Wikipedia talk:Teahouse/Archive 17

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TBAN?

What are thoughts on perusing a TBAN our good friend 2605:E000 from posting here? It's starting to seem like every third or fourth thread is either being hijacked into unrelated into hand waving about the grand fate of WP (e.g., [1], [2], [3], [4]), or being at least temporarily derailed by what are basically just wrong (e.g., [5], [6]), or barely intelligible answers (e.g., [7], [8], [9], [10]). I realize this would probably need centralized discussion at ANI, but wanted to see what local thoughts are first. I'd say there's already some general agreement that this is disruptive, and at best confusing to new editors.

(And apparently as I write this Alex Shih has blocked them for 72 hours.) GMG^talk 15:47, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Both the IP address and the editing pattern looks strikingly familiar, but I cannot pinpoint it at the moment even though I am fairly certain this is reminiscent of long-term abuse. It is disruptive editing nevertheless, and reviewing Special:Contributions/2605:e000:1301:4462:4fa:4bf3:9cbc:d92a/64 suggests some sort of automation may be involved. Alex Shih (talk) 16:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Whilst it is great to have IP users as well as very new editors assisting at the Teahouse, this particular user IP user has recently become very disruptive. The hijacking of replies to 'bang the IP editor drum', plus their sometimes quite incoherent ramblings and responses have become embarassing to read (possibly even worse than my own, often long-winded, replies!), and are not in the spirit of helping new editors. It's confusing for me; god knows what sense new editors make of their ramblings. Should they return and continue their subtle - or not so subtle - disruptive behaviour at the Teahouse, I would be fully supportive of taking them to WP:ANI and recommending a TBAN on posting at the Teahouse and similar Help fora, much as that pains me to say it. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

• I think a Tban is worth discussing at ANI. 331dot (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• Let's see if they resume once their block is up. They've likely switched IPs since they seem to switch every few days. But I don't want to start a purely perfunctory discussion. But if they come back, then screw it, I'm an old hat at ANI, and I have no qualms about starting the thread if there's a feeling among hosts that it's appropriate. GMG^talk 00:18, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• I did not write clearly; I do mean only if they resume. 331dot (talk) 06:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• I agree, their responses have been disruptive, and several requests for them to stop don't seem to have got through. I'm not sure how effectively a topic ban could be enforced, since they use several IPs, but it's worth a try (if they resume after the block). – Joe (talk) 15:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Although the second half of their IPv6 changes, the first half was fixed for some time, and that full range has been blocked. Their behaviour was sufficiently obvious that it wouldn't be difficult to spot if another IP range were to continue the same behaviour. --David Biddulph (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Was the range part of the 72 hour block? GMG^talk 17:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

See the block log. The earlier block was on the one IP address --David Biddulph (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Ah. (I don't understand how rangeblocks.) So yeah. 72 hours on the range, meaning we'll see tomorrow how things pan out. GMG^talk 17:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Protect your page

How do you protect your page from people from vandalism your user page. Northatlantic320 (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia Northatlantic320 I hope you're getting on well here.
As to your question, an administrator will protect your User/User Talk pages if required when requested at WP:RFPP. That being said, are you referring to edits such as these? If so, edits such as those are not vandalism. - TNT ^💖 18:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand why the user was warned for removing a warning from their talk page. I thought that removing warnings was allowed and doing so acknowledges the warning. RudolfRed (talk) 19:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, RudolfRed. The warning was invalid, and I have told the editor who issued the warning to read what it says at WP:BLANKING. I had previously told another editor that he should not have reinstated the original warning after Northatlantic320 had read and deleted it. --David Biddulph (talk) 00:12, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

@David Biddulph: Thanks for the explanation. RudolfRed (talk) 14:53, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jungkook.

Edit: sorry i read this is the operation of teahouse. ↳ GiovannaG . . . ^{(My talk)} 21:43, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

No worries - thank you deleting and then re-posting on the main Teahouse page, where a number of us have replied to you there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick Moyes (talk • contribs) 20:32, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

New template

FYI, User:Zackmann08 has worked up Template:Request edit/new, which newer editors can use to request edits in cases where they don't have a COI, but are not comfortable implementing an edit themselves. GMG^talk 17:50, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

You can also do {{Request edit|n}} or {{Request edit|new}} --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 17:57, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Red link

How do I create a red link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valmiki (Ramayana) (talk • contribs) 16:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

This page is for discussing the operation of the Teahouse, and is not the Teahouse itself. Please go to the main Teahouse page to ask your question(where you asked your first question). Thanks 331dot (talk) 16:46, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Research on you

The m:Research Showcase on 17 October 2018 is about m:Research:Teahouse group dynamics, and the way Teahouse hosts respond differently to two different kinds of "rules" (written rules vs what you see other editors doing). The presentation will be recorded, and there are links on the Research Showcase page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Question archive button

The big box at the top of the questions page has a button to go to the questions archive. This lands at an archive index page which is not getting updated. Can the button be removed? RudolfRed (talk) 16:02, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

"Turnoffy"?

In WP:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_844#DJ_Slick_stuart_and_DJ_Roja, Baba Blacq Sheep suggests that 331dot's and my replies, though accurate, are "turnoffy". 331dot said "Articles need to be written in a neutral point of view and can't have promotional opinions; they need to read as very dull", while I said "Wikipedia has no interest at all in what you (or I, or any random person on the internet) knows, or thinks or believes about the subject of an article. None."

I see BBS's point, and would like to discuss this further. I think here is a better place than on the TH itself. I know that I sometimes get frustrated at seeing the same misunderstandings over and over again, and sometimes I communicate out of that frustration. But at the same time, my experience is that unless you say it in quite stark terms, then new editors don't think you really mean it.

Comments? --ColinFine (talk) 17:03, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, on the first comment, our goal is Wikipedia:Brilliant Prose, which suggests that "very dull" is a non-goal.

On the second, I think that it might seem less personal if you quoted a policy and provided some empathy, perhaps something like

"I can see why that would seem like a good idea, but it's not what we call encyclopedic tone. The policy also says that 'Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another'. This means that even if you think that the subject is wonderful (or horrible), you need to write the article so that it provides basic facts, rather than information about how wonderful the subject is. It's really quite different from writing a review or blog post, and it can take a while to get the hang of it."

I don't think that even a "perfect" message will always make people happy. To some extent, "understanding the policy" (your goal) will result in people being unhappy (because their goals are anti-policy).

