User talk:David Gerard/archive 16

Latest comment: 5 years ago by 2003:DE:C70F:3896:3466:E641:D345:CB26 in topic Cryonics: Legal situation in Switzerland

14 years ago... edit

  Hey, David Gerard. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day!
Nat965 (talk) 04:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)Reply
 

IOTA edit

Please add IOTA (technology) to your spam patrol. Lot of hype on that page right now, just pruned a lot. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 09:13, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 8 – 15 January 2018
 

Metadata on the March edit

From the days of hard-copy liner notes on music albums, metadata have stood outside a piece or file, while adding to understanding of where it comes from, and some of what needs to be appreciated about its content. In the GLAM sector, the accumulation of accurate metadata for objects is key to the mission of an institution, and its presentation in cataloguing.

Today Wikipedia turns 17, with worlds still to conquer. Zooming out from the individual GLAM object to the ontology in which it is set, one such world becomes apparent: GLAMs use custom ontologies, and those introduce massive incompatibilities. From a recent article by sadads, we quote the observation that "vocabularies needed for many collections, topics and intellectual spaces defy the expectations of the larger professional communities." A job for the encyclopedist, certainly. But the data-minded Wikimedian has the advantages of Wikidata, starting with its multilingual data, and facility with aliases. The controlled vocabulary — sometimes referred to as a "thesaurus" as term of art — simplifies search: if a "spade" must be called that, rather than "shovel", it is easier to find all spade references. That control comes at a cost.

 
SVG pedestrian crosses road
 
Zebra crossing/crosswalk, Singapore

Case studies in that article show what can lie ahead. The schema crosswalk, in jargon, is a potential answer to the GLAM Babel of proliferating and expanding vocabularies. Even if you have no interest in Wikidata as such, simply vocabularies V and W, if both V and W are matched to Wikidata, then a "crosswalk" arises from term v in V to w in W, whenever v and w both match to the same item d in Wikidata.

For metadata mobility, match to Wikidata. It's apparently that simple: infrastructure requirements have turned out, so far, to be challenges that can be met.

Links edit


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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:38, 15 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Category:Wikipedians who like Black Mirror edit

Hey! I saw that you edited the article Black Mirror and thought maybe you would be interested in this new user category I created?-🐦Do☭torWho42 () 01:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018
 

m:Grants:Project/ScienceSource is the new ContentMine proposal: please take a look.

Wikidata as Hub edit

One way of looking at Wikidata relates it to the semantic web concept, around for about as long as Wikipedia, and realised in dozens of distributed Web institutions. It sees Wikidata as supplying central, encyclopedic coverage of linked structured data, and looks ahead to greater support for "federated queries" that draw together information from all parts of the emerging network of websites.

 

Another perspective might be likened to a photographic negative of that one: Wikidata as an already-functioning Web hub. Over half of its properties are identifiers on other websites. These are Wikidata's "external links", to use Wikipedia terminology: one type for the DOI of a publication, another for the VIAF page of an author, with thousands more such. Wikidata links out to sites that are not nominally part of the semantic web, effectively drawing them into a larger system. The crosswalk possibilities of the systematic construction of these links was covered in Issue 8.

Wikipedia:External links speaks of them as kept "minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article." Here Wikidata finds more of a function. On viaf.org one can type a VIAF author identifier into the search box, and find the author page. The Wikidata Resolver tool, these days including Open Street Map, Scholia etc., allows this kind of lookup. The hub tool by maxlath takes a major step further, allowing both lookup and crosswalk to be encoded in a single URL.

Links edit


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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Crying Sun Records edit

There is currently a discussion at Crying Sun Records to redirect/merge it with Radio Birdman, your comments/feedback are welcome at Crying Sun Records merger proposal. Dan arndt (talk) 10:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Creation of BookMyShow edit

I think the site BookMyShow has gained enough notability and coverage , It qualifies for an article . What are your thoughts? Notability AyaanLamar (talk) 11:32, 22 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Not sure, though I see a little more WP:RS coverage since the AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bookmyshow. Definitely one for AFC/draft first - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 22 February 2018 (UTC)Reply
They deleted the draft, too, FYI. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:BookMyShow. —Cryptic 01:57, 23 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Editing News #1—2018 edit

Read this in another languageSubscription list for the English WikipediaSubscription list for the multilingual edition

 
Did you know?

Did you know that you can now use the visual diff tool on any page?

