change your settings for this feature in the "Editing" tab of Special:Preferences. The team is now reviewing the feedback and considering ways to improve the design before rolling it out to more people.

Future changes

The "Save page" button will say "Publish page". This will affect both the visual and wikitext editing systems. More information is available on Meta.

The visual editor will be offered to all editors at the remaining "Phase 6" Wikipedias during the next few months. The developers want to know whether typing in your language feels natural in the visual editor. Please post your comments and the language(s) that you tested at the feedback thread on mediawiki.org. This will affect several languages, including: Arabic, Hindi, Thai, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Urdu, Persian, Bengali, Assamese, Aramaic and others.

The team is working with the volunteer developers who power Wikisource to provide the visual editor there, for opt-in testing right now and eventually for all users. (T138966)

The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. It will look like the visual editor, and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices around September 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

Let's work together

If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 21:09, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #216

The Signpost: 04 July 2016

Wikidata weekly summary #217

Revert on West Garden Grove, California

You posted this on my user talk page. I am copying my reply here so you see it.

  • What I did was copy the wikimarkup text of a template from the page Garden Grove to West Garden Grove and then change most of its content. I'm guessing you're a patroller and a bot alerted you to this edit. I also see that you reverted my edit without mentioning it here. I find that to be somewhat disingenuous and not exactly WP:AGF. I'm going to revert your revert. I will note in my edit summary that I copied the template text from the source article's wikimarkup. Darkest Tree Talk 16:31, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #218

The Signpost: 21 July 2016

Reverting Edits to Associated Students of the University of California

Hi, you keep on reverting edits to Associated Students of the University of California even though they are entirely factual and neutral. The current material actually uses the exact same source (ASUC.org/about) and just provides less detail. The edits don't remove any material, they just expand on it. I see that you linked to the policy on Identifying reliable sources. No part of my edits are something that could be interpreted as an opinion, they are all fact. No part is original analysis. Since the material relates to the organizational structure of a student government, what better source would you want for that than their about page? What conceivable secondary sources would there be on this? This seems to entirely meet the criteria established on https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Self-published_and_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.135.224.110 (talk)

Per your link: "The article is not based primarily on such sources." Further additions should work towards information from third-party sources, not self-sourced minutiae. Regards, James (talk/contribs) 17:53, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Again, because of the nature of the institution (a student government) not many third party sources exists. If the "minutiae" I am trying to add only serve to clarify the article I do not see what your issue with them is? I would understand if I was adding paragraphs on paragraphs of 1st sourced content that was all only tangental to the article. On the other hand, I attempting to clarify an existing paragraph in total adding a few sentences and rewording others for greater clarity. This is not more than the level of detail you would find on a page about say a city or county government (which are often sourced to the webpage of that government). I would like to point out the wikipedia policy on "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_bureaucracy) and "Wikipedia:Ignore all rules" (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules) which talk about how rules shouldn't be overly stricltly applied if they prevent encylopedic content from being added to an article. I agree with you that other parts of the article should probably be worked on, but that doesn't inherently make my proposed additions not relevant. 73.90.210.132 (talk) 05:24, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
If information cannot be sourced to a reliable, third-party source, it generally should not be added on here. Please see WP:Verifiability, which is one of the core pillars. Regards, James (talk/contribs) 18:49, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
Again, if you look at the specific guidelines on self-published sources https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_or_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves it says that such sources are appropriate ("Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities") if they are factual (not an opinion), not self-serving, and there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. For the specific piece of information I am trying to add, that is all true. Given the nature of this organization it is unlikely that there would be any third-party sources describing its organizational structure. On the other hand, there are third-party sources on its political activities, accomplishments, and influence. I do agree with you that those should probably be beefed up in the rest of the article, but that does not make my contribution any less appropriate.
Another Pillar of Wikipedia is "Wikipedia has no firm rules: Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not carved in stone; their content and interpretation can evolve over time. The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making exceptions. Be bold but not reckless in updating articles. And do not agonize over making mistakes: every past version of a page is saved, so mistakes can be easily corrected" (https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars).
I believe that you are being overly legalistic here and entirely ignoring both the specific nature of the organization and what third-party sources conceivably could exist for this specific section of the article. Please tell me why the current version of the section should remain with less information (but the same sources) and not a slightly reworded and expanded one? Also please tell me what type of source you think would be appropriate here? I know that you are far more experience with Wikipedia rules and lingo, but it seems like you're in bad faith shutting down and honest contribution in order to be a stickler to your interpretation of the rules (even when the rules provide for many interpretations). It also seems like you are replying in circular one-liners and refusing to engage my point. If you cannot do so, I kindly request that you do not revert my edits. I believe that this could be interpreted as edit warring on your part. 198.135.224.110 (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Feel free to open a discussion on the article's talk page to see if you can gain consensus for your proposals, per the usual practice. Regards, James (talk/contribs) 15:31, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #219

Wikidata weekly summary #220

Star Trek

Thanks for the warning and your comments on the Talk page. I apologize. I was reacting to what I deemed a personal attack from an IP hopper. I won't do it again. SonOfThornhill (talk) 20:39, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 August 2016