A few years back, I read about a study on cancer doctors and communication. The better the patients understood their medical situation, the worse they said their doctors were at communicating. So if the patient is actually dying, but the doctor doesn't puncture the family's delusion that total recovery will begin any day now, then the doctor is a "good communicator". But if the person is dying and knows it, then the doctor is a "bad communicator" (according to the patient). We don't want to be told "no", and if you tell us no, we will blame your communication skills. You only have good communication skills if you tell us what we want to hear.

Also, have you tried telling people to think about old-fashioned encyclopedias? I like to believe that thinking about the heavy volumes from the school library, or reading a link to a professionally edited encyclopedia article might help people make sense of the tone/style questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

@ColinFine: In my rather limited 12 months here, I have found myself frustrated with people on occasions (mostly through no fault of their own, and often down to my long hours at the keyboard/phone), and I do try to spot if I'm about to bite their heads off and change my style of response. I do think our approach as Teahouse Hosts should always be to be as encouraging, enthusiastic, understanding and welcoming as possible - at least at first -and then to be blunter later if the message isn't getting through. (I used to work in a public building where the invigilating staff were constantly moaning at the public for being unable to find there way around, when the reality was that our signage was totally cr*p, and was the cause of most misunderstandings.) I hadn't seen your and 331dot's original response, but (to be blunt), it did surprise me because, yes, saying that what we should write should be "very dull" was very turnoffy in that instance. But that's not typical of either of your normally helpful responses here, and I know you didn't really mean it in the way it came across. What I'm sure you meant was that we need to write content that is neutral in tone, informative, concise, interesting, independent and helpful. Encyclopaedic, even! If, in so doing, our content can also be a pleasure to read, then I'd say we are creating the perfect encyclopaedia. Maybe the Teahouse needs to create some helpful examples of good, bad and indifferent content to demonstrate what we mean in various circumstances? I certainly think we don't help new editors to ask the right questions in the right way, and that the design and layout of the Teahouse header and support page links needs an overhaul. That said, there are times when I do put myself in the shoes of the questioner when I see some responses here, and I do worry that we're sometimes jumping down their throats a little too bluntly - almost aggressively. But on the whole my sense is that the only real 'turnoffy' responses come from those new host/contributors here who haven't picked up the normal way of helping people - but these rather sharp contributors often don't stick around more than a week or two, or contribute very often. Being gently brought to task from time to time about how others might interpret how we engage or what we say can only be of benefit to all of us.

I would also add that you were absolutely right to bring the discussion here. I found myself recently being criticised for being too forgiving of a brand new editor that one experienced user (who doesn't normally frequent the Teahouse) suggested was a spammer, whereas I felt they were being genuine, albeit a little naive on how we do things. Defending my position in that forum would, I felt, have been detrimental to tone of the Teahouse, and wouldn't have helped the questioner any further. Rather than being a safe place for spammers, I try to think of the Teahouse as a safe place for editors to share their mistakes, to learn and to be helped to correct those errors, and I'm sure you do too. Nick Moyes (talk) 02:09, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, people. They have mostly concerned 331dot's comments about style, rather than my comments about independence. --ColinFine (talk) 16:07, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

A page to help communities to interact with newcomers

Hello Hosts

I'm working with the Wikimedia Foundation's Growth team.

To help communities to work with newcomers, I've created a page listing advice on how to interact with newcomers. This page gathers the advice from the English Teahouse's Expectations, but also from the very active "Forum des nouveaux" on French Wikipedia and other resources from websites where anyone can ask questions.

The purpose of this page is to provide a simple list of tips —in simple enough English to have it translated— for communities wishing to improve their interactions with new contributors. We want those wikis to benefit the experience from already experienced wikis.

Please read the page and share your comments!

Thanks, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Today I learned you can't disable the visual editor on media wiki, and it's super annoying. GMG^talk 13:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

You actually can. :) HTH, Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:06, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I dunno, seems to work for me... --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 14:07, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Phew. Much better. Of all the questions I've ever answered at the Teahouse, the ones I'm categorically unqualified for are those asking about visual editor. GMG^talk 14:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Side question: would you be interested by a workshop in order to discover how VE works? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I would be very interested in a video tutorial explaining it, especially one that I can link others to (but I've been harping on about getting official video tutorials for years now). GMG^talk 14:45, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Video tutorials are truly needed. There are text tutorials and Manual of Style articles. But a video step by step instruction would be so helpful. The wiki community wants new editors and maintain editors but at a point of frustration people just leave. Having an edit reverted is frustrating but if an editor could find a tutorial explaining how to correct his error without being talked down to would be so helpful. It's easy to criticize but someone with skills I don't have would need to lead up such a big project. Eschoryii (talk) 00:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Munninbot back up and running

I just made some Muninnbot maintenance, including a move to Gitlab. OK, none cares, but it means that you can report bugs and ask for features using the issue tracker (a post to my TP works as well). Notifications of thread archivals should resume on a more regular basis, now that I fixed a nasty bug that stopped notifications from working for 10 days after every revdelling of an edit.

Please tell me if you notice anything odd in the notification process (it should not have changed, but anything you touch the code, something can happen). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Full protection ?

So the teahouse has been fully protected "Edit=Allow only administrators" for 48 hours. Was this intentional? and where are new editors going to ask their questions? - Arjayay (talk) 12:58, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

OK - so it has now been moved back to semi-protected - Arjayay (talk) 13:00, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

@Arjayay: Probably a mistake, see User talk:331dot#Teahouse protection. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:02, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Would pending changes protection work? Or would it take too much work to constantly check the edits? – Pretended leer {talk} 13:13, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't. We're basically under a type of DDOS attack designed by a user to shut down IP editing at Wikipedia help pages (Ref Desks, Help Desk, Teahouse, etc.) There really isn't a better way to stop this. --Jayron32 13:14, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I bet it's the same one that's been targeting user talk pages.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 13:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and based on behavioral evidence, we're also pretty sure this is Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Ref Desk Antisemitic Troll. He was doing this stuff a few years back on the Ref Desks, but got bored and went away. He's returned in a more virulent way about 1 week ago. --Jayron32 13:33, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Asking Guests to provide the name of the page they're asking about

As ColinFine said, "It continually puzzles me why people asking for help here so often avoid actually telling us what article they are talking about, so that we have to go and look for it.". Should we add a line about this to either the top of the Teahouse, or to the Editnotice? Maybe something like "If you're asking a question about a specific article, please link to the article so others can see what you're talking about." ? rchard2scout (talk) 09:58, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Worth trying. There is an edit notice to that effect on the HelpDesk. --David Biddulph (talk) 11:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• Wait, isn't there one already? *checks* Oh. Yes, we absolutely should add it. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 14:28, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