 

Sometimes, it is hard to see important changes in a wikitext diff. This screenshot of a wikitext diff (click to enlarge) shows that the paragraphs have been rearranged, but it does not highlight the removal of a word or the addition of a new sentence.

If you enable the Beta Feature for "⧼visualeditor-preference-visualdiffpage-label⧽", you will have a new option. It will give you a new box at the top of every diff page. This box will let you choose either diff system on any edit.

 

Click the toggle button to switch between visual and wikitext diffs.

In the visual diff, additions, removals, new links, and formatting changes will be highlighted. Other changes, such as changing the size of an image, are described in notes on the side.

 

This screenshot shows the same edit as the wikitext diff. The visual diff highlights the removal of one word and the addition of a new sentence. An arrow indicates that the paragraph changed location.

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

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has spent most of their time supporting the 2017 wikitext editor mode, which is available inside the visual editor as a Beta Feature, and improving the visual diff tool. Their work board is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, supporting the 2017 wikitext editor, and improving the visual diff tool.

Recent changes edit

  • The 2017 wikitext editor is available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices. It has the same toolbar as the visual editor and can use the citoid service and other modern tools. The team have been comparing the performance of different editing environments. They have studied how long it takes to open the page and start typing. The study uses data for more than one million edits during December and January. Some changes have been made to improve the speed of the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual editor. Recently, the 2017 wikitext editor opened fastest for most edits, and the 2010 WikiEditor was fastest for some edits. More information will be posted at mw:Contributors/Projects/Editing performance.
  • The visual diff tool was developed for the visual editor. It is now available to all users of the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. When you review your changes, you can toggle between wikitext and visual diffs. You can also enable the new Beta Feature for "Visual diffs". The Beta Feature lets you use the visual diff tool to view other people's edits on page histories and Special:RecentChanges. [1]
  • Wikitext syntax highlighting is available as a Beta Feature for both the 2017 wikitext editor and the 2010 wikitext editor. [2]
  • The citoid service automatically translates URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, and PubMed id numbers into wikitext citation templates. This tool has been used at the English Wikipedia for a long time. It is very popular and useful to editors, although it can be tricky for admins to set up. Other wikis can have this service, too. Please read the instructions. You can ask the team to help you enable citoid at your wiki.

Let's work together edit

  • The team is planning a presentation about editing tools for an upcoming Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting.
  • Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and other communities may have the visual editor made available by default to contributors. If your community wants this, then please contact Dan Garry.
  • The <references /> block can automatically display long lists of references in columns on wide screens. This makes footnotes easier to read. This has already been enabled at the English Wikipedia. If you want columns for a long list of footnotes on this wiki, you can use either <references /> or the plain (no parameters) {{reflist}} template. If you edit a different wiki, you can request multi-column support for your wiki. [3]
  • If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

User:Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 10 – 12 March 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 10 – 12 March 2018
 

Milestone for mix'n'match edit

Around the time in February when Wikidata clicked past item Q50000000, another milestone was reached: the mix'n'match tool uploaded its 1000th dataset. Concisely defined by its author, Magnus Manske, it works "to match entries in external catalogs to Wikidata". The total number of entries is now well into eight figures, and more are constantly being added: a couple of new catalogs each day is normal.

Since the end of 2013, mix'n'match has gradually come to play a significant part in adding statements to Wikidata. Particularly in areas with the flavour of digital humanities, but datasets can of course be about practically anything. There is a catalog on skyscrapers, and two on spiders.

These days mix'n'match can be used in numerous modes, from the relaxed gamified click through a catalog looking for matches, with prompts, to the fantastically useful and often demanding search across all catalogs. I'll type that again: you can search 1000+ datasets from the simple box at the top right. The drop-down menu top left offers "creation candidates", Magnus's personal favourite. m:Mix'n'match/Manual for more.

For the Wikidatan, a key point is that these matches, however carried out, add statements to Wikidata if, and naturally only if, there is a Wikidata property associated with the catalog. For everyone, however, the hands-on experience of deciding of what is a good match is an education, in a scholarly area, biographical catalogs being particularly fraught. Underpinning recent rapid progress is an open infrastructure for scraping and uploading.

Congratulations to Magnus, our data Stakhanovite!

