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Request for the phonetic transcription of the family name

Dear colleaques, allow me to inform you about the request I've posted recently at the Talk page of the relevant article. I kindly ask anybody for whom American English is the first language to consult about the correct pronunciation of J. B. Straubel's name in the U. S. A. - at least, to write the answer on the talk page of the article. Thanks in advance. Cherurbino (talk) 14:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

(UPD) my POV is that the orthoepic standard for „Straubel” is the same, as for Levi Strauss - /ˈstraʊs/: „s”, not „sh”, and „au”, not „o” - am I right? Cherurbino (talk) 02:09, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Please, tell me the criteria for the significance of one existing article

Does anyone know the criteria of the significance of the article about Yegor Zhukov? In Russian Misplaced Pages, the article about this person is constantly removed, and in the discussion for the preservation of the article I haven't arguments. Maybe I can take advantage of the criteria from the article with a foreign speech Misplaced Pages? -Dmitry Pechenkov (talk) 13:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)-

I don't know, Dmitry Pechenkov. If you think that he's not noteworthy, you can propose deletion. Here is the procedure. But please familiarize yourself with deletion criteria beforehand; in particular, NB "an article about him has been repeatedly deleted on Russian-language Misplaced Pages" is not a valid argument for deletion here (just as "an article about him has been repeatedly judged worth keeping on Russian-language Misplaced Pages" would not be a valid argument for retention here). -- Hoary (talk) 13:52, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
On the contrary. I want to understand the significance of this article in the English Misplaced Pages, in order to use it in the Russian Misplaced Pages and restore the article) --Dmitry Pechenkov (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
He is considered notable on English Misplaced Pages because he is covered in at least 4 highly reliable sources that are cited in the article: NPR, The New York Times, The New Yorker magazine, and the BBC. There are also 4 Russian language sources that might also be reliable, but you might be a better judge of those. Station1 (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
The problem with determining if he meets WP:N on the English-language Misplaced Pages is that this policy is highly unlikely to be identical to the equivalent policies on the Russian-language Misplaced Pages. Each Misplaced Pages is its own project with its own rules and standards, and what's acceptable on one of them may be lacking on another. —A little blue Bori v^_^v 18:45, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Virtual Great American Wiknic CentralNotice for US editors

I have put in a request for a geo-targeted CentralNotice for the Virtual Great American Wiknic on Sunday August 16. See the request on meta at m:CentralNotice/Request/Virtual Great American Wiknic.--Pharos (talk) 00:14, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Can't find

Where can I find this or this templates? I have been templated with both, but can't find them anywhere for me to use. I am pretty sure they were not created fresh for my talk page. Aditya 04:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

As the HTML in the wikitext says, both are derived from {{subst:Ds/alert|topic code}}. If you are considering placing them on another editor's talk page, please read the Usage section of that template's documentation first. Certes (talk) 09:49, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Non free images help page

There doesn't seem to be a venue for novice users seeking assistance in writing rationales for non-free images. Do we have such a page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:19, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

The best I think we have is at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2008-09-22/Dispatches#The rationale which is linked at WP:NFC as a See Also , but this likely assumes one is using a template and this is for meeting the NFCC#8 part (all other 9 points addressed.) --Masem (t) 21:09, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

User Deb has deleted the page "Gaza Sky Geeks"