We shouldn't make it onerous for them to ask questions, but inviting them to tell us if they want answers relating to a desktop or mobile, plus which editing tool they prefer to use would avoid a lot of second-guessing. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:09, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I've copied the editnotice to my sandbox and added a line about it. If you like it, I'll add the proper editrequest to have an admin change the editnotice. (pinging @David Biddulph, Tigraan, and Nick Moyes) -- rchard2scout (talk) 14:19, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Looks fine to me, but honestly, I think we should have one first and tweak the wording later if it proves incorrect/misleading/offputting. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:00, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid the current notice doesn't function properly - it takes one round in circles. They're already at the editing window and about to type in their question when they're being told to hit the "Ask a Question" button. That no longer functions and was removed ages ago, so this instruction is redundant. I've played with Rchard2scout sandbox version, and suggest the following:

Any thoughts on that? Nick Moyes (talk) 10:56, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I like that version a lot better! I was already worried a little about the circular "Ask a question" link, but I didn't want to change that without discussion first. I'm in favor of your new version. rchard2scout (talk) 12:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, Rchard2scout. Pinging @Cullen328, David Biddulph, and Tigraan: for their views on taking forward these edit changes. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:50, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

• Great one. Do it already! Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:08, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
• I have no problem with the change but we should avoid chastising anyone who does not provide the title or URL. Many Teahouse guests are confused and overwhelmed. They should be treated kindly. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 15:20, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

That certainly looks like consensus to me, edit requested!. And of course Cullen328, we shouldn't chastise guests if they don't provide a link, we just hope this'll motivate a few more people to provide the link/title in the first place. rchard2scout (talk) 18:03, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

And  Done by Izno. Thanks everyone! rchard2scout (talk) 09:03, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Under construction

User:Anna Frodesiak raises an interesting idea. Anyone reckon there'd be a use in including an "under construction" suggestion box somehow where new users can pitch in on articles that hosts are currently woking on? Could have some value as a demonstration/community intigration measure. GMG^talk 13:36, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I also thought Anna Frodesiak's suggestion was extremely interesting. I'd never considered Teahouse hosts proactively inviting others to work collaboratively, with guidance and feedback offered along the way. But it's a great idea with a lot of potential. (It almost bridges the gap between Teahouse instant help, and how I would envisage WP:AAU being revived to give long-term support to relatively inexperienced users who are demonstrating a genuine commmitment to become better editors.) How might this work, I wonder:...

• by constructing a 'Teahouse drafts' page to which we add links to these pages?
• by creating a category to link disparate pages together (Category:Teahouse drafts for collaboration and learning)?
• by creating a category to link extremely disparate host sandbox pages together (Category:Teahouse host sandbox drafts for collaboration and learning)?
• by creating a new "under construction" template (e.g. {{Teahouse - help invited}})?

I do agree with GreenMeansGo that, if developed, it would be a great demonstration for enhancing community integration and support. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

For the record

The IP who posted the question "Editor", as seen here, is User:Vincent9000, who has socked repeatedly and been disruptive enough to get themselves globally blocked. RBI is the way to go with this one, IMNVHO, but that won't happen if people recognise them - hence this post. :-) --bonadea contributions talk 09:18, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@Bonadea: I'm not sure we can always do that, to be frank with you. When I started replying, the IP (114.124.175.218) had just been blocked by Materialscientist for a day or so (and they still are). I still felt a reply was appropriate. Had they been blocked for being a serious sock puppet, I might have responded slightly differently. But posts get read by other newcomers, and I think making it clear to all readers that bad actions have consequences is the right thing to do. I'm not really sure how anyone at the TH could be expected to have responded differently, or been aware that their post should have been removed or not replied to? Personally, I think all but the most unreasonable posts need to be seen to have elicited a friendly(ish) response here.

I'm very happy to change my approach if you can suggest a simple way to find out the issues without expecting TH hosts to be monitoring SPI reports, though thank you for flagging up that concern over this editor. If what you say is correct, I assume MS will be extending the block indefinitely? Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:05, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Nobody can recognise every sockmaster, and the default, especially at the Teahouse, should be to assume good faith of the people who post. Since you didn't recognise Vincent (and why should you, if you hadn't run into him before?) I agree that your response was absolutely appropriate. That's why I posted here - simply as a way to pool our knowledge. I'm not suggesting any kind of system or general strategy, I just wanted to make Teahouse hosts aware of this particular sockmaster. The reason I was able to identify the IP was because User:Vincentonethousand posted the exact same thing a couple of days ago, and was blocked as a sock of Vincent9000. --bonadea contributions talk 20:17, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I have a feeling that the user 125.160.115.76 that Abelmoschus Esculentus and I are interacting with might be this same Vincent user. 331dot (talk) 08:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

@331dot: It's a good guess. ―Abelmoschus Esculentus 08:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's them, they went to MediaWiki and swore on my user talk there. 331dot (talk) 08:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2018

I want to ask a question - What is a protected article , and how do you protect a so far unprotected article ? Guineapig2500 (talk) 14:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello. This page is for discussing the operation of the Teahouse, and is not the Teahouse itself. You should post your question to the main Teahouse page, where it will be better seen. 331dot (talk) 14:37, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

He can't ask the question at Wikipedia:Teahouse because... (wait for it...) It's protected! To simplify life, I'll just answer the question here. @Guineapig2500: A protected article is one that has either limited or total restrictions against being edited. That means that it blocks people from editing that page. There are many reasons for protecting a page, but the two most common ones are a) the page is part of a back-and-forth dispute between different editors, and that harmful back-and-forth editing needs to be stopped. This is called an edit war, and sometimes a page needs to be protected to slow that down or stop it. The other reason is that the page is the target of vandalism, which is the reason the Teahouse page is protected (it's been targeted as part of a DDOS-style vandalism attack). If you want to request a page be unprotected, you can do so at the page Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, though you may want to look into why a page is protected. You can find it in the edit history or talk page. --Jayron32 15:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jayron32: There was no padlock on the Teahouse when I saw this post. 331dot (talk) 15:16, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't realize it hadn't been added. I will fix that presently. --Jayron32 15:17, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, I'll be darned. I've tried adding it, and it won't appear, either the template or the small lock itself. If you can figure it out, please feel free to fix the problem. --Jayron32 15:21, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the usual red notice when I open the Teahouse edit window that the page is protected. Is it still protected? I'm probably looking at the wrong thing. 331dot (talk) 15:26, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Protection expired at 15:01 today, according to the log. --David Biddulph (talk) 15:33, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, that explains the confusion. Buckle up... --Jayron32 15:42, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 November 2018

Can you please edit https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Draft:William_Thomas_Miles so that the page can go live and not be a draft. thanks, Historator2018 (talk) 20:00, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Teahouse. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. Will answer on user talk page. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 20:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Should it ever happen again...