Links edit

 
3D printing

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Nomination of Fresh (band) for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Fresh (band) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fresh (band) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.  Velella  Velella Talk   10:34, 16 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Disambiguation link notification for April 1 edit

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Ian Grigg edit

Hello David. You seem to have a lot of information on blockchain. I have two questions for you:

1. In the leaked documents that is used by the late David Kleimen's family to sue CSW, Craig is referring to David as one of the three persons involved in developing bitcoin. I am wondering if you have any thoughts on who might the third person be.

2. Who is Ian Grigg anyways?

Thanks --Kazemita1 (talk) 16:36, 1 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I researched this heavily for the Craig Wright section of my own book on bitcoins and blockchains.
I'll state straight out, based on the evidence, that I think Wright had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of bitcoin.
I could find no evidence that didn't come via Wright that Kleiman had any interest whatsoever in cryptocurrency, or even in programming. The closest was a quote in Andrew O'Hagan's LRB profile of Wright from Wright's ex-wife talking about them visiting Kleiman - but given the complete absence of other non-Wright evidence, I'd class that as "from Wright".
That's all original research for Wikipedia purposes and my book's done quite well, but it's probably not an RS itself yet ;-)
Grigg is someone who blogs about financial cryptography. He has stated that he knows personally that Wright and Kleiman developed bitcoin. I see no reason to lend any credibility to this. He works at R3 on their not-a-blockchain product, and Wright quoted him in one of his backdated blog posts, so he's not completely unrelated to the area.
- David Gerard (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Hello again David. I am wondering if there is any way to access CSW's old blog through some web archive or something. Do you happen to know its name by any chance? Thanks.--Kazemita1 (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Wright's blog with the backdated posts was at http://gse-compliance.blogspot.com/ - you may be able to find some of the posts through archive.org (which is how people worked out he'd backdated them, and given the apparently backdated PGP key I think assuming backdating of the blog is not unreasonable) or archive.is - David Gerard (talk) 08:22, 10 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 11 – 9 April 2018
 

The 100 Skins of the Onion edit

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

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

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

 
Red onion cross section

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

Links edit


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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of Fresco (windowing system) for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Fresco (windowing system) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fresco (windowing system) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:53, 26 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Conflict of interest edit

I would have appreciated if you brought your concerns about conflict of interest to me before posting them at the noticeboard. You appear to have misinterpreted the purpose of my Wikipedian-in-Residence position. I work for the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal laboratory that performs research on workplace health and safety. My position is not intended in any way to advocate for new technologies, but in fact to ensure that there is reliable information about their health and safety hazards.

I was and still am happy to bring more people into the discussion as it seems we're unlikely to agree on the policy issues, but you have accused me of some fairly serious transgressions in an area which is controversial on Wikipedia right now. I fear that the way you have worded these will make it harder, not easier, to constructively resolve the policy issues. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 15:29, 12 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

I’m sorry if there has been any misunderstanding. I have not been paid to edit the Feynman Prize article or any other article outside of my Wikipedian-in-Residence position. None of my work on Wikipedia, paid or unpaid, has ever advocated fringe theories. User:Fuzheado and User:Doc James can confirm this. Please withdraw your accusations at COIN and AfD. Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 09:31, 19 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nanotechnology, particularly in the magical robots sense advanced by the Foresight Institute, is fringe science. You are literally paid to advocate nanotechnology as a respectable non-fringe field on Wikipedia. These are objectively facts. There is no "accusation" to withdraw - David Gerard (talk) 00:17, 20 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
I see where the misunderstanding is. Yes, the type of nanotechnology advocated by Drexler and the Foresight Institute of mechanical nanorobots isn't considered feasible or scientifically valid by most scientists, though it is notable for its historical role in the development of the field. However, nanotechnology as a field is much larger, and contains much legitimate research on things such as nanoparticles, semiconductor fabrication, and supramolecular chemistry. Top universities have faculty working in nanotechnology, and the U.S. government alone spends $1.2 billion on nanotechnology research each year [4]. Do you think all of that is fringe science? Does this article, which I wrote as part of my paid Wikipedian-in-Residence position, look like fringe science? I know that the Drexler vision tends to be more known in popular culture, but it isn't actually representative of nanotechnology research performed by scientists, and most people don't know that.
Also, it's the case that the Feynman Prize actually has been to awarded to practitioners of the latter type of nanotechnology rather than the narrow vision the Foresight Institute is known for. This source sums it up well: "Nevertheless the link between the Drexler program and the research recognized by the Prize and the stance toward Drexler’s NSR [nanoscale research] perspective is highly complex. While the great majority of the Feynman Nanotechnology Prize laureates equate NSR with important and sometimes radical or paradigmatic change in science, very few identify with the vision and priorities of the Drexlerian-sponsored Foresight Institute." Antony–22 (talkcontribs) 21:04, 21 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Community authorized discretionary sanctions proposal edit