Deb has deleted a page called Gaza Sky Geeks (GSG) that I and other editors have worked on. The page is a few years old, was blanked/vandalized by someone and then deleted. Then it was created again by an ip user and then I asked on the Village Pump to have the draft restored because I knew that it was in a better condition. Given what Deb has written on his talk page (User_talk:Deb), I don't think discussing the matter with him will lead anywhere. So I ask if an uninvolved moderator can restore the page. If Deb or anyone else wants to have the page deleted, he should nominate it for "Articles for Deletion" so that it can be discussed. GSG has received lots of news coverage and clearly fulfills the WP:N critera. ImTheIP (talk) 19:57, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@ImTheIP: this is the wrong venue for much discussion on this, but lets see if we can settle it quickly. That page was nominated for speedy deletion by SUSTAMI and the deletion was carried out by Deb - obviously this is a contested speedy nomination now - so I suggest restoring the page and letting SUSTAMI list at AfD to move forward. Deb, agree? — xaosflux 20:33, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
If this is not agreed to, we can move this to a more approriate venue for admin action review/page deletion review/etc. — xaosflux 20:34, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't like restoring material that has been nominated for deletion as G11. I looked back through old versions and it seemed to me they were just as bad in terms of promotional language. However, I'll put the first few versions (dating from 2018) back into draft for User:ImTheIP to work on. Not much point trying to get the other named user to fix it - I think there may be a WP:COMPETENCE issue there. Deb (talk) 08:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
The last version of the article was from 2020 so that is the version that should be restored. Moreover, I think the article should go through the AfD process if people want it gone so that the community can decide if the topic ever will get an article. Because what we had was pretty much all information about GSG there is.ImTheIP (talk) 12:15, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@ImTheIP: if this is stalled out, please move this discussion to WP:AN for review by an uninvovled admin. — xaosflux 13:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Was that the page I should have posted on in the first place? I have been here for years but all these meta pages still confuse me! ImTheIP (talk) 13:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
@ImTheIP: there are a few options but that one is certainly better than VP:M. — xaosflux 13:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Home page

I wish you would go back to the old home page format that had the featured article right below the search box. The info placed there now is just clutter we have to scroll past to get to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.248.210.220 (talk) 13:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about which content you consider to be clutter? I see that you are currently using a mobile device, as do the majority of our readers. On a desktop (Firefox on Linux) the things that I see between the search box and today's featured article (whether I use https://en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Main_Page) are the slogan "Welcome to Misplaced Pages, the 💕 that anyone can edit. 6,140,016 articles in English" and nine links to portals. Are they what you feel shouldn't be there? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Before TemplateStyles were added to the main page (a few months ago), the header bar (welcome and portals) did not display. (Nor did much of our main page in fact.) It appears this unregistered reader does not appreciate those as being wasteful of space (i.e. they push the FA (partially) below the fold at mobile resolutions). --Izno (talk) 01:20, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Removing rename templates on files for which there is no consensus to rename

There are 138 files in Category:Misplaced Pages files requiring renaming that were added by Jonteemil. These are mostly double extensions like File:A-Square (Of Course).JPEG.jpg and some odd things like File:AARP logo SVG.svg.

It's unclear if WP:FNC#5 would cover these. On Commons, there is #6 which covers "Non-controversial maintenance and bug fixes, including fixing double extensions, invalid or incorrect extensions, character handling problems, and other similar technical issues" but on WP we don't have this.

For some more info, see Misplaced Pages talk:File names#Addition of criterion.

The problem is that finding new requests in the category has been complicated by all these requests that can't be fulfilled right now. I'm keeping up with new requests so far, but I doubt anyone else will, and I don't like the extra work.

I have saved all the move links to User:Alexis Jazz/Double extension links. So if at any point we decide to move them, we can. No matter if we approve or decline these requests, the rename template on these files needs to go. I want to remove the {{rename media}} templates now and make the category Category:Misplaced Pages files requiring renaming usable again.