I'm pleased that zzuuzz felt able to remove semi-protected status from The Teahouse sooner than originally expected. Should that high level of spam/vandalism ever happen again here, I think it would help to post a notice so that newcomers (many of whom are likely not to be autoconfirmed or registered) understand why they can't edit for the time being?

I was working on the following, but glad it doesn't need to be deployed, now. However, would it help to have something ready along these lines for a future occasion? I've kept it in the format of an edit notice for now, though it should really be turned into a form that could be inserted at regular intervals amongst the questions and answers.

Feedback welcome. Nick Moyes (talk) 01:34, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• If the TH ever needs proteting agan, fai enough, but for the THTP to be protected even longer is mindboggling. ——SerialNumber54129 09:47, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
• One thing to keep in mind is that it feeds the trolls by giving them recognition. I do not think it is a dealkiller though. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 16:41, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

  Protection of a highly visible page (like the Teahouse) is often enough recognition for these LTAs. I doubt this template would significantly change the situation, at least on that front. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:49, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• And the Teahouse is protected again. Only for a few hours, it looks like, but plenty of reason to get this discussion going again. While I like Nick Moyes' wording, he's using an {{editnotice}}, which we can't easily change. It should probably be a messagebox at the top of the Teahouse itself. I've created something using {{ombox}}, using the same wording as Nick. Any preferences? rchard2scout (talk) 12:24, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

• These are both great work. The only question seems to be is if the benefit of helping out new editors with a template outweighs the recognition given to LTAs. Would there be more protections of the Teahouse? I'm not sure I know the answer. 331dot (talk) 12:53, 30 October 2018 (UTC

I'm happy with the latter (hadn't encountered ombox templates before) though would like to remove a lot of the emboldening and perhaps make the whole thing a bit smaller. I'll have a further play. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:26, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I've made the following tweaks, and have also just inserted the version below into the top of the Teahouse page. Would someone remove it after 16:08 UTC today, please? (or earlier if you don't think it looks right, or I've made a mess of things! Feel free to edit the template itself, too) Thanks, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:11, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

That one looks a lot better. I've made some small tweaks to it, and moved it to {{Teahouse protected}}. I also think it works better at the top of the Teahouse, above the standard header. Otherwise, users will read up to the "Ask a question" button, and never even see the notice. rchard2scout (talk) 08:47, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

@Rchard2scout: I have made your template and the {{pp-vandalism}} icon appears automatically when the page is protected and disappears when it's not protected. Hope you like it. ―Abelmoschus Esculentus 11:29, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

@Abelmoschus Esculentus: Thanks - good idea. Out of interest, how did you achieve that? Nick Moyes (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: I used the {{ifeq}} template to detect whether the protection level is autoconfirmed or not. ―Abelmoschus Esculentus 04:48, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Would this be considered editorializing?

I am working on a page related to "search and seizure" ("terry stop") and I want to start off a paragraph describing the great expansion of powers granted to the police by the Supreme Court since 1968. Would it be OK if I begin a paragraph in this way:

Following the "the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic" (Judge Cardozo)...[stuff about search and seizure here]...

I'm a new editor and I'd like to follow WP:POV. Also, I'm not sure how directly related statements made must be traced back to sources. For example, I read this quote in another book not related to "search and seizure" directly, but to the Supreme Court more generally. So I'm not sure if quoting it here is appropriate or do I need to find a source more directly related to my topic. Thanks! Seahawk01 (talk) 03:11, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

You're better off asking on the Terry stop talk page. This is for more general questions, and your question is very contextual. TimTempleton ^(talk)

^(cont) 03:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Beggars Bush

I have created a very short article https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Beggars_Bush_(Colony_of_Virginia), at first I had created, inadvertently on my talk page, then someone somehow did some wikimagic and now it looks like a full fledged wikipage, however when I search wiki for Beggars Bush, it does not come up on the disambiguation page (there are three others with that name). Is this article already published? It looks like it might be, but I can't find it a search. Thank you Alvanhholmes (talk) 05:40, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Alvanhholmes, it's now a draft, at Draft:Beggars Bush (Colony of Virginia), so that you and maybe others can work on it until it's good enough to be accepted as an article. Maproom (talk) 19:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Twinkle Talkback (TB) setting

Hi all. Does anyone know if it's possible to change Twinkle Preference settings so that when you click 'TB' it defaults to 'Noticeboard notification' and offers Teahouse question forum first? I only ever really use the Talkback function after answering replies here, so having it set to Teahouse talkback as default would be nice. I can find nothing to assist me in Wikipedia:Twinkle/doc, and no obvious setting in Preferences. Thanks, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:58, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

(Blurb) You may install this script ―Abelmoschus Esculentus 10:37, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Abelmoschus Esculentus. I've just installed it and will give it a try later. (Must go and do some real world stuff now). Thanks, 11:05, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Yep - works fine. Thanks. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:33, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: Immediate Closure of an RfC (without time for "C's" to be made)

I've collapsed WP:THQ#Immediate Closure of an RfC (without time for "C's" to be made) with this edit per WP:TPG#Off-topic posts. I was bold in doing so, but if someone feels I was too bold then undo my edit. If collapsing the thread was an appropriate thing to do but was done incorrectly, please fix the syntax accordingly. This particular discussion has gone way beyond the scope of the Teahouse in my opinion and is much better suited another noticeboard such as WP:RSN. The thread also seems to have moved towards WP:SOAPBOX territory as well, which again might given a bit of leeway at a particular noticeboard, but doesn't seem appropriate at all for the Teahouse. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:02, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

​ I think your action was appropriate. Wcmcdade's questions have been answered with comprehensive responses. — Newslinger talk 05:56, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't sure though whether the {{cot}} template should include the question's section heading. I included it, but wondered how that might affect the archiving of the question; so, thank you for fixing that. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:02, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I had also considered collapsing that thread as getting off topic, but decided to leave it. Thank you for actually being bold, rather than me just thinking about it, and doing nothing! Nick Moyes (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Substing Wikipedia:Teahouse/AfC Invitation and Wikipedia:Teahouse/Invitation

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No Oppose votes to the seemingly uncontroversial proposal. After adding 3rd template and pinging those involved, the other two editors did not respond to this (suggesting they don't oppose this). Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

---

Would anyone object to the automatic substitution of Wikipedia:Teahouse/AfC Invitation and Wikipedia:Teahouse/Invitation. On both invitation templates, they already say that the invitation should be substituted. I have boldly added automatic substitution category for the AfC Invitation template, as substitution is already happening through the AfC Helper Script. However, for the normal invitation, this is not happening (in at least the Teahouse Helper Script). Because the transclusion count is ~50,000, AnomieBOT won't substitute this template until it is added to the force page. A consensus is needed for this. Please indicate your support or oppose. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 15:14, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Edit: Also including {{WP:TWA/Invite}} per Newslinger. It will require being placed on the force page. Pinging those who have already voted. @Nick Moyes and Tigraan:. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:07, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Support Assuming I've understood this correctly, supporting this proposal seems logical. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force does say to get consensus before adding to the list, but in the present case it was a mistake not to have the templates force-substituted in the first place (to a point that more than 1k of them exist). So I would say the intended behavior does not really change (we are not changing a transclude-only template to a subst-only). I believe we also have to add auto=yes to the {{subst only}} template on the doc pages.

Probably not needed, but: courtesy ping of Enterprisey per the notice at Wikipedia:Teahouse/AfC Invitation, and of Anomie before we dump 50k substitutions in the pipeline at once. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:37, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, edit requests have been denied when the notice was already there. (it was an IP who requested this, but that shouldn't matter). See this example. I didn't want to chance it and thought it would be good to ask regardless. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 15:42, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support. These templates (and also {{WP:TWA/Invite}} through Twinkle) have been strange outliers for not being substituted when added from scripts. — Newslinger talk 06:01, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Making a new page

Moved to Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 877 § Making a new page

 – Marchjuly (talk) 01:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Teahouse welcome messages sent to Bots

Hi, My new bot, RF1 Bot, recently received a Teahouse invitation. Is this a bug? If not, Perhaps, User:HostBot should require manual approval before sending invitations to accounts including certain words e.g. bot

P.s feel free to ask about the bot. RhinosF1 (talk) 18:06, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@RhinosF1: I've moved this to our Talkpage as it relates to the very recent discussion above about how the HostBot operates. Pinging @Maximilianklein and Jtmorgan: who will be interested. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:20, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Meh. It's silly but it's not really hurting anything I suppose. If the bots start asking questions at the Teahouse, then we might have a problem on our hands. GMG^talk 21:17, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

RhinosF1 it happened because your bot doesn't have a bot flag. Per policy, all bots should have a bot flag. Last I heard, anyway. So HostBot's working as designed. But if there's been a policy or process change, I can add a username string check (back) into the code. Cheers, J-Mo 22:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Bots that are still being developed or are in test are not flagged because they haven't reached final approval. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:33, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jtmorgan:} It doesn't have a bot flag as it doesn't need a BRfA. It's exempt under WP:BOTUSERSPACE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RhinosF1 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

As for how this might be affected in a future HostBot-AI implementation, it's an instructive false positive. Often sandbox-editing, which is what WP:BOTUSERSPACE indicates, is seen as goodfaith behaviour by the AI-algorithm (vandals don't really edit their sandbox). I could add a bot-in-name string check, but on the whole this isn't a very big problem, I agree, because it's a harmless false positive. It could also be possible to add a rule like "needs one non-user page edit," but there could also be goodfaith new editors who don't meet that criteria either. Without a better way to distinguish this case programmatically, its seems best to just allow it IMHO. Maximilianklein (talk) 13:26, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah sounds like we don't need AI here. This is an edge case where the potential for disruption is pretty miniscule (who honestly cares about an accidental friendly welcome every once in a while?), and the fix is straightforward: I can just re-implement the old "*Bot" string-check method. SO I'll do that. J-Mo 21:53, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jtmorgan: Thanks for your help, Have a merry Christmas and a fantastic new year. RhinosF1 (talk) 08:07, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Experiment test using AI to invite users to Teahouse

Hello Teahouse hosts,

As you might know User:HostBot is a bot that invites 300 new users every day to the Teahouse using various heuristics. I have been working on an alternative to those heuristics in an artificial intelligence system, built on ORES, that predicts how "goodfaith" a new editor is as quickly as their second or third edit. I believe that this could have a positive effect on the Teahouse by fewer invites going to badfaith editors, and thus a lower probability that the people showing up to the Teahouse are badfaith. This would result in a (probably small) increase in the number of questions being posted, but not the likelihood of disruptive editing on the Teahouse. I would like to propose an experiment—an A/B test—between HostBot and this newly-developed "HostBot-AI". Each of the two versions of HostBot would run live, without disruption to- or an increase in- the number of invited editors, and we could then see which inviting technique resulted in more questions being asked at the Teahouse. The full details of the Experiment can be found on the meta Research page in an FAQ.

As Teahouse hosts we would like to know what you think about this idea and solicit your feedback? If the idea is received positively we would of course post here again before the experiment launches. Please ask an questions here if they aren't answered in the aforemention FAQ on meta. Thank you so much for your input and consideration. Maximilianklein (talk) 10:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I like the idea of using ORES. Much better than randomly picking. As long as testing goes well, I would support this. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:52, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

• From the exact statistical test and retention metric have not been finalized I gather that your measure of success is going to be some measurement of editor retention. (The following argument holds similarly for "number of questions asked".)

There is probably a cohort effect that ORES-approved editors are more likely to stick around, Teahouse or not. Do you intend to control for that? (I would assume yes, but I did not find it in the description).

I urge fellow Teahouse hosts to consider the growth vs. proficiency issue here (that article contains a simple explanation for those who do not know what it means). I certainly support running the experiment, but we should keep in mind that problem when analyzing the results and deciding the new invitation policy. If we "switch" more editors into remaining by sending invites to a lower tier (in terms of the "good-faith" ORES metric) of users, it might be worth doing so; although of course it must be balanced against what the community can handle (getting lower-quality questions of editors less likely to stand around could be demotivating). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello @Tigraan: thanks for your thoughts, and also thank you for catching me up on the growth/proficiency debate. My most recent thoughts on metrics after speaking with @Jtmorgan: are:

• m1 (a legacy test from previous hostbot experiments) a chi^2 on which users survive weeks depending on AI-or-not invite method or control.
• m2 (a binary measure per user) percentage of invited users posting to Teahouse.

If I understand your point correctly, what you mean is that a metric like m1 will probably exhibit cohort effects. That is, separately from inviting_to_teahouse-->higher_survival, also higher_ORES_scores-->higher_survival any way. I agree that is an issue, so we would have to have a control group of users which have higher ORES scores but aren't invited to the teahouse. That is totally do-able, so I will make a note of it.

I think m2 is slightly less prone to cohort effects though because just being good-faith is only mildly correlated to the propensity to post on the TeaHouse by itself. What do you think?

Thank you for your thoughtful input. Maximilianklein (talk) 15:06, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Technical stuff answered at User talk:Maximilianklein. My main concern is not so much about the research itself but about its later use: it will probably show that ORES-targeted users are more likely to post at the TH and stick around than randomly-targeted ones, but it does not follow that we should do ORES-targeting (because we want to increase retention overall, not just for TH-invited editors, and by ORES-targeting we invite a population that is more likely to be kept anyway). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:24, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm a bit late to this party. My impression is that we should be comparing theoretical groups across the experiment/control conditions. E.g compare the people who might have been invited using the AI, but happened to be bucketed in the control condition to people who *were* invited by the AI in the experimental condition. Similarly, we can compare people who would have been invited by the rule-based in the experimental condition with editors who *were* invited by the rule-based strategy in the control condition. This will allow us for a fair comparison between methods. My personal hypothesis is that the *speed* at which the AI allows HostBot to intervene will make the invitation and subsequent TH interactions more effective. Getting to the newcomer sooner means that we might be able to intervene *before* any negativity -- or at least before they give up entirely. If that is the case, we should expect to see increased retention for newcomers in the experimental condition even when we only look at newcomers who satisfy the rules of the control condition. --Halfak (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I think any experimentation is worth doing if it helps us assess the best way to deliver support and retention of new editors. I'm not going to get into statistical analysis (maybe 40 years ago I might), but I'd just ask whether monitoring of any impact on overall pageviews will be included in this study? I try to respond (even to editors who I know have just been blocked) in a way that other passive visitors to the page might benefit from. And we've certainly seen a massive rise in pageviews in recent months (presumably since HostBot was reinvigorated earlier this summer? see chart). Whilst I have no evidence to support my assumption that these passive viewers/invitees have benefited from their visits here, I do assume they have. So measuring impact on overall page views during both HostBot approaches seems sensible to me. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:40, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Nick Moyes I agree that tracking views would be interesting and could be useful. Like you, I suspect that Teahouse invites can provide this kind of "passive" benefit. It will be tricky to draw solid inferences, because we only have historical data to compare with, bucketed by day, and there's a huge amount of daily variability. But perhaps we could track the average view-to-edit ratio compared with previous months? If we see a higher ratio, that would at least suggest that there might be more newcomers lurking at the Teahouse. Although the proposed experiment is short duration, and only half of new editors are going to receive HostBot-AI invites, so the pageview data might not be super clear right away. J-Mo 23:52, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: like Jtmorgan I agree that tracking views would be interesting and useful, and that was exactly the sort of host-input we were hoping to find. Also like J-mo said, I think that making pageviews of the TeaHouse an statistical metric would be challenging because of being able to "control" it. Because the two versions of HostBot would be running at the same time, doing a month-to-month comparison is our best shot, however pageviews also might fluctuate month to month anyway (especially in January). We were planning on maybe running in the second-half of January to avoid the first crush of new users. However I do suspect you are right and that we might be able to see some uptick in pageviews, and I think it's worth looking at and I'll add it as one of the post-experiment analysis tasks to do. Thanks for your input. Maximilianklein (talk) 08:50, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it seems like a better way of handling it, if it shows better results it should be implemented. By results I mean: Whether user visited Teahouse, asked a question, stayed on Wikipedia after a week/month. If AI invited users have a higher percentage in these categories, then continue it but rollout slowly from 50% and maybe increase by 5-10% every few days to a week to ensure it remains effective. Would be good if AI could filter accounts likely to be bots aswell. RhinosF1 (talk) 21:33, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Update January 7 2019. I have enjoyed the discussion here about HostBot AI and have not encountered any objections to the testing. Therefore I have created a Bots For Request Application to implement it. If all goes well, we could start on February 1st (to avoid confounds with the January spike in new users). According to power analysis computations it should take 75 days to achieve 80% likelihood of success. That would put the end of the experiment at April 17 2019. Please continue to ping me if any other thoughts or considerations come up. Maximilianklein (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Just to keep everyone up to date: we have received approval for a trial and will likely start the experiment within the next week. During the experiment, half of the invites will be sent "the old way" (based on heuristics), and half will be sent based on User:Maximilianklein's new algorithmic method. The text of the invites will be the same, and roughly the same number of invites will be sent. The trial is set to run for 75 days. All invites will be sent through the HostBot account. If you notice any strange behavior on HostBot's part during the trial, ping me and Maximilianklein here. If the bot does something really disruptive, you can always use the big red button on HostBot's userpage to shut things down. Best, J-Mo 00:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Research about new users

If you are interested in the subject of new editors and how their motivations affect their activities, please see mw:Wikimedia Research/Showcase#January 2019 for Wednesday's Research Showcase. The YouTube version will be at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc51jE_KNTc WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Page doesn't exist WelpThatWorked (talk) (talk) 17:43, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I fixed the typo in the link, and it works now.  :-D WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:59, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: I found both of those video presentations very interesting, if a little hard going at times! It's great to see the serious research that goes on into new editor's motivations, and maybe understanding their reasons can assist us here in encouraging editors. Please continue to supply links to similar research that we, as hosts, could benefit from. BTW: For anyone interested, the wiki atlas site is as https://wiki-atlas.org/ Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 02:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, do you think a new comer whose, say, first 3-5 edits are all in their own users space, is any signal of their goodfaithness, or desirability to Wikipedia? Maximilianklein (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I think it would depend a lot upon the nature of the edits. Education and edit-a-thon organizers often recommend writing in the userspace, so that would be an excellent sign of good faith (also a good sign). Someone who is trying to make a profile page (which a huge proportion of new accounts think is a completely normal thing to do) could be fine. Imagine someone who is thinking "I'll do this properly. I'll create an account, set my preferences, get my profile page, and once I've done all that housekeeping and let everyone know that I'm one of the good guys, I'll really buckle down to updating the stats in those sports articles."

On the other hand, I think that someone who types a letter or two, saves the page, removes those letters, and repeats – especially if they make exactly 10 edits – might be a source of concern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Muninnbot server migration: nothing visible should happen

See wikitech:News/Toolforge_Trusty_deprecation for the technical details. The WMF server Munninbot was running on (Ubuntu Trusty) is scheduled to close next month, hence I moved Muninnbot to the new one (Debian Stretch).

The migration is relatively simple and should not break anything; so simple in fact that I have not bothered to perform a test run of the main script. Please tell me if you see anything weird happening (I will be checking on the next batch on notifications this weekend, but will not have time to actively monitor next week).

In particular, one possible (though unlikely) failure case is that Muninnbot double-posts its notices - if that happens, please get an admin to click the big block button on the bot's userpage (User:Muninnbot). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:27, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia copycats?

Hello? There is a website that copies your stuff, and everything on it is just a copy, here is the url, https://en.everybodywiki.com/. Can you please make them take it down, declined copies are copied onto that site, so can you check them out?

AlexBd25 (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, AlexBd25. The Teahouse questions page is at Wikipedia:Teahouse; the present page is for discussing the workings of the Teahouse itself. To answer your question though, there are lots of Wikipedia mirrors and so long as they respect the licensing requirements, they're not breaking any rules. Please see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks about this. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Talkback vs. Ping

Quick question: I've been pinging people in my responses to questions at the TH, but the presence of a teahouse-specific Talkback template makes me think there might be a reason to do that instead. Is there a reason to use talkback over ping for registered users at the Teahouse, or should I just use Talkback for IPs? Thanks. Gaelan 💬✏️ 07:44, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Hey Gaelan. Nope, pinging is what made the talk back templates substantially obsolete. The template you're seeing is an artifact from before the notification feature was instituted. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:29, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

@Gaelan: Obviously, as you recognise, one has to use the Talkback template with IP editors for them to see any indication of a reply, other than on the TH page itself, but I still try to use the TB template with registered users after pinging them in my TH reply. It serves not only as a polite and more personal additional notice for new editors that we have replied to them, but it also shows other editors that there has been some engagement between them and the Teahouse. If I had concerns that a new editor was acting strangely, and I saw a TB Template on their usepage, I would take the time to see what they had asked and been advised. That might well influence how I would proceed. So, I dont fully agree with Fuhghettaboutit that it's merely an artefact of a past way of communicating. Whilst by no means essential, I think a TB Template is both courteous and helpful. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:17, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Adding a navigation template (skip to top and bottom) to Teahouse

I would like to try adding the template {{skip to top and bottom}} to the Teahouse page to facilitate moving from the bottom of the discussion forum back to the top. (I find this very slow when editing on a mobile.) Would other hosts foresee a problem if we deployed it, or could you suggest a better alternative? The template puts a pair of small floating up/down arrows at the bottom right corner of the page. See my own talk page for a demonstration of how it aids navigation on long pages. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:48, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Update:  Done I have now 'been bold' and enabled this template today. I have also posted at the Teahouse, asking for feedback. Please remove the template if serious problems with it are reported, though I do think it would be good to leave it in place for enough time to assess whether or not it does actually assist users in navigating from one end of the long Teahouse page to the other. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:31, 26 February 2019 (UTC)  

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

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• 
• 
• 

Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. Depending on funding considerations, this tutorial might be published in both English and Spanish. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future.

I will boldly add this Teahouse talk page to the list of pages that will receive notifications for when drafts and finished products from this projects are ready for public review. I would greatly appreciate receiving feedback from experienced Wikipedia helpers regarding drafts so that I can make the finished products be as useful as possible for your work with helping new contributors. If you would also like to receive notifications on your user talk page then please sign up for the project newsletter.

Regards, --Pine^✉ 20:14, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Talk pages consultation 2019

The Wikimedia Foundation has invited the various Wikimedia communities, including the English Wikipedia, to participate in a consultation on improving communication methods within the Wikimedia projects. As such, a request for comment has been created at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019. All users are invited to express their views and to add new topics for discussion. Individual WikiProjects may also consider creating their own requests for comment; instructions are at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. (To keep discussion in one place, please don't reply to this comment.) Jc86035 (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Quick update: I wanted to make sure you knew that the team really needs to hear about what's working or not working for you all. This Teahouse fits two of the "buckets" that they particularly worry about learning enough about: you deal with inexperienced editors (experienced editors will just tell them what they want, but the new folks are less likely to), and you use a different style of talk page (top posting).

You have (at least) three options for providing this information:

• Join the central consultation at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019.
• Join the local consultation at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019.
• Create your own local consultation (e.g., in a section on the regular Teahouse page, or wherever you want – new editors are also welcome). If you want to make it an "official" group discussion, then please sign up at mw:Talk pages consultation 2019/Participant group sign-up. Having an "official" group discussions pretty much means

You are welcome to participate in any of the options, including all of them. I particularly hope that the Teahouse hosts will share your own experiences as editors, as well as sharing what you've seen from new editors.

The team is especially interested in hearing information that will help them build "user stories". Having a good set of user stories will help them figure out later whether they are succeeding or failing. So, for example, a simple user story might be "A new editor needs to be able to talk to experienced editors. When new editors have questions, they need an easy way to ask for help, and an easy way to figure out when someone has replied" or "Good-faith new editors sometimes get blocked because they don't understand wikitext [and therefore accidentally screw up articles]. They need a simple way to communicate with an experienced editor." If the end result is to build something that makes things easier for Teahouse hosts (auto-delivery of talk-back messages? the possibility of a single discussion happening simultaneously at WP:TEA and on the user's talk page?), then I'll consider this whole exercise a success. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Users BabyKids2019(2) and BabyKids2019 7

Hi! I don't know if your greetings are automated, but you must know that these are sockpuppets, they always create hoax edits, articles, drafts, user pages and upload hoax images to Wikipedia. It used to be very active at Wikipedia en Español but now he is starting to abuse even more of this Wikipedia. Please, whenever you see a new user with a "BabyKids"-based name, review the edits, revert them if necessary and report them immediately. Thanks.--MexTDT (talk) 08:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@MexTDT: Yes, a bot called Hostbot delivers Teahouse welcome messages signed, ostensibly, from a list of active Teahouse hosts. I should add that there is currently a trial in progress (see here) on how it delivers these welcomes, so as to target them more towards genuine editors, and less towards vandals. Though I doubt it would have made much difference in these instances. Here are all the accounts I can find with "BabyKids" in the name. All their current edits seem to have been dealt with so far - and I see you have reported the new ones to SPI. (Please don't take this the wrong way, but I was initially sceptical of your post here because you were reporting other problem users without yet having created even a small userpage for yourself after 2 1/2 years here. Maybe you have a reason for this, but your own posts are more likely to be taken seriously sooner if we can see a little about yourself, and not see your own username as a redlink.) Thank you for raising this issue. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:39, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: The OP is primarily editing es-wp, as is reasonable to guess from the post's content, and I see no reason to push them to create an en-wp userpage if they do not intend to commit a lot on it. (To be frank they do not have an es-wp userpage either, but I would not give es-wp advice based on en-wp customs.) Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 18:32, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Tigraan:. Fair point, but I saw - and still see - no reason to check Global Contributions to assess where a helpful editor with excellent English, reporting a problem, is most active. I do stand by my advice, which was offered out of the very best of intentions, even if you think it came over as 'pushy' - not my aim. Thank you. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Making ORES work better for Wikipedia

I’m a researcher at the University of Minnesota who is studying how ORES (Wikipedia’s AI system for detecting vandalism and measuring quality) works and how people want ORES to work. I’m doing this work in collaboration with the Wikimedia Scoring Platform team -- the maintainers of ORES because we want to make ORES better. I’m hoping to interview patrollers, newcomers, Teahouse hosts, and WikiProject organizers about how ORES and the quality control tools that use ORES affect you. So, I’m interested in your participation and I’m also interested in suggestions for how I might best reach out to newcomers at the Teahouse to get their perspective -- as they almost certainly are affected by ORES-powered tools. Please respond here with suggestions or concerns. Otherwise, if you’re interested in giving me an interview, you could post on my talk page or send me an email. Thanks! Bobo.03 (talk) 01:38, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Bobo.03. Welcome to the Teahouse Talk Page. I'll kick off by responding as an averagely competent and averagely experienced editor, who is active both here and at Recent Changes, and who dabbles in NPP from time to time, and who has heard of ORES, who knows simply that it should bring us machine-aided assistance in identifying good and bad edits, but who knows virtually nothing more than that, and who has assumed that it's something very techy that works in the background, but over which I have no impact, input or control.

I do value what I assume to be the ORES-driven colour coding and colour-dotted flagging of edits at Recent Changes, which I find quite helpful in identifying issues with the latest edits filtered and offered there. This is my favoured setting at Recent Changes - I have no idea if I could make it more effective, but am open to suggestions. I just stick with that setting which gives me a fair mix of good and bad edits to check. The one thing I often wish I could do when I find an editor whose recent changes edit has been colour-flagged as probably damaging, but which is actually perfectly OK, is to then be able to flag that edit as quite acceptable. I often wonder if, say, those with a minimum of NPP or rollback permissions were the only ones who could flag edits as 'good' whether this could be used to remove those edits from the Recent Changes feed. That'd stop other change patrollers from seeing approved edits and save them wasting their time repeating their own checks on the same edit, as well as assisting ORES to learn whether its flagged edits are genuinely OK, or simply bad edits that have been totally overlooked in the queue.

I often use Ctrl-F at my Recent Changes feed to search for three keywords that I am always personally suspicious of. 1) Any article with the word "School" in its name; 2) any edit summary that says "fixed it" 3) any edit summary that includes the word "typo". In my filtered feed, all these end up often being very bad edits. The ones that aren't are the ones I'd like to be able to flag as OK to stop them lurking in the RC feed. I would also love to be able to filter out articles by broad topic so that they don't appear in my Recent Changes feed (I am not interested in checking BLPs linked to WikiProject Sports, for example) but I suspect this is well outside your field of work.

I'm not sure how to suggest reaching out to newcomers at the Teahouse, as they're even more unlikely to understand ORES than I am, and I wonder if approaching the good new editors might overwhelm them. Approaching the bad editors would simply be a waste of your time, of course. So I guess you need to find out from new editors ( which might need defining) whether they've ever had their edits reverted, their reaction and feeling about it happening, and whether they received a clear explanation of why they were reverted. Apart from a recent spate of serious automated IP attacks across all the help fora, we don't get many pure vandals asking questions at the Teahouse. We do, however, see quite a high percentage of editors who ask questions and who are subsequently blocked for some other reason.

I do know that one of our long-standing and experienced TH hosts, Cullen328 has in the past done his own analysis of the type of questions and responses we get here, as well as Jtmorgan from WMF who is doing research specifically on the Teahouse. The one thing I would say is that if you're wanting feedback from new editors, a direct approach with a link to an off-wiki survey (like Survey Monkey) would probably be easier for them to respond to, rather than expecting them to edit in wiki-style here. (Whatever you do, don't suggest handing out random barnstars, and do declare if you're receiving Facebook funding!) Sorry I can't offer much further thought on the subject, but hope this response might be of some use. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:45, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Nick Moyes! I am a collaborator with Bobo.03 on this project. Thank you for your post here a couple weeks ago. Are you by any chance interested in providing an interview for this research? I appreciate the ideas you've shared here, and would appreciate getting more insight into your perspective. If so, please get in touch on my talk page. Thanks! FauxNeme (talk) 16:49, 28 February 2019 (UTC)  Done Nick Moyes (talk) 16:44, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk to us about talking

The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.

We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.

We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.

We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.

You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:

1. First, sign up your group here.
2. Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
3. Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
   1. When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
   2. What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
   3. What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
   4. What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
   5. What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
4. Finally, please go to Talk pages consultation 2019 on Mediawiki.org and report what you learned from your group. Please include links if the discussion is available to the public.

You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.

Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.

You can read more about the overall process on mediawiki.org. If you have questions or ideas, you can leave feedback about the consultation process in the language you prefer.

Thank you! We're looking forward to talking with you. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Im down for this Jayscott478 (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much!!

Thanks Mohammmadahmad649 (talk) 05:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

@Mohammmadahmad649 and SkyGazer 512: I believe the above THX belong to Wikipedia:Teahouse#When can I get extended confirmed user degree on Wikipedia? section. CiaPan (talk) 10:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mohammmadahmad649 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

No problem, Mohammmadahmad649, I'm glad I could help! For the future, it's generally a good idea, when replying to discussions, to do so in the same place as the initial discusison, just to keep everything in one place. =)--SkyGazer 512 ^{Oh no, what did I do this time?} 20:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

But when will I get autoconfirmed?? I have done 11 edits and my account is since Jan 2019. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mohammmadahmad649 (talk • contribs) 05:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)