David, thought you might be interested: A proposal to impose community authorized discretionary sanctions on all articles related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#General_sanctions_proposal. Your comments are appreciated at that discussion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Edits to LessWrong edit

Hi David, In reverting my edits to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LessWrong&oldid=prev&diff=843254142, you provided no explanation. I removed the xkcd reference because it that comic only discussed AI, not the specific themes of Roko's Basilisk. Are you able to justify keeping this reference? Btw, please explain your edits in future. Owen214 (talk) 03:26, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

The tooltip mentions it explicitly - David Gerard (talk) 10:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
I don't see any tooltips in the comic, I'm not sure what you mean. Owen214 (talk) 21:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
The tooltip on [5] is "I'm working to bring about a superintelligent AI that will eternally torment everyone who failed to make fun of the Roko's Basilisk people." View source if your browser isn't rendering it - David Gerard (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
Oh I see now. Idk why this explanation couldn't have been provided in the edit log :/ Owen214 (talk) 02:31, 4 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 12 – 28 May 2018
 

ScienceSource funded edit

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

A medical canon?

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

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

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

Links edit

 
OpenRefine logo, courtesy of Google

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply

Pseudoscience tag on Foresight Institute edit

A couple of weeks ago you place a pseudoscience tag on the Talk page of Foresight Institute. You gave no reason. It has become a subject of discussion at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Is this Pseudoscience?. Can you please help shed some light on the addition of that tag, preferably in that discussion? HiLo48 (talk) 10:47, 7 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Foresight Institute pushes the pseudoscience version of nanotechnology, i.e. Drexlerian magical microscopic robots. There is considerable debate on the prize's talk page as to the extent this even deserves to be presented in Wikipedia in the form it's being presented in. Posting this here without mentioning that context comes across as deliberately misleading - David Gerard (talk) 10:50, 7 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Neville Brody edit

Hello David Gerard, I have removed the content as it violated several Wikipedia content guidelines (partly unsourced, partly based on a non-reliable source, unencyclopedic non-neutral language and artist jargon). Subjective personal statements like "Neville Brody was a lover of fine art and painting. He had an obsession with art in the 1960s and 1970s." are fine in artists' biographies in magazines or the artist's own website, but simply do not belong in a fact-based encyclopedic article. Unfortunately several other sections of the article have similar flaws and should be rewritten in a dispassionate uninvolved tone. I have already started a short thread on the article's talkpage to point out some of these concerns if you'd like to comment. I'd be glad to discuss this to agree on possible improvements. GermanJoe (talk) 20:18, 25 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Bow Wow Wow edit

I posted on the subject of this image & fair use at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions if you would like to comment. Johnny Spasm (talk) 17:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

Well, my question has been up for about a week, and no one is commenting on it. I'm trying to do the right thing, but I'm not getting any feedback. With that said, thank you for your feedback. Johnny Spasm (talk) 18:10, 3 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 13 – 29 May 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Respecting MEDRS

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

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

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

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

Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.

Plugging the gaps – Wikimania report

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

 
Hackathon mentoring table wiring

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

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

 
Plugbar buildup at the Hackathon
Links

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hedera Hashgraph (Hashgraph Article) edit

Hello David,

I would appreciate if you asked before deleting facts on a Wiki articles.

Information was sourced from ACN Newswire (ACN Newswire distributes press releases in XML format for direct, real-time delivery to financial terminals, syndication partners, news databases and services, and websites around the world. In all, ACN Newswire delivers press releases to more than 3,500 websites, 8,000 media organizations and 1.5 million professional desktops in 70 countries. ACN Newswire is proud to publish with each of its publishing partners below.)

Some of their partners includes Bloomberg, Reuters, Marketwatch, etc.

The other citation is from the US Government website which expands on the 506(c) regulations for context purposes.

The 2 sources I have cited are quite reliable, if you wish me to add more sources just say so, but don't start deleting reliable sourced content.