Any opposition? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Wp:Be bold.Jonteemil (talk) 20:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I will wait for either 24 hours or some more people supporting this before I actually remove the template from the files. Because while removing the template will be easy, putting it back would take more effort. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
The arguments at Misplaced Pages talk:File names#Double extension seem convincing. I would follow the advice there, and do the renaming under #3 or WP:FNC#5, preferably the latter. Longer term we should consider changing the policy to get the equivalent of Commons criterion #6, which specifically mentions double extensions. This point was noted above by User:Alexis Jazz. To move forward on an actual change in the policy, people have begun collecting opinions at Misplaced Pages talk:File names#Addition of criterion. EdJohnston (talk) 20:23, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
@EdJohnston: Don't want to be "that guy" but I actually noted the point, not Alexis, although it seems that he agrees with it.Jonteemil (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for more input on RfC on Winona Ryder's article

Can we get more input on this RfC: Talk:Winona Ryder#rfc_3EA12AB? The dispute is whether her relationships with two of her former boyfriends (Matt Damon and Dave Pirner) are notable enough to be included in the infobox 'partner' parameter. Thanks. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Good job, AfD

Looks like we correctly identified in 2017 that DC Solar wasn't notable enough to get an article. According to a recently-submitted article, it turned out to be a Ponzi scheme and got shut down by the US federal government in 2018. signed, Rosguill 22:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: That doesn't mean it wasn't notable. I actually find it unlikely that any billion-dollar operation (Ponzi scheme or otherwise) isn't notable. Not impossible, but remarkable. More importantly, Misplaced Pages/AfD is not Trustpilot. Monsanto was a shit company (before it became a shit division of Bayer), but it's notable. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 23:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, I mean yeah, but it's amusing nonetheless. We inadvertently saw through their bullshit, even if there's a possibility that it wasn't for the right reasons. signed, Rosguill 23:13, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz:, it is possible that an organization could be non-notable as a business but notable as a criminal organization. Indeed, the vast majority of businesses owned by organized criminal organizations would be in that boat. It's not surprising that the promotional efforts of a Ponzi scheme (which only works if heavily-promoted) might have been the only coverage of DC Solar in 2017. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

How to writing about Misplaced Pages's actual impact on a topic on Misplaced Pages

For the video game project, we long since suspected that how we defined the console generation (eg as First generation of video game consoles, etc.) was sorta our own original research from near the creation of Misplaced Pages, but could not verify this was easily the case. All we know is that the main, typically non-academic but gaming press and maisntream news sources we use for the project since --- 2010 nearly all use our numbering scheme (in that the current console gen is the 8th with the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch), so there's almost been no reason to change it. However, recently I've hit upon a key academic paper that has been key to saying, "yes you guys (Misplaced Pages) created your own system, but so did pretty much everyone else". I've been able to work that into the section History of video game consoles#Console generations (The paper itself is the Kemerer one in the refs).

My question or what advice I'm trying to seek is just making sure that how I've written that is "hands off" enough to reflect that Misplaced Pages had a role in identifying these, and that in how we present going forward stays with it as media since that point uses our scheme, but I've never seen a case of how to describe the "we" as in editors of Misplaced Pages in mainspace to the main audience like that in a more "active role" here (compared to other places like the Stop Online Piracy Act blackout). It's easy to write this way in WP: space as instructions, but not mainspace. --Masem (t) 21:22, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Masem, hmm, that's an interesting case study. I don't have any immediate suggestions, but you might find it useful to look at pages like COI editing on Misplaced Pages or Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Misplaced Pages, or guidance like Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (self-references to avoid). So long as you're following the MOS and not linking to WP-space from mainspace, etc., we should be good. {{u|Sdkb}}  20:47, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Is it OK to quote Covid {“clusterf**k” on campus} ?

Do I remove the asterisks? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/daily-tar-heel-editorial-unc-coronavirus_n_5f3b0385c5b670ab17aecc91 Charles Juvon (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I think you should quote it as written in the original. If the original has asterisks, keep them. Chuntuk (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. Charles Juvon (talk) 19:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Referencing an mp3 or mp4 interview

If a person interviews another person and there is significant encyclopedic content in the interview, where does the interview have to be posted or published to serve as a Misplaced Pages reference? Assume neither person is currently a notable person. Also assume that no one has published a review of the interview. In fact, this is an interview of a WW2 veteran who states details about the Manhattan Project that may be heretofore unknown. Charles Juvon (talk) 23:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Charles Juvon: Depends. Assuming the interview is not in the public domain or freely licensed (like Creative Commons), it probably can't be uploaded here. It could probably be uploaded to archive.org and/or YouTube. Exactly who is/are the copyright holder(s) may be a rather complicated question. But if you are talking about "what would make it WP:RS?", the answer is more simple. It would have to be published by an existing RS. Say, if it appeared in a history documentary from an established documentary maker or an existing RS embeds the interview on their website. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:40, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. The copyright owner is willing to freely license to Commons. However, I don't see much audio in Commons. Would you suggest that the copyright owner find a WW2 publisher that is RS? Charles Juvon (talk) 02:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
@Charles Juvon: It is possible to upload audio to Commons and/or Misplaced Pages. In this particular case, there are a few concerns: who is the copyright holder? If I don't know, you almost certainly don't know either. The person who recorded it? In that case, if I interview J.K. Rowling and ask her to read some paragraphs for me from one of her books, do I now own the copyright for those paragraphs of Harry Potter? And if I work for the BBC, who owns the copyright? Me or the BBC? Or technically me but do I contractually transfer nearly all my rights to my boss? (hint: probably yes)
There is another concern: authenticity. I can invite a friend over, we have some wild fantasies and record an interview. How would anyone know if it's real?
For the copyright issue, contact WP:OTRS. For the authenticity question, seek out a reliable source. Might be a local radio station or something. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
(Standard disclaimer: this is not legal advice.) The person who makes a recording owns the copyright in the recording, unless it was a work for hire, in which case the employer owns the copyright. This doesn't mean you have the right to make copies, though, if doing so would infringe other copyrights. J.K. Rowling continues to hold copyright for her work, and you would not be free to make copies of the recording without permission. However some jurisdictions have a concept of fair use or fair dealing. So if you've interviewed an author for a news story and she read a small excerpt, it would likely be covered under that. Some jurisdictions have rights of privacy or rights of publicity which also can restrict how you can use a recording. isaacl (talk) 23:00, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Charles Juvon, sorry to throw out another policy here, but Misplaced Pages:No original research may be somewhat relevant. If the information in the interview is significant enough to be encyclopedic, it will presumably be covered by reliable sources. As for the audio, if we figure out who the license holder is and they upload it to Commons, that would be great, since it could then potentially be used in the article, like e.g. here. {{u|Sdkb}}  20:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
I disagree about WP:NOR excluding all recorded interviews. If someone records a person who is clearly a reliable source on the subject, & puts a copy of that interview online at a durable online location (i.e., Commons or YouTube, as opposed to a website they created that might vanish at any moment), I would consider that meets our criteria for citing. For example, if one were to record an interview with Ward Cunningham about Wiki software & upload it to Commons, that is a reliable source (if cited appropriately, of course); however, if you were to interview me about why Donald Trump is a crappy president/person & upload it, it is not reliable since I (freely admittedly) am not a reliable source on the subject -- beyond being a legal voting citizen of the US. (And if that interview was uploaded to Commons & subsequently nominated for deletion, I probably would vote to delete it.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Llywrch: But how would you verify the authenticity? Also, YouTube videos might vanish at any moment. The uploader could delete them, or I could. All it takes is a report of copyright infringement and YT takes it down. No matter how insane the report, they'll take it down. Also your account might vanish for no reason. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:45, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, we have to assume good faith. No matter what mechanisms we set up, in the end we have to assume our contributors are not lying to us when they provide a reliable source, which works most of the time. I admit does not always provide a reliable result. For instance, one now-banned contributor fabricated countless articles by citing an existing book but not providing the pages in said book where he alleged to have found this information. And then the burden of proof that they are hoaxes falls on the person who nominates them for deletion. (It's a pain finding these hoax articles, some of which he created with a sock puppet -- especially as sometimes the fiction is mixed with bits of truth.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
A source does not have to be available "online" in order to use it. Is this just a copy of an interview, or is it the only recording of the interview? Could a reader (even with much effort) track down the interview independently? — xaosflux 16:52, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Even if it were Misplaced Pages:Published (and posting to Commons would count for that purpose), it's still be a WP:PRIMARY source. Charles Juvon, it might be more appropriate to send this to one of the many oral history projects for veterans, such as https://www.loc.gov/vets/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, great idea. I had been searching, with no luck, for an appropriate repository. Charles Juvon (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The growing paperwork in creating an article

I'd like to point out that currently creating an article also has acquired a number of additional steps. (Not sure if all are required, but I feel compelled to do them.)

  • Write the article. (And there is a lot of required unnoticed work involved in this -- but I won't discuss that here.)
  • Create a Talk page by adding WikiProject templates.
  • Look for a corresponding entry on Wikidata. If it exists, links to it; if not, create it.
  • Create a short description. (Or whatever happens to be at Wikidata shows up for mobile users.) A step I admit I forget to do.

The barrier to creating articles is gradually growing higher. -- llywrch (talk) 21:33, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Except for the first step, none of those are mandatory. Someone will come along eventually. –xeno 21:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
There's also "add to categories" (but like the wikidata step, there are gnomes who seem to specialize in that). Schazjmd (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Llywrch, Just get creating. If you go via AFC others will take care of your talk page and maybe even categories. Fiddle Faddle 21:50, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn't put too much faith in AfC, having just stub-sorted Churiwal (surname) which had arrived in mainspace from AfC unnecessarily disambiguated and with no link from Churiwal. (I moved it). PamD 11:19, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Xeno, but I worry about doing a complete job. -- llywrch (talk) 21:55, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
@Llywrch: Don't worry. Few articles are "complete". A good job which someone else can finish is a welcome addition. Certes (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Once upon a time, our rule was that every article should be obviously incomplete in some respect, in the hope that another editor would get involved in the article/Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd add,
  • If it's a disambiguated title, make a dab page entry or hatnote so that readers can find it from the basic, non-disambiguated, title.
and ideally also:
  • Make redirects from likely alternative titles
  • Add to surname page, if it's a biography
PamD 22:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • That good point about surnames can be generalised to: add it to any lists of which it is a member. Do we need a how-to page somewhere in WP: space? Help:Your first article is useful and covers topics such as incoming links (#Avoid orphans) but it omits many good points made above and the title won't appeal to regulars. Certes (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • We should certainly be trying to minimize the barrier to entry, but I'm not sure there's anything we could reasonably do to reduce the tasks listed here; they're all pretty important and non-automatable. {{u|Sdkb}}  09:43, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
    A script could be written that provides a nice GUI which suggests the actions that need to be done. It could check the dab page and see if it contains a link to this article (for pages with disambig terms in title), point out the existence of first name/surname pages (for bios), provide quick links to year pages (where birth/death is to be recorded), provide suggestions for redirects. And allow adding shortdesc, wikidata item and categories from the same GUI. Adding talk templates is a bit complicated -- maybe this script could just call Evad37's rater script. SD0001 (talk) 13:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
  • For biographies, at present the DEFAULTSORT has to be added manually and also the "listas=" parameter in the {{WP Bio}} talk page banner has to hold the identical information. It ought to be possible to automate this so that the info doesn't need to be added twice.
It would also be possible for a bot to run regularly to flag up cases where the article "Foo (xyz)" doesn't have a link from "Foo", either by hatnote or dab page. To my mind that navigational link is more important than most of the other things we're worrying about here: without it, the reader struggles to find the article, and a future editor may well create a duplicate at "Foo (xzy)" if that's another plausible title.
A bot could also look for cases where the bolded title in start of lead isn't the same as the article title and there is no redirect from it, and either create the redirect automatically or flag it up for wikignomes: quite often creating that redirect resolves a red link in an existing article where, for example, a person is listed under their full name complete with the middle name they don't usuallly use.PamD 11:28, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
PamD, for DEFAULTSORT, that sounds like an excellent bot task; please take it to WP:BOTREQ! Same goes with the bolding, which if editors are following MOS:BOLD properly should turn up a lot (more likely, it'll turn up a lot of MOS:BOLD violations, but that's useful too.
For disambiguations, that's definitely an issue, but programming a bot for it may be a little more involved. For instance, for some pages, the hatnote is For other uses, see Foo (disambiguation), which only then links to the page. I'm sure there are other edge cases as well. A bot wouldn't need to be perfect if it's just flagging cases for human editors to fix, but it'd be need to be good enough to not be filled with false positives. {{u|Sdkb}}  18:59, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Summarizing an article

The lead of an article needs to have a summary of the article, but Cleavage (breasts) has anything but that in the lead. I wrote the article in most part, but now I find myself unable to summarize it crisply enough for the lead. I have have been to the LEADTEAM and recieved some help. But not in summarizing the article. Is there anyone who can lend a hand here? I promise to be as much help as I can, but I need someone to take the lead in writing the lead (bad pun intended). I don't know where else I can go begging for help. Anyone? Please? Aditya 13:11, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Update request

Please go on meta:Requests for new languages and change to created the Misplaced Pages Ladin on the approved section. Thank you in advance!!! --151.49.93.113 (talk) 12:48, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Done! the wub "?!" 14:24, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Reference trends

This signpost report got me thinking about measuring Misplaced Pages's growth. Has anyone ever measured it by the number of footnotes? Seems like it would be easy enough to do by counting instances of <ref>, and it would give an important measure of Misplaced Pages's progress over time. (Seems better than measuring article count, article length, etc.) I didn't see this when I looked in a few obvious places. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on September 1st

Read this message in another language

The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that Misplaced Pages and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data centre on Tuesday, September 1st 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

  • You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, September 1st. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday September 2).
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Other effects:

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  • There will be code freezes for the week of September 1st, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF): will a Cental Notice be up for this, or should we do something locally? We don't normally advertise short outages, but with this one being longer we may want to consider one. — xaosflux 14:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
@Xaosflux:, yes, I'll setup CentralNotice banner. It will be displayed during the 30 minutes prior to the event. Then the global lock message will be shown. However, any initiative taken by the communities to inform other users is welcomed. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Trizek (WMF), I assume this will also be in Tech News? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:47, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
It was in 2020-33 and 34 but a reminder wouldn't hurt. Certes (talk) 14:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
It is already in the next issue. Trizek (WMF) (talk) 15:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for more input on RfC

Any chance of more input on this RfC: Talk:Christina Ricci#rfc_37B4931? The dispute is whether, since Ricci has filed for divorce from her husband, it should state "separated" in the marriage template or not. Thanks. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 01:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there anyway to make the content of template appear only once after transclusion

I have a question that is there is any magic word or other wiki markup to make template display only once even if the template has multiple instances on the same page. For example, if the template is used at the first position, it appears after you submit the change, then if the template used at another position of content, it doesn't display at all. --Great Brightstar (talk) 12:41, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Great Brightstar: I'm not aware of any such magical spell. But I am also not able to devise any reason to design one. Can you describe a specific case where such behavior is desired? --CiaPan (talk) 12:56, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to answer CiaPan's question, and then if you want to pursue this to post at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical), where more people who could answer your question hang out. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:57, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Template expansion is stateless, so template one cannot set a variable and have template two test for it. However, CSS does have the concept of first child of a thing, so perhaps there is some way to hide the second instance of a template. Can you point to a specific case where this is needed? — GhostInTheMachine 19:14, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, I just had an idea for this.--Great Brightstar (talk) 03:47, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

La Valencia Mine/The Valenciana Mine

Is La Valencia Mine = The Valenciana Mine? If so, is one article enough? // Zquid (talk) 11:44, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

You are correct. I have renamed The Valenciana Mine to Valenciana Mine and redirected La Valencia Mine to it. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:54, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
@Phil Bridger: Thank you! And I found the articles because user EstrellaSuecia 24-30 August arranged "Weekly contest" about Mexico in sv-wp (sv:Misplaced Pages:Veckans tävling/Tema Mexiko). The contest made things better not only in sv-wp. :-) // Zquid (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

New Misplaced Pages Library Collections Now Available (September 2020)


Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Misplaced Pages Library is announcing new free, full-access, accounts to reliable sources as part of our research access program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

Many other partnerships are listed on our partners page, including Adam Matthew, EBSCO, Gale and JSTOR.

A significant portion of our collection now no longer requires individual applications to access! Read more in our recent blog post.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Misplaced Pages projects!
--The Misplaced Pages Library Team 09:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Misplaced Pages Library Global Delivery List.

Peer review request

Requesting peer review at Misplaced Pages:Peer review/Women in Islam/archive1,

Bookku (talk) 09:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Third opinions requests

  1. Talk:Overseas Pakistani#Following content was censored from the article.
  2. Talk:British Pakistanis#Sectarianism.

Disagreement about deletion of section and sources. Requesting third opinion per WP:3O Bookku (talk) 11:03, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Bookku: This is not the place to request third opinion. Please follow the instructions at Misplaced Pages:Third_opinion RudolfRed (talk) 16:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

"Public thanks"?

What does that mean? It shows up when you thank someone. Where can the "public" see who thanked whom and when and for what? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 10:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Who and whom and when, but not for what, are at Special:Log/thanks. —Cryptic 10:15, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Planning to add Template:Cleanup translation to 1000+ pages

See this archived discussion on AN.

I want to add {{Cleanup translation|(language of source)}} to all the pages listed on User:S Marshall/sandbox. As this is a mass edit I'm announcing it here.

Pinging @Bradv, S Marshall. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, are you able to identify the source language for each of these articles? If not, perhaps {{Rough translation}} would be a better fit? Either way, thank you very much for taking this on. – bradv🍁 01:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv: I should be able to figure that out. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 03:31, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
You can get that information from WP:AN/CXT/PTR.—S Marshall T/C 07:59, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
It would be even better if you fixed the pages yourself. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
@Graeme Bartlett: My priority is to get them categorized by source language. (using the cleanup template) Once that's done, I can look at the ones that were translated from a language that I understand. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
By the way, if anyone gets the idea of just checking the facts using English sources, be very careful to avoid citogenesis. You can try to avoid this by using sources that predate the English article or sources that clearly didn't rely on Misplaced Pages. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:10, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
If these pages are only possibly in need of cleanup, it might be better to introduce a parameter that changes the wording on the template to "may need attention" and use that. {{u|Sdkb}}  01:18, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Arteche Group began as a raw machine translation of fr:Arteche (it's a Spanish corporation but the article is a translation from the French). In 2019, Beland tagged it with {{copyedit}} and three days later, it was imperfectly fixed up into plausible English by Lfstevens, who removed the tag. Judging by the contribution history of Bssanssanchez, the original author, I'd say he's not fluent in English, and I don't have any reason to think anyone who's edited it has fluent French. At first glance, the translation isn't terrible; the promotional and unencyclopaedic tone is in the original.—S Marshall T/C 16:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't speak a single word of Sorani Kurdish so I can't evaluate Shahriyar Jamshidi in the same way. All I can do is confirm that it says the same thing that de:Shahriyar Jamshidi says. A needlessly picky person might raise quibbles about some of the sources in Mr Jamshidi's article, but I'm not the notability police, so I wouldn't do anything so unkind. For the purposes of this project, if I was the reviewing editor, I'd simply tag it with {{translated}} on the talk page and delete it from the working list.—S Marshall T/C 17:16, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • @Sdkb: Fair point, I added a type parameter to {{Cleanup translation}}. See User:Alexis Jazz/sandbox for an example. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:03, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Abuse response template

Misplaced Pages:Abuse response has been marked as "closed down by community consensus, retained only for historical reference" since 2013; the related template, {{AR talk}}, likewise, is marked "currently inactive and is retained for historical reference".

Nonetheless, the template is transcluded on over 100 pages, mostly if not all IP talk pages, on which it says "this IP address is currently the subject of an open Abuse Response investigation"

Should the template be deleted, or each transclusion removed? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:22, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: announcement

The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint additional editors to the Checkuser and Oversight teams. The arbitrators overseeing this will be Bradv, KrakatoaKatie, and Xeno.

The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will assist in the vetting process.

This year's timeline is as follows:

  • 7 September to 19 September: Candidates may self-nominate by contacting the Arbitration Committee at arbcom-en-c@wikimedia.org.
  • 20 September to 23 September: The Arbitration Committee and Functionaries will vet the candidates.
  • 24 September to 26 September: The committee will notify candidates going forward for community consultation and create the candidate subpages containing the submitted nomination statements.
  • 27 September to 7 October: Nomination statements will be published and the candidates are invited to answer questions publicly. The community is invited and encouraged to participate.
  • By 14 October: Appointments will be announced.

For the Arbitration Committee, Katie 23:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Article Superstition in Judaism has been nominated for deletion

Hello,

Since some editors are contesting existence of articles associating religions and religious communities to superstitions, One of the article which concerns topic has been nominated for deletion. You can support or contest the deletion at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Superstition in Judaism by putting forward your opinion.

Thanks and regards Bookku (talk) 05:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Default page image on facebook

When posting a link to a Misplaced Pages page on facebook, if the page has no image on it, a fuzzy image of a padlock is substituted. This seems like a really peculiar choice! Assuming wp has some control, almost anything would be better! How about the wp globe, or a cap W? Mwanner | Talk 14:45, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that some page here (en.wikipedia.org) has a link to a Facebook page with text copied from Misplaced Pages? Why would that be done, and why would we worry about how a Facebook page appears? Johnuniq (talk) 01:05, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
No, I think the poster is saying that when you share a Misplaced Pages article on Facebook, sometimes the default image selected by facebook is a fuzzy padlock. I assume this happens to semi-protected pages where the padlock is the only image on them. I'm not sure that there's anything we can do about this, but if someone knows someone at facebook it wouldn't hurt to ask them if there's a way to change this on facebook's end. Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:13, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
It would have to be done on our end, but it Looks like it's incredibly straightforward. Just make the wiki logo the default somehow. The documentation is at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/images/ -~ฅ(ↀωↀ=)neko-chan 07:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm against any engagement with Facebook, particularly one that makes it even a tiny bit more functional (and therefore more attractive). Facebook is bad, at least in the political sphere, and that matters because they are so big. Herostratus (talk) 19:06, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Facebook's instructions say to add an og:image tag. Although called Open Graph, this protocol appears to be specific to Facebook. If so then I think we should omit it as we do with Google Analytics and other proprietary tracking. Certes (talk) 19:29, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
phab:T204054 may have more on this. — xaosflux 19:52, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
It seems to have been taken care of... I just saw a link to a Misplaced Pages page that showed no image at all, a great improvement. As for the suggestion that we should avoid any engagement with Facebook, that strikes me as absurd. I see people on Facebook trot out the usual "Misplaced Pages is unreliable" crap, and I refute them at length. You may think Facebook is a terrible, dreadful thing, but it is not going away, and it is immensely influential. Besides, this isn't about making Facebook more functional, it is about making Misplaced Pages look less peculiar when it is linked to on Facebook. Mwanner | Talk 00:00, 11 September 2020 (UTC)