User talk:StarryGrandma

Asking for advice on "Quaker" Section 1.7

Hi, I'm the person that accidentally turned all the s's into z's (sorry about that by the way), and I wanted to ask for permission before I make another edit on the page. This was the original change I made before I went on my mad alphabet spree. I was trying to tidy up the section on Evolution, and I wanted to ask if this did a good job. Any criticism would be appreciated!

The theory of evolution described by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859) was opposed by many Quakers in the 19th century,[54] particularly by older evangelical Quakers who dominated the Religious Society of Friends in Great Britain. These older Quakers were both suspicious of Darwin's theory and believed natural selection could not explain life on its own.[55] The influential Quaker scientist Edward Newman[56] said that the theory was "not compatible with our notions of creation as delivered from the hands of a Creator".

However, some young Friends such as John Wilhelm Rowntree and Edward Grubb supported Darwin's theories, using a doctrine of progressive revelation.[55] In the United States, Joseph Moore taught the theory of evolution at the Quaker Earlham College as early as 1861.[57] This made him one of the first teachers to do so in the Midwest.[58] Acceptance of the theory of evolution became more widespread in Yearly Meetings who moved toward liberal Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries.[59] However, creationism still persists within evangelical Friends Churches, particularly in East Africa and parts of the United States.

Thanks, and I would appreciate any feedback! VioletJR (talk) 03:45, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Your non s-z changes were definitely an improvement. Keep it up. StarryGrandma (talk) 03:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for May 28

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Sankaran Thayumanavan, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page AAAS.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:04, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you

I really appreciate your bringing some sanity to the QI talk page. My stress levels are much improved. —Quondum 02:50, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

You are welcome. But there is always more waiting for us. StarryGrandma (talk) 06:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

New message from Chess

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard § RfC on banning word or edit counts for student assignments. Chess (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • nuke contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:04, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Articles for Creation July 2021 Backlog Elimination Drive

Hello StarryGrandma:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running until 31 July 2021.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is currently a backlog of over 1200 articles, so start reviewing articles. We're looking forward to your help!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for Creation at 21:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC). If you do not wish to recieve future notification, please remove your name from the mailing list.

Gram per cubic metre

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gram per cubic metre. You rejected this article's creation through AfC back in 2019. The editor who created it moved it to mainspace himself tonight.--Srleffler (talk) 01:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:30, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Infobox pageant

I'm not sure if you watch the TP for Infobox pageant titleholder, but I made a suggestion there and am looking for feedback. I found you had opinions on this template at a TFD. Thanks. MB 18:04, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Please take a look

Sir, can you please take a look at following-

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dr._A.P.J._Abdul_Kalam_Technical_University#Merger_proposal

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chaudhary_Charan_Singh_University#Merger_discussion

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Veer_Bahadur_Singh_Purvanchal_University#Merger_discussion

Thanks. 2409:4063:4D03:5145:E472:9253:FCF6:E4B (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 19:43, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Grateful for your quick response on Help page with advice on lists in relation to an art gallery entry. Jamesmcardle(talk) 06:13, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Potential copyvio discussion

For example, compare a biennial herb which grows 18–40 centimetres (7.1–15.7 in). The stems are branched and they usually lack hairs, but can sometimes have sparse hairs on the lower parts. The leaves on the stems are usually entire or pinnatifid or can sometimes be pinnatisect to Biennial herbs, 18–40 cm high. Stems branched, glabrous or with sparsely hairs at lower part. Stem leaves entire, pinnatifid or sometimes pinnatisect. The directness is quite clear, with the difference being the addition of some joining words, and some reordering.

The editor is certainly acting in good faith, but when using a single short source for an article I feel it is almost unavoidable to closely paraphrase to the extent that a copyright violation may have occurred. As for the tag, it was required given my assessment of the circumstances; I believe you should restore it, as it should only be removed by an admin, a copyright clerk, or a member of the VRT. BilledMammal (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal, I've put it back and will discuss with the editor. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope I am wrong about it, or at least their efforts on the temp page will resolve the issue. BilledMammal (talk) 00:00, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

• AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
• The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Band bending

Band bending has been deleted, clearing the way to promote the draft at your discretion. Happy editing, and thank you for all your work here. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 00:46, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Odderon and Draft

Hello StarryGrandma,

I saw your comments on the new page Odderon Discovery. We created a new page because there is a conflict with the information published in the other page which are in contradiction with the official channels of the TOTEM-DO Collaboration (CERN-Fermilab laboratories), who made the discovery of the Odderon. Before the creation of this new page with informed Wikipedia about the conflict and this is why we created this new page.

Babressan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Babressan (talk • contribs) 16:28, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

@Babressan, this is an encyclopedia, not a place to publish competing articles. Sort this out at the existing Odderon article, using Talk:Odderon to discuss what the conflict is if necessary. Wikipedia is not interested in "official" channels, but in what is supported by reliable, in depth published scientific sources which are independent of those claiming discovery. Also your first version of the draft is a copy of the Odderon article without attribution - you cannot copy someone else's work here without saying where you got it. That is plagiarism just as at university. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Dear StarryGrandma, thank you very much for your reply. We did not copy the page we just remade the page adding also the correct version of the truth. So you mean that everybody can say whatever they want because this is an encliopedia? I created my page to give credibility to the new version, as wikipedia asked for. Before doing that I have contacted the Wikipedia media office to inform about the conflict and they advised me on what to do, indeed in my page is enlightened that there is the conflict...I do not think this is a plagiarism, we did all the necessary steps to inform Wikipedia about the conflict...what I meant by the official channels is not this, I meant that there are references which I have also published in the new page that say that this discovery cannot be attributed to one single person, but to many and the collaboration. I am just trying to convey the message of what really happened and give the credibility to those who contribute to this discovery...anyway, thanks you very much for your help. Appreciate it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Babressan (talk • contribs) 09:52, 24 February 2022 (UTC) We will sort it out, all the best

@Babressan, thank you for moving the material to the original article. Universities don't say much about plagiarism these days, but in my day it could get you expelled. Wikipedia is extremely careful about copying and copyright. Every word typed into a Wikipedia article is under a copyright owned by the editor who typed it, if they didn't copy it from someone else. And by clicking "Publish" that editor has agreed to license that material under CC BY-SA 3.0, which allows others to use it for any purpose anywhere (not just on Wikipedia) as long as they attribute the material to the original author. That authorship is recorded in the history of the article. See the Draft:Odderon Discovery history here. All you have to do to attribute properly is to say in the edit summary "copied from the Odderon article".

Instead of worrying about priority and papers, what the article should be about is the physics of the object, the interactions that show it exists, and the equipment that made the observations possible. The article doesn't even say in language a general reader can understand what an odderon is. A good source to use for the physics is the explanation given at

• Österberg, Kenneth (September 6, 2021). "The discovery of the Odderon". Helsinky Institute of Physics. Retrieved February 23, 2022.

by Kenneth Österberg, Physics coordinator, TOTEM experiment, CERN. I am going to say more about the priority stuff at Talk:Odderon since interesting things are going on at the article. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:01, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Features for new users coming soon (and mentors, like you, wanted!)

Hello. As you're currently listed as a host at the Teahouse, I wanted to make sure you're aware of the imminent rollout of new Growth Team Features which every new account will be getting by default. Each users will soon see a new 'Homepage' tab next to their User page. It contains two main elements which might impact on your involvement - and you'd be welcome to get involved and help out directly with one of them.

• Firstly, they will be offered a range of 'suggested edits', and encouraged to make simple improvements to pages that interest them. (Being aware of this feature would be helpful for all Teahouse hosts if you're likely to offer advice on tasks for them to start out doing.)
• There's also a 'Your impact' box to show them how many people have seen the pages they've just edited.
• Finally, each new user is randomly assigned a 'mentor' from a list of friendly, experienced editors, like yourself. If they get stuck, they can ask a question directly to them via a Your mentor box, and hopefully get a swift, friendly answer from that mentor. Currently, this feature is given to 2% of new users, but it's set to increase to around 10% in the very near future.

To spread the load on our current list of around 65 mentors, I'm reaching out to ask if you'd like to help out and sign up as one? The workload is relatively small; User Panini! reports receiving four questions a month, on average, all of which were simple ones of the type we already get at the Teahouse and elsewhere, and I've had just the one in the last 3 weeks. To view a list of every question asked of all mentors over the last 14 days, click here.

If becoming a mentor and being available to help new users on their first few days here interests you - just as you already do at the Teahouse - then please consider signing up at Growth Team features/Mentor list. Existing users can already 'opt-in' to seeing the Newcomer Homepage features via their Preferences.

Thank you! Nick Moyes (talk) 10:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 12

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Alexander Gaeta, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Optica.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:06, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Henry F. Korth

Thank you for your comment on Draft:Henry F. Korth. I am happy to see you.

Movement Strategy and Governance News – Issue 6

Movement Strategy and Governance News
Issue 6, April 2022Read the full newsletter

---

Welcome to the sixth issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News! This revamped newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the Movement Charter, Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Strategy Implementation grants, Board of trustees elections and other relevant MSG topics.

This Newsletter will be distributed quarterly, while the more frequent Updates will also be delivered weekly. Please remember to subscribe here if you would like to receive future issues of this newsletter.

• Leadership Development - A Working Group is Forming! - The application to join the Leadership Development Working Group closed on April 10th, 2022, and up to 12 community members will be selected to participate in the working group. (continue reading)
• Universal Code of Conduct Ratification Results are out! - The global decision process on the enforcement of the UCoC via SecurePoll was held from 7 to 21 March. Over 2,300 eligible voters from at least 128 different home projects submitted their opinions and comments. (continue reading)
• Movement Discussions on Hubs - The Global Conversation event on Regional and Thematic Hubs was held on Saturday, March 12, and was attended by 84 diverse Wikimedians from across the movement. (continue reading)
• Movement Strategy Grants Remain Open! - Since the start of the year, six proposals with a total value of about $80,000 USD have been approved. Do you have a movement strategy project idea? Reach out to us! (continue reading)
• The Movement Charter Drafting Committee is All Set! - The Committee of fifteen members which was elected in October 2021, has agreed on the essential values and methods for its work, and has started to create the outline of the Movement Charter draft. (continue reading)
• Introducing Movement Strategy Weekly - Contribute and Subscribe! - The MSG team have just launched the updates portal, which is connected to the various Movement Strategy pages on Meta-wiki. Subscriber to get up-to-date news about the various ongoing projects. (continue reading)
• Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about the UCoC on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)

Thanks for reading. Xeno (WMF) 02:23, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Planck units

Even after all these years online, it baffles me that people can be so confrontational about mathematical esoterica. I'm trying to keep a civil tongue in my head; please do call me out if I fail. (There has been some odd reverting and un-reverting in the edit history, which I can only guess at the motivations of.) XOR'easter (talk) 00:47, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Physics seems to attract very intense people (even senior professors with many awards) who would like to expand their idiosyncratic ideas here. The Planck things come up in discussions of theories of everything, and understanding how the universe works stops being just intellectual. I think you are handling it very well, better than I would; I am sometimes kind and sometimes get snippy. StarryGrandma (talk) 01:25, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

The energy people put into grand theory-of-everything talk vastly exceeds the energy they'll devote to explaining basic concepts. It's kind of a drag.

I have vague WP:NOTTEXTBOOK/WP:SYNTH/WP:NOTESSAY concerns about the "Introduction" section, but it's hard to say exactly how I feel it ought to be revised. XOR'easter (talk) 02:42, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, that continues to go downhill. I'd take it to ANI at this point, but I have a bad taste in my mouth about drama boards. To be honest, I've been trying to wrap up my unfinished tasks so that I can retire, or at least scale way way back, by the end of the month or so. This nonsense is really not how I want to spend my last few weeks here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:11, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Request on 06:59:05, 16 April 2022 for assistance on AfC submission by Milkse

• Milkse (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Svaton, Ernest Marcel (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi, sorry if the feedback is in some inadequate place or manner, I am not used to the medium. In a separate Wikipedia-article about "Svaton peaks" (a mountain ridge named after him), Svaton is referred to, with a link to a missing page. I have known him and I think that there are not many people around with this information. Please consider either removing the link or having a second look, there is a lack of stringency. Regards mk Milkse (talk) 06:59, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Milkse. I updated the template that links to the USGS database and added a reference to a book version of the same information before I figured out how to fix the link. Svaton doesn't meet the Wikipedia requirements for an article. Instead add the information about him to the Svaton Peaks article. Everything will need a reference, not just what you know. As a person with a geological place named after him it is great to have information about him there. Then I will accept the title of your draft as a redirect there. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi, it seems reasonable to add the information as an infobox to the "Svaton peaks" article instead of a separate page. I have edited it as I imagine a short infobox could look like. As you noted, Svaton's published scientific production was limited. Svaton's own history is unpublished and not possible to reference otherwise than personal communication. On the other side, this sentence is basically the reason for my submission. Regards mk Milkse (talk) 19:56, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Clothing industry‎ cleanup

Thanks! It's part of an off-the-rails school project (Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Archive 22#Undisclosed art-class (fashion/textile) project). DMacks (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Articles being moved without review

The number of problems may be small relative to the number of courses, but it is significant. All new editors are encouraged to submit their articles for independent review and I can't see any reason why this shouldn't also be true for students. Asking an instructor, who may themselves have very limited familiarity with Wikipedia guidelines, to grade their own students' work, is always going to be a problem as they have their own targets to work to - one being to get as many students through the course successfully as possible and the other being time - which is why students should be given priority in the review process. Perhaps you could appoint a special group of experienced editors to do the reviewing, but what shouldn't happen is the setting of different, lower standards for students from those that apply to other new editors. Encouraging students to move the article themselves is equally problematic. If Wikipedia's Education team choose to continue in this vein, I can't do anything about it - but I don't intend to leave sub-standard articles in article space. Deb (talk) 06:54, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

You should not leave such articles in mainspace. Thank you for making the effort to check out all these articles. At AfC we often run into students from non-WikiEd courses and it is a problem. There are too few reviewers and we can't shepherd hundreds of students through the process. I've left a message for the course coordinator in hopes of getting better training for instructors up front for courses that produce biographies. Articles from the course were deleted last year, and the instructor was pinged to the discussions but probably is not often on Wikipedia so they went unnoticed. StarryGrandma (talk) 07:24, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Movement Strategy and Governance News – Issue 7

Movement Strategy and Governance News
Issue 7, July-September 2022Read the full newsletter

---

Welcome to the 7th issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News! The newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the implementation of Wikimedia's Movement Strategy recommendations, other relevant topics regarding Movement governance, as well as different projects and activities supported by the Movement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The MSG Newsletter is delivered quarterly, while the more frequent Movement Strategy Weekly will be delivered weekly. Please remember to subscribe here if you would like to receive future issues of this newsletter.

• Movement sustainability: Wikimedia Foundation's annual sustainability report has been published. (continue reading)
• Improving user experience: recent improvements on the desktop interface for Wikimedia projects. (continue reading)
• Safety and inclusion: updates on the revision process of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines. (continue reading)
• Equity in decisionmaking: reports from Hubs pilots conversations, recent progress from the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, and a new white paper for futures of participation in the Wikimedia movement. (continue reading)
• Stakeholders coordination: launch of a helpdesk for Affiliates and volunteer communities working on content partnership. (continue reading)
• Leadership development: updates on leadership projects by Wikimedia movement organizers in Brazil and Cape Verde. (continue reading)
• Internal knowledge management: launch of a new portal for technical documentation and community resources. (continue reading)
• Innovate in free knowledge: high-quality audiovisual resources for scientific experiments and a new toolkit to record oral transcripts. (continue reading)
• Evaluate, iterate, and adapt: results from the Equity Landscape project pilot (continue reading)
• Other news and updates: a new forum to discuss Movement Strategy implementation, upcoming Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election, a new podcast to discuss Movement Strategy, and change of personnel for the Foundation's Movement Strategy and Governance team. (continue reading)

RamzyM (WMF) 01:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Serious problem

Cannot "Create Account" been trying everything for some time! Been active a long time but they tell me I don't exist-please help!Drypuglia.

Drypuglia, ask at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). They have helpful people there who understand these things. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:50, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Another 3 bours waisted-all

I get is pick your problem pages. No answer to a seemingly simple problem.No chat page? Drypuglia (talk) 17:29, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

@Drypuglia, no one will see your question because you added it to a subpage, not to the question page I linked to. I have moved it to the correct page at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#User with problem with "Create Account". Go there and provide more information. Please remember to sign by adding ~~~~ (4 tildes) at the end of your post which automatically turns into your signature and a time stamp. As I am doing here. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:41, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank You

I wasn't able to respond to the help desk inquiry in time so I wanted to reach out and say thank you for helping me with the citation bar issue I was having! I haven't edited actively since 2013, so all of the changes over the last 9 years have thrown me off. Ryan Vesey 14:22, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@Ryan Vesey, you are very welcome. And things continue to change - I keep notes on my user page! StarryGrandma (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Asking for help on editing an article

	Asking for help on editing an article
	Dear StarryGrandma, I do not see how to communicate with you directly but I would like help on how to communicate with you in the Tea House on improving my article on David Dunbar (mathematician) to get it accepted best regards, Mark Sanderson Mruthsanderson (talk) 09:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2022 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:08, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Reverting of my edit

HI @StarryGrandma, I see you have reverted my edit. I am puzzled about the error which caused for the teahouse to contain that giant block of text which I did not put, and am thankful for your activity. I am confused about a) what happened to cause this and b) what did you mean in your edit summary by "removed question that opened another page in itself". also I can now see that you edited the teahouse again and then reverted that edit immediately right after. 3point1415 (talk) 19:22, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Because I can't get it to work right either!!! I have no idea why. I thought it was because of linking to an open editing page with action=edit enabled.. In preview it looks fine. Anyway, on pages in the Wikipedia space Visual Editing isn't enabled. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting! I might've broken wikipedia hahaha.

I can now see that @Usernamekiran has fixed the issue by closing an "imbalanced nowiki tag". Thanks!

Anyway, on pages in the Wikipedia space Visual Editing isn't enabled

Makes sense. thanks. 3point1415 (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@3point1415, to answer your Teahouse question, the three single quotes added to the heading are what changed the font. That's the wikitext for bolding. The Visual Editor handles this automatically, but has limitations that make it not very useful for areas of Wikipedia that aren't articles. To edit source text, see Help:Wikitext. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:40, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

I see. thanks! 3point1415 (talk) 20:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Successful ping?

Out of curiosity, did the ping I made in this section appear in your notifications? I have heard that they sometimes do not go through when they are introduced during an edit of an existing comment.`I'm not sure why that would be the case, but with everything that has to go on under the hood of MediaWiki, who knows? XOR'easter (talk) 02:10, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@XOR'easter, yes it did! StarryGrandma (talk) 02:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@XOR'easter. actually it didn't! StarryGrandma (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@XOR'easter, I think because you didn't add a new signature. Help:Notifications says modifying an earlier comment doesn't work. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense!

The link I removed is back now... and now that I look at it again, the author appears to be at Michigan State U, and both the IPs that added it originally geolocate to Michigan (I'd looked that up before to see if they might be the same person). There's something uncomfortably promotional here. XOR'easter (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@XOR'easter, probably not promotional, just an admiring student, and I think we should let it be now that an experienced editor has weighed in. The paper is by Stephen Hsu, who does publish in the field, and is the sort of thing that gets circulated rather than published. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:24, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

As someone who fit that description once, I'd say that admiring students need a bucket of cold water from the outside. It's a learning experience. :-)

I don't see why we ought to compromise on quality just because many writings of this general nature are circulated rather than published more formally; why not stick with the ones that have, particularly when they're free to read too? XOR'easter (talk) 16:36, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Let me think about it a bit more. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Sure — no rush! XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Have started discussion on the talk page. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Am I too brash ?

'friendly dragon' 110.174.102.124 (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar

Thanks VERY MUCH to Starry Grandma for help with adding a reference. IT took me at lease 30 minutes of trial and error to get to this site to do this simple "thank you". Wikipedia is very unfriendly to novice contributors. I use it often as a reasonably reliable source of information but I will be most reluctant to edit or contribute, given the complexity of this confusing interface. Klc2775 (talk) 20:04, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 4

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Dark energy, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Fine-tuning.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:03, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks For Answering My TeaHouse Question

Thanks for answering my WP:TH question about interviews. I thought that there was an interview template, but I miised it when I looked agaain. (Typical!)Oldsilenus (talk) 14:39, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Accepted Draft

Hi @StarryGrandma,

How are you doing today? Concerning your accept of this draft, did you check to know that the author had disclosed a COI then removed it again on his userpage here. I find it troubling that this was put up by the editor and then removed again. Jamiebuba (talk) 07:25, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

@Jamiebuba, I had run into the editor before and knew about the COI. I kept the COI notice though with a bit of article cleanup it could be removed. My interests as a reviewer are articles about notable scientists and engineers. These are often rejected outright by reviewers who do not understand the criteria in WP:NPROF or the kinds of sources that support them. This one was rejected as references not showing that the subject qualified for an article. But the references there were fine for meeting NPROF, and the awards showed notability. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:37, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

My only concern is really with the COI, as for the article, I had my reservations that it maybe notable, but again my concern is with the COI. The editor is claiming not to have understood what COI meant and after he/she read the COI page they decided they do not have a COI. Jamiebuba (talk) 16:54, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Another bizarre notability discussion ignoring WP:ACADEMIC

Hi @StarryGrandma, PTAL at Ostap Korkuna, where Talk:Ostap_Korkuna shows how someone questions notability and balks at accepting a very direct reference to WP:ACADEMIC #2. The talk page shows: "This article has been rated as Start-class" B030510 Thx (talk) 07:47, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@B030510, I am afraid you are misunderstanding WP:ACADEMIC. We have articles about academics who have made significant contributions to their fields. One way to show that is awards which independently determine the significance of their work. Neither student awards or early career awards for promising academics do this. StarryGrandma (talk) 15:24, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@StarryGrandma. I see (where it is explained in current guidelines). Of course, the subject can still be notable via WP:GNG, especially that achievement was covered in the media. Does the rating of the article as Start class mean that the rater authoritatively confirmed notability? Or is this an independent characterization of page content without looking at the sources?

A separate issue (about notability rules) is that, knowing a thing or two about ICPC, I consider it an exceptional level of achievement (per ICPC wiki article: 52,709 students participated from 3,233 universities in 110 countries) and should at least contribute to (if not imply) notability. Only 3-4 teams get gold every year, compared to 300+ gold medals at the Olympics (every four years), where the same athlete can get five gold medals and, say, soccer teams have 22 members. There is some media coverage of the ICPC gold medalist every year, but it's kind of random and many articles mention universities rather than student names. WDYT? Thx B030510 (talk) 16:30, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@B030510, ratings do not confer notability: they are about the state of the article. See Wikipedia:Content assessment#Grades. Subjects either have or do not have notability by Wikipedia standards. While "notability" usually means "worthy of being noticed", in Wikipedia it means "already has been noticed with published sources available". To have an article there must be several sources, each of which is reliably published, independent of the subject or his organization (not an interview with the subject, for example), and in-depth about the subject (not just a mention in an article about their organization or award). I haven't looked at the sources in the article, so I can't help you there. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:27, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

November Articles for creation backlog drive

Hello StarryGrandma:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 2 months outstanding reviews from the current 4+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 November 2023 through 30 November 2023.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.

There is a backlog of over 1200 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:25, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for starting the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics), both for giving us access to those editors and for getting it away from the drama of the article talk page. I think we got some great feedback, both on what will and won't work with the cv in this instance. My learning point is that these user-created sources are allowed in some instances with any category of article, despite my past AfD experience. Looks like there is just a stronger understanding and acceptance of this guideline in the niche of academics (And it was cool to learn some phrasing to try with future AfD discussions). I also found a fascinating discussion from October that shows the varying points of view here. That was a pretty deep dive, for sure.

Also, I want to clarfiy that I wan't indicating that you had a COI as an editor in this article, but rather that I wanted a third opinion regarding source you had used and/or approved. Apologies if I didn't explain that well or used the wrong phrasing. My intention was a talk page discussion, which I think we would have been fine with under normaly circumstances. Rublamb (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

P.S. LOL of punching cards. I did the same in the early days of computer cartography. Rublamb (talk) 17:24, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rublamb, punching cards dates us! I've offered to help Ldm with the article and given him some information about how academic biographies work as encyclopedia articles. Thanks for your work on the article. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@StarryGrandma, I was also the departmental micro computer trainer when I was at UNC. Think about that one for a minute! Thanks. I was finished ages ago, but he keeps asking for changes. I have tried to work through all of the requests but am now piggy in the middle over edits and decisions others are making. Rublamb (talk) 04:55, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Overly detailed tag

StarryGrandma, I think you may have misinterpreted my overly-detailed tag at Laurence D. Marks. I absolutely agree with you that a selected publications section is due there. The list of selected publications should be _much_ shorter, however, perhaps 3-4 papers rather than the 13. Hence, overly detailed. This is consistent with past general usage in other articles on academics that get attention of the community. For example, one could trim to the top-cited papers on GS, although I am not so confident that that is the right thing here. (But I am also not confident that the long list currently there is wisely chosen.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:32, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Russ Woodroofe, we have at the Marks article a case of the subject of the article concerned about changes to the article, many of which were unfortunate due to general unfamiliarity with how articles about professors are written. An editor incorrectly tagged references as [non-primary source needed] when they were perfectly acceptable. (And that I had added to the article in 2015.) Another editor objected on the talk page to using the subject's reliably published peer-reviewed papers as sources for his scientific work when that is exactly what we do use as sources for scientists. Along with other misunderstandings of writing about scientists going on at the talk page, a big template at the top of the section mentioning "against Wikipedia's inclusion policy" was not a help at this point.

Different editors will have different opinions about what should be included in a publication section and how long it will be. In the absence of any discussion about the subject's work and professional development as a scientist, lacking in the Marks article currently, I think a longer list of publications is the only way to see what was going on. The article on Margaret Hotchkiss has a nice balance between describing her research in the text and providing a short list of publications. I wish more articles were like that.

Even having articles about professors is controversial at this time since they can't be sourced like those for celebrities. I am tired of always having to be on the defensive. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:26, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we might be largely in agreement on articles on professors, and I'm not trying to source it like a celebrity article. I still think the publication list is over-long, but also see your point about it being especially difficult to trim in this case. Marks has indeed has a fair bit of notable-appearing work. I will try to eventually cut the section down wisely, but will have to think more carefully about it; I won't retag. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:05, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. The problem with having a list of publications being the only way of seeing a scientist's development is that only other scientists can tell what is going on. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:39, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm with @StarryGrandma on this one. The publication list is a reasonable length and all of the journals are significant. There is no fluff there. Many biographical articles have a significantly longer list of publications. This is not atypical. Rublamb (talk) 17:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I do not know of many academic biographies that are otherwise in good shape and that have 13 publications listed. Three is typical, five in rare cases. Thirteen is usually excessive. I'm excluding books here, which are of a somewhat different nature. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:53, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Fellowship question

I am currently creating a list of Harvard Medical School alumni. I am finding that some people who completed post-gradaute research or fellowships at Harvard have the "Harvard Medical School alumni" catagory tags or list Harvard under alma mater in the infobox. I don't think alumni have to have a dregree, but wonder if post-grads and fellows fall under "Harvard Medical School people" category, rather than alumni. Unless they are teaching at the same time which would make them "Harvard Medical School faculty". Do you know how scholars generally think about these relationships? Seems a bit of pufferly to claim it as an alma mater to me. Thanks. Rublamb (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rublamb, I don't know. I wish my late husband were here to ask since he had been on a medical school faculty. His medical school considers those who were interns and residents at their teaching hospital as alumni, but not others in terms of eligibility for alumni awards. As for post-grad researchers and fellowships, they would not be faculty unless they had an actual faculty appointment. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:13, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. I will check with my friend still in higher ed. Rublamb (talk) 17:36, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

{{tps}} Might be worthwhile to ask at WT:WPSCHOOLS, since they have some guidelines and other advice about school articles and alumni lists. DMacks (talk) 17:40, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Have already gone to WP:UNI. Rublamb (talk) 17:46, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:41, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Growth team newsletter #29

Welcome to the twenty-ninth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Community Conversations

The Growth team will host its first community conversation Monday, 4 December (19:00 - 20:30 UTC). The topic for this meeting will be Mentorship.

This first meeting language will be English, but we plan to host conversations in other languages, and about other topics. Please visit the conversation page on-wiki for the details on how to join. You can also watch the page, or suggest ideas for upcoming conversations there.

Impact Module

At the beginning of November 2023, the Growth team deployed the New Impact Module to all Wikipedias. We recently released a follow up improvement to how edit data was displayed based on editor feedback. [1]

Add a Link

We released “add a link” to 35 more Wikipedias. [2] [3]

We have a few Wikipedias remaining:

• German and English Wikipedia will be contacted at the beginning of January 2024.
• There are a few small wikis that will not receive the task until they have enough articles for the algorithm to work properly.

Community Configuration

• We shared Community Configuration 2.0 plans with technical stakeholders. [4] 🖂
• Initial Community Configuration design ideas have been shared and discussed with community members.
• A basic Community Configuration 2.0 demo is released on ToolForge.
• Developers can find some initial proof of concept code shared on gitlab.

Mentorship

When a mentor marked themselves as "Away", they were not getting their name assigned to new accounts when they returned. This has been fixed. [5]

We improved the message received by newcomers when their mentor quits, to reduce confusion. [6]

We worked on ensuring that all mentees are assigned to an active mentor. This required reassigning mentees with no mentors to a new mentor. We paused this as the clean-up script confused some editors. We will resume it when the identified blockers are resolved. [7]

It is now possible to create an Abuse Filter to prevent one user from signing up as a mentor. [8]

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 20

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Adrian Bejan, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Benjamin Franklin Medal.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

author is young - one book

Hello StarryGrandma,

You added helpful comment on Teahouse for me - and I have searched extensively and cannot find it back - so i am adding a question for you here. If you can link from here - can you please do that?

You wrote that the author is young and only has one book. I am not sure why age is relevant (unless you are suggesting the person will do more notable things in the future?), however, my question is about these guidelines:

WP:AUTHOR

The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews, or of an independent and notable work (for example, a book, film, or television series, but usually not a single episode of a television series);

I am just wondering - as one other editor also suggested that "one book is not enough" - I suppose I do not understand why these guidelines do not apply. And, if they are incorrect- should they not be edited?

Thank you! Science and such (talk) 14:43, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

@Science and such, guidelines are not WP:POLICY and are open to interpretation. The Teahouse discusson is archived at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1209#Selected publications (how-to add).

Sheldrake is young in the sense of being early scientific career with the likelihood of doing much more in his career. He is a research associate in a field in which he has yet to contribute much. But he has written a wonderful book which explains his field for the public. All the sources about him have been in response to that recent book, its paperback release publicity, and the release of an illustrated edition for the 2023 Christmas season. Add an "Author" section to his book article and put all of his biographical information there. Change the existing redirect to point to that section. It is very likely as he does more research he will match one of the criteria at WP:NPROF. That is the time for a separate article. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:52, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Citing images from social media

hello, I wanted to ask what's the process of using an picture originally uploaded on social media? Is it allowed in the first place? And if yes, how do we cite it? AnalyserOP (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Very little on social media is free to reuse on Wikipedia. The person who took the photo owns the copyright. You need to determine how the picture you see there is licensed. See the details about what is acceptable at c:Commons:Licensing. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:30, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

@AnalyserOP, if it is licensed in such a way that it can be used here, then the information you fill out when you upload to Commons serves as the attribution and doesn't have to be added to the Wikipedia article using the picture. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Alright got it. Thanks for the quick help! AnalyserOP (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Need support to create Wikipedia article

Where can I get reliable support to create a Wikipedia article. I am struggling with it. Sojijos (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Sojijos, very few companies are well enough known to have Wikipedia articles. This is an encyclopedia, not a business directory. Those companies that are well-known in their fields will have been written about in reliable publications by people entirely independent of the company. Interviews and press releases and other information provided by the company itself don't count. If those references exist, they are usually easy to find. In a quick look I don't see material like that about Advenser. See Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). StarryGrandma (talk) 02:28, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, April 2024

The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.

If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Community Configuration

Growth features are currently configurable at Special:EditGrowthConfig. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.

An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.

In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.

Experiment Results

Add a Image experiment analysis results

The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:

• The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
• The likelihood that they are retained as newcomers (+24.3% over baseline)
• The number of edits they make during their first two weeks on the wiki (+21.8% over baseline)
• A lower probability of the newcomers' edits will be reverted (-3.3% over baseline).

Personalized praise experiment results

This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)

English donors encouraged to try editing

As in previous years, donors were directed to a Thank you page after donation (example). However, this year we tested a new “Try editing Wikipedia,” call to action on the Thank You page. This call to action linked to a unique account creation page. From this account creation page we were able to track Registrations and Activation (editing for the first time). During the English banner campaign, the Donor Thank you page led to 4,398 new accounts, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours. (T352900)

Future work

Annual Plan

The Growth team and the Editing team will work on the WE1.2 Key Result in the coming fiscal year. We will start initial discussions with communities soon to help finalize our plans. (T361657)

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We plan to A/B test adding a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We are early in the planning phase of this project that will take place first at our pilot wikis and wikis volunteering. We welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to other languages.

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,

RamzyM (WMF) 23:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Quantum metrological gain

Articles aren't required to be compliant with MOS:LEAD to be accepted at AfC. A bigger issue with this article is the unattributed copying from [9] (t · c) buidhe 04:35, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

@Buidhe, I wasn't thinking of MOS:LEAD but of the fact that I it is easier to get an editor to add some context at this point rather than later. I had to do some digging (and I do have a PhD in physics), and added some context myself before making the comment. Thanks for checking for copyvio. I try to remember to do that but recognize it more when copied from faculty web pages. StarryGrandma (talk) 06:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Rejected HealthTunes entry/page

Dear StaryGrandma, I am reaching out to you - reading about your scientific background, and as a grandma - wisdom. I created a page for HealthTunes - a streaming musicmedicine platform. I thought that the links I provided are solid, and after double checking i.e UCLAHealth website, .gov and more - that I obviously must have overlooked something,- I just do not know what. May I ask you to have a look on HealthTunes Wikipedia entry that was not accepted? HealthTunes strives to bring together evidence-based with alternative (Music Therapy) Thank you, Walter Jahnda (talk) 08:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Jahnda. Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a social media site, we have articles about topics that are already well-known. We call this "notability" which is different from the usual usage of "deserving to be well-known". To write an article you must be able to find several references, online or just in print, that (1) are published in a reliable source, {2} are in depth, and (3) are completely independent of the subject to show that the topic is widely known outside its circle of creators.

The sources currently in the article meet none of those requirements and I can't find any that do. In depth means the source must be about HealthTunes, not just the concept of music therapy, and not just a mention of the topic. Reliable means in a peer-reviewed journal or a publication or website with editorial control. Independent means not published by HeathTunes, its creators, or UCLA, and not resulting from an interview or a press release.

While HealthTunes is certainly a wonderful thing to have available it does not appear to be eligible for a Wikipedia article. I suggest putting a brief description of it in the Walter Werzowa article. Use actual formatted references, not external links which are not allowed in article prose (since bare links can change). See Help:Referencing for beginners. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you StaryGrandma, I now do understand! Is an article in Fast Company deemed credible? All the best, Walter Werzowa Jahnda (talk) 17:52, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Not a matter of credible. An article like this one is an interview. While trade publications like Fast Company do publish feature articles that take an independent and critical look at a topic, most of their articles will rely heavily on the companies and people involved and are therefore not independent. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Sources do not need to be independent however to use them to add information about HealthTunes to the Werzowa article. Facts can be added using sources that aren't independent. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, July 2024

Community Configuration

The Growth team released Community Configuration at all Wikipedias. You can access it at Special:CommunityConfiguration.

This new special page replaces Special:EditGrowthConfig. For now, all Growth features can be configured using Community Configuration. Configuration for AutoModerator (T365046) and other features will be available in the future.

You can help with translations. The interface translation is done at Translatewiki.net. You can also help translate the documentation.

If you attend Wikimania 2024, please join us for the session about Community configuration's future!

Current work

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We will add a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We have released a simple version available to beta wikis. We will conduct an A/B test at our pilot wikis using the new Metrics Platform. We still welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

Future work

Increase constructive activation on mobile

As part of the Growth team 2024/2025 Annual Plan, the Growth team will explore various ways to increase the percentage of newcomers who successfully start editing.

Editing a Wikipedia page requires too much context and patience. It means many trial and error for newcomers to contribute, meaning a steeper learning curve and potential discouraging reverts. To support a new generation of volunteers, we will increase the number and availability of smaller, structured, and more task-specific editing workflows (E.g. Edit Check and Structured Tasks). The Growth team will primarily focus on Structured Tasks, while working closely with the Editing team to ensure our work integrates well with Edit Check.

Stay informed

Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work. If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

15:08, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Barrett Watten

You've now introduced factual inaccuracies, based on an out-of-date article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. There have since been five union grievances, which are public, and an arbitration, which contains sworn testimony. However, this all refers to an internal personnel matter which is in the process of resolution and really has no reason to remain in the public domain. I would be happy to discuss this with you, but I would ask that you not make changes that do not now have a factual basis. ThisDirect (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Talk:Barrett Watten § Barrett Watten

Conversations about article content are best held on the article talk page. I am moving this conversation there. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

And I have requested unprotection of the talk page so you can respond there. I hadn't realized it was still protected when the article no longer is. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Starrygrandma, I need you to look at what's going on over at the Watten page. ThisDirect (talk) 16:26, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, I ask you to look at comparable pages for BW's peers among Language writers: Lyn Hejinian, Charles Bernstein, Carla Harryman, Clark Coolidge, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, etc. Some are extensively written, with interpretive content (about the significance of the work); others are less so, but all have comprehensive bibliographies. BW's bibliography has been entirely erased. This is simply wanton aggression. Please see the author's faculty page and restore this material--it is the baseline for any article on a contemporary writers. Amazing.

https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/ad6155

I can provide the Dictionary of Literary Biography article from 1998 as well. That is an entirely reputable source. ThisDirect (talk) 02:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The article should show your professional development. Some editors prefer to do this in prose. I usually do it with a very short set of selected publications. A complete list of publications is appropriate only for the most notable individuals but should be available elsewhere. An esternal link to a faculty website, and to the CV if available is the way to do it. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

possible fraud on Wiki page

My page has been obviously hacked and I believe there is an attempt at fraud involved. I was sent a solicitation for the services of a "wiki crafter." It is possible one of the editors or more who are doing the radical take down of the site are doing it so that I would engage such a service. I can send a screen shot of the solicitation. Are you a senior enough editor to protect the page, shut down further activity, and direct me to a complaint site? If you can't, can you direct me? Thanks. ThisDirect ThisDirect (talk) 01:04, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

All the editors on the article are very experienced and not scammers. Scammers just keep an eye on things here and approach inexperienced editors. See WP:SCAM and the instructions on how to report it there. It does not only apply to articles in the draft space; it is also common when there are differences of opinion on an article. It is surprising how many people pay, then come here to tell us about it. StarryGrandma (talk) 01:19, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying the radical take-down of verifiable material and severe diminishment of the article's impact and interest for readers is reasonable? As well, untrue material about Wayne State has been reintroduced. You had the right instinct earlier on; it appears that a gang of anti-professorial bros have taken over the site. Amazing!

In any case, I would like to request that the site be protected and that the information that it contained be restored, on verification, which will be simple to accomplish. Fighting line by line is impossible, and I am being threatened as well. ThisDirect (talk) 01:30, 30 September 2024 (UTC)