Please read and understand WP:RS before adding self-sourced content such as press releases - David Gerard (talk) 18:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC)Reply
I read the section which I believe you are referring too and I do not see the infringement which you speak of. I can add additional sources but I am not removing the current citation as it is reliable and not considered self-published.
Please keep in mind that the crypto currency facts are mostly covered by the media and rarely by independent experts, if we were to ignore the media entirely, there wouldn't be anything about crypto in general and an article like Bitcoin would have to be stripped down from 90% of its article. I did my best to find independent sources which had no vested interest in Hashgraph and in that respect, I kept true into the nature of wikis.
To the extent this is true, it means that the crypto in question is not notable and shouldn't be covered in Wikipedia at all. This has previously been a recurring problem with the HashGraph article in particular - people add extensive material that just hasn't got reliable sourcing, and it has to be removed. This led to the article's deletion the first time around.
Press releases are completely self-published. They are not acceptable as Wikipedia sources, except as evidence of self-published material - David Gerard (talk) 18:38, 9 August 2018 (UTC)Reply
Then how can an editor tell the difference between a press release or news/media coverage, because all news to me looks like a press release. Keep in mind I am trying my best to update this topic at it is seriously empty of content and a lot of media has been discussed around this technology. 66.46.127.94 (talk) 18:54, 9 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Sanction alert edit

Please read this notification carefully, it contains important information about an administrative situation on Wikipedia. It does not imply any misconduct regarding your own contributions to date.

A community decision has authorised the use of general sanctions for pages related to the blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The details of these sanctions are described here. All pages that are broadly related to these topics are subject to a one revert per twenty-four hours restriction, as described here.

General sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimise disruption in controversial topic areas. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to these topics that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behaviour, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. An editor can only be sanctioned after he or she has been made aware that general sanctions are in effect. This notification is meant to inform you that sanctions are authorised in these topic areas, which you have been editing. It is only effective if it is logged here. Before continuing to edit pages in these topic areas, please familiarise yourself with the general sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

QuackGuru (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Neglected diseases
 
Anti-parasitic drugs being distributed in Côte d'Ivoire
What's a Neglected Disease?, ScienceSource video

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

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

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

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

Coinify edit

There appears to be some dispute at Talk:List of bitcoin companies about whether Coinify is notable or not. This seems like the sort of thing you might have an opinion regarding. Thryduulf (talk) 11:45, 6 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

The answer is to create an article that passes WP:CORP really - David Gerard (talk) 11:54, 6 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of X.Org Foundation for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article X.Org Foundation is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/X.Org Foundation until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. wumbolo ^^^ 10:41, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

 

The article Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Only passing mentions in sources and literature; not notable.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. wumbolo ^^^ 10:46, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of X.Org Server for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article X.Org Server is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/X.Org Server until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. wumbolo ^^^ 10:58, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Proposed deletion of Ultrix Window Manager edit

 

The article Ultrix Window Manager has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Only passing mentions and primary sources.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. wumbolo ^^^ 12:03, 12 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of Ultrix Window Manager for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ultrix Window Manager is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ultrix Window Manager until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. wumbolo ^^^ 09:30, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nomination of XFree86 Acceleration Architecture for deletion edit

 

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article XFree86 Acceleration Architecture is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/XFree86 Acceleration Architecture until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:17, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.

The science publishing landscape
 

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

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

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

 
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Proposed deletion of Multi-Processing Environment edit

 

The article Multi-Processing Environment has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (software) requirement. If you disagree and deprod this, please explain how it meets them on the talk page here in the form of "This article meets criteria A and B because..." and ping me back through WP:ECHO or by leaving a note at User talk:Piotrus. Thank you.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:19, 22 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

It deserves it - David Gerard (talk) 10:26, 22 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 17 – 29 October 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see the footer.

Wikidata imaged

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

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

 
Gran Teatro, Cáceres, Spain, at night

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

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

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

 
Birthday logo
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DTube edit

I copied and reworded the DTube info from the Steemit article after adding the redirect because I'm astounded that DTube doesn't have a page like BitChute on Wikipedia. I admit that I hadn't checked the citation, so I don't know about the "referenced to pay-for-coverage site" aspect of it. Perhaps you'll need to alter the Steemit article. Obviously I think the DTube stuff should stay. I only added it because I came to Wikipedia looking for more information on D-Tube and was shocked there's none. Seems weird. I'd be happy to start a DTube article if you think that's a good idea. I'll have to make time for that though and know it won't be deleted for some other reason I am unaware of (ie. political reasons, or maybe D-Tube is a scam - I wouldn't know cause I haven't researched it yet, but what I have heard it sounds pretty good). I look forward to hearing your ideas. Please ping me. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 09:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

So, fundamentally - does DTube have coverage in reliable sources that aren't bitcoin blogs? e.g. I can find slight mention in mainstream sources. So I'd start with that stuff - David Gerard (talk) 09:27, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Let me buy you a drink! edit

  A martini for your hard work!
Per your specifications. I did
   1 shot vodka
   1 shot gin
   1 shot dry vermouth
   Shaken (not stirred) with ice
   two olives.

Hope you enjoy. Archersbobsburgers (talk) 20:27, 30 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Editing News #2—2018 edit

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BTC Manager edit

BTC Manager does not accept pay to play articles. This is like saying Fox News published an article saying that Washington Post accepts Pay to Play on Amazon articles. #FAKENEWS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.188.42.237 (talk) 12:24, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

It turns out this is not the case - David Gerard (talk) 12:51, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Consideration for removing additional citations tag edit

You are one of the more recent editors to Steve Teig's wiki page and I'd like to ask that you'd consider removing the citations needed stub as I've added a couple notable ones to claims made. I believe it meets the requirement but since I work for the company and try to keep this transparent and abide by guidelines, I'd prefer if you take a look! Sam xperi (talk) 16:43, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

It has literally no sources that pass WP:RS - without them, per WP:BLP, it shouldn't really exist as an article ... I just checked Google News for "Steve Teig" and there's three articles that aren't press releases, and they're only the barest passing mentions - David Gerard (talk) 00:51, 3 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

IPFS edit

Those Protocol Labs IPFS-related projects are admittedly not famous notable, but they are important and integral to how IPFS operates. What subsection title would you prefer that I place them under? We can create a new section for "Protocol Labs", "dependencies", "inter-related projects", or whatever you like. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 23:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

The big problem is that there were literally no RSes for any of them except Filecoin. If there was any sign third parties had written any of them up in RSes ... - David Gerard (talk) 23:39, 4 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I included links to the open-source developments on GitHub. Do you have other solutions? Perhaps they don't need to be independent "notable users" or separate paragraphs so much as one paragraph that encompasses all of them, perhaps "How it works" or "The Decentralized Web"?
Also, in my opinion, because the 5 Protocol Labs projects are interrelated, I feel the Filecoin article should be folded into the IPFS article.
What do you think? ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 00:23, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Or better still - all folded into one Protocol Labs article, though I have mixed feelings about "promoting" organizations, etc, but it is all under one umbrella after all. Also, FYI, I have nothing to do with Protocol Labs. I was the Bay Area over 10 years ago but I've in Windsor Ontario for years. I'm just a fan of the profound potential of the Decentralized Web they're developing - if it isn't all vapourware and if they can survive the corporatocracy. Anyway, I'm curious to know what you think. I'm asking as you'll probably be the one to revert my "errors", but perhaps I should take all this IPFS stuff to the Talk:InterPlanetary_File_System and Talk:Filecoin pages to die in obscurity. I don't know. That's why I'm asking. I'd rather find inclusive solutions with you. Not everything on Wikipedia has citations, so I don't see why it needs to be so severe for something so new. I'm not trying to sell it so much as compile information, summarize, and clearly explain its new ideas for anyone interested. Maybe it's a pipe dream to be exposed. So anyways I'll check back here later if you forget to ping me. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 06:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

The fundamental reason is because Wikipedia isn't a directory of prospective projects, and keeping the spam down to only a small gushing torrent. This is particularly bad in anything even slightly tangential to cryptocurrency, as IPFS is. Github links are primary links and totally don't meet WP:RS. Everything in any article has to meet verifiability and no original research standards, with third-party reliable sources to back up claims. If other articles don't meet those standards, the answer is to fix those articles - David Gerard (talk) 07:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the response and really good insight into the broader and finer stuff. When you say it like that it makes a lot more sense. There certainly is a flurry of greed and nonsense, as well as desperation in these strange days. Regarding the lax citations, I was not specifically referring to technical stuff, but I now see how some may think certain topics might need it more. I don't disagree with most of what you said, but would like to explain a bit more of where I'm coming from, and maybe we can build on that, perhaps with some flexibility.
I'm not into code or the details of geekery, but I am a fan and I'm interested in much more besides. I don't pretend to know what will be successful or a failure. I don't even know half of all the crypto stuff that exists out there. I know Etherium exists and is more practical than Bitcoin but I actually have no interest in either. I have a Steeemit account and posted less than 15 things over the last few years - and I still don't really trust it. I'm not even a fan of DTube or BitChute, though I am terribly disappointed in YouTube in general and for all the censorship. I've never used Mycroft, WebTorrent, or ZeroNet though theoretically they sound great though flawed. For about a year now I've been considering installing IPFS but have yet to actually bother for lack of time and practical application. But for some reason the concepts of IPFS (poor name choice) inspire hope like rarely before. In part because I don't see many flaws in the concepts - and I'm looking. The last time I got this excited was for FreeNAS.
So I may add to some of these tech articles (only those I'm interested in) and few more besides from time to time on rare occasions, but for the most part my focus and interests are more diverse. So why am I writing all this? Because I'm so moved by the profound potential I see in IPFS, perhaps in error, perhaps not. If there are similar projects like this I'd love to hear about them. Seriously, please. The only one I know of that might be similar is this Solid (web decentralization project) article that doesn't really say too much, and I only found that in a "See also" section and haven't heard anything about it in other circles. Perhaps if I discovered these type of projects were a dime a dozen I might have to give up hope - but I'd rather know the truth than not.
The history and geopolitical newsworthy aspects of IPFS are interesting but I'm not going to research for that. I wanted to include DTube as a practical application that uses IPFS but I can live without it until it gets MSM newsworthy. If some other application comes along, fine. I'd only add it if I stumbled on it. I'm less interested in the practical applications.
What I'm enthusiastic about is the theoretical aspects and how all 5 projects are inter-related. I don't like the InterPlanetary name. Protocol Labs is meh, but its kind of appropriate and all encompassing. I think Filecoin should be folded back in with the other four, even if it was all called IPFS. I'd rather call them the "Decentralized Web" but I don't know who else would get on board with that broad a term that might also include others and need another more general article, including Solid, Indie Web, and Dat. Anyways, the article title aside, I'd like to bring back those 3 other descriptions about the projects' functional purposes and better describe how they all tie in together - because they do all tie together and are important to each other and the IPFS. It's like building a house without plumbing, electricity, and phone lines. It's a house, but sorta not really.
I feel this article is incomplete without brief technical descriptions written for the layman, which one does not get in MSM press. The press may talk about geopolitical applications, initial coin offerings, markets, or whatever - things I'm just not interested in enough to actually research and document. As I said, I'm for folding the Filecoin article completely back into the IPFS article (we hardly need more coins) but I don't care that much, as long as it's included there with IPFS and the other 3. I have no interest in expanding beyond the short descriptions that were there, brief is good. They were each shorter than the Merkle paragraphs but I suspect we could simplify them further with some attention.
I've gone down my list of tech faves and interests and don't expect to do this again for another year or two. I have zero interest in any crypto stuff and little interest writing for any other tech articles I haven't already done (or tried). Except maybe a "decentralized web" article/stub f that I'd be happy to collaborate with you on.
Sorry this got much long than I meant it to be, thanks for enduring my spiel. I value your feedback if you think Decentralized web is a good idea and if you might permit me to add shorter IPLD, Multiformats, and libp2p descriptions and redirects to the IPFS article. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 11:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
Ping? ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 13:28, 17 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Solve.care edit

You deleted a page I had created for solve.care. I have only ever really done maintenance tasks for the most part because I only have time on vacation ECT. Their project is very personal to me due to my long standing health issues and time I spent in and around the medical system. I am not affiliated with the company or an investor. You said it was because it was not notable due to some new non notable publication saying that one of my sources was no good. Which I responded to and never got a reply. But that is a separate issue. They recently were featured in an article on Forbes. What more do they need to be considered notable? They got approved on the google app store. They have a client in the USA. They are in operation. I'll probably stick to maintenance tasks again in the future. But I do not plan to give up on this... What do you need to see to convince you this is noteworthy? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffersonnunn/2018/11/07/high-costs-headaches-and-hidden-money-pits-of-healthcare-combated-by-blockchain/#983c12671248 Archersbobsburgers (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

That's literally a contributor blog, i.e. not a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes. I set out some of the problem here - these things really are just user-generated blog posts, not evidence of any sort of notability.
I didn't delete it - I marked it for prospective deletion, and then it died a week later.
If you want it back - I suggest a Draft: space article with lots of third-party mainstream sources that pass WP:RS. Not Forbes blogs, not bitcoin blogs - David Gerard (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Ok, understood. What about the other issue where you labeled a series of sites as pay for play even though the source is not even remotely reputable? I am confused how that source could not be used to show notability but can be used to pass judgment on other sites use on Wikipedia? That does not make sense to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Archersbobsburgers (talkcontribs) 20:23, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

If you want to argue sourcing issues, go to WP:RSN, where it won't just be talking to me - David Gerard (talk) 20:25, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I did it got archived and no response. To be clear I am not trying argue it as much as trying to understand the logic in it. Obviously your the expert. How do I bring it back from archives? Or how does that work? Archersbobsburgers (talk) 20:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Changing prior comments edit

Hi. Regarding Special:diff/868022408, it would be cleaner to just strike out the part that no longer applies. That makes it easier for future readers to understand the history. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:04, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Susan Schneider editting history edit

Hope it's okay I'm bringing this up; I noticed you've edited Susan Schneider in the past, you're a wikipedian I recognized, and I'm not familiar with the appropriate thing to do in this situation.

I was looking at the edit history for the Susan Schneider article and noticed a strange pattern.

The article was created by User:Philosopher_of_Mind, whose only contributions (with one small exception) to wikipedia have been adding links in other articles to Susan Schneider and then creating and populating the page.

It was then edited by an anon user, whose only contributions to wikipedia have been adding material to Susan Schneider.

Further editing came from User:Alessandraronemus, whose only contributions to wikipedia have been editing the Susan Schneider page, adding links elsewhere about Susan Schneider, and discussing the Susan Schneider page.

We also have a series of edits from anonymous user who has edited nothing but the Susan Schneider page.

And the notability tag on the page was removed by | another anon who has never edited any other pages.

Along the way there have been a small number of edits from other wikipedians, but it appears that virtually the entire article has been created by a single editor with multiple accounts / multiple editors who only care about one, not very notable, subject.

I don't know what the appropriate thing to do (if any) is in this circumstance so just wanted to bring this to you. I wasn't sure if I should post on the talk page or what. Larklight (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Vanity articles happen. Probably worth going over the refs for it with a fine tooth comb. It's from the transhumanist subculture, and they're very good at creating mountains of not-very-good cites to each other's work - David Gerard (talk) 07:00, 11 November 2018 (UTC)Reply
I just did a reference check. I particularly like the sole academic cite, which is to a paper (Eric Yang) that says her work is wrong - as if whoever wrote this was really scraping for something, anything, to add as a cite - David Gerard (talk) 07:35, 11 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2018 election voter message edit

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

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ArbCom 2018 election voter message edit

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

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

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Precious anniversary edit

Precious
 
Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 25 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 18 – 30 November 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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WikiCite issue

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

 
Wikidata training for librarians at WikiCite 2018

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

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

Links

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Allie Sherlock edit

Hello, I wanted to request the unprotection of the page Allie Sherlock. It's my understanding that I should first make a request to the admin who protected the page, which is you. It was deleted and protected two years ago, as the singer wasn't deemed sufficiently notable at the time, which is fairly typical for most unsigned singers. Since that time, she has continued to garner substantial coverage of multiple independent reliable sources, which should assist in satisfying the general notability criterion. She has also been signed on a record label and appeared on national TV[7]. I would like the ability to create a new article, citing relevant sources, and if somebody still wishes to delete it, we can have a new discussion based on the current set of sources (a fair debate could be had, either way). Thanks for your time. --Rob (talk) 04:05, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

So, I locked it as the deleted biography of a minor person (13yo). As such, it probably shouldn't be unlocked without a definitely OK article ready to put there.
The best thing to do at this point is to start a draft, at Draft:Allie Sherlock. Bring as many sources of that quality as you can - third-party coverage in mainstream press like that is the perfect start. Put those together into the best-cited article you can, and when it's ready it can be put into place - David Gerard (talk) 06:32, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
also found, from the old version and from Independent.ie: [8][9] - David Gerard (talk) 06:40, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

DSM edit

Hi, I added direct quotes from DSM-1 which you removed as vandalism, and quote from UN WHO with reference on the United Nation's site. Please refer to both sources which i clearly marked. I uploaded the original version of DSM-1 with proof to the wayback machine for your convenience. the link opens on the right page (vii) https://archive.org/details/dsm-1/page/n7 https://www.who.int/whr/2001/media_centre/press_release/en/

-- Alon Oz, a@cyber.training — Preceding unsigned comment added by War.technology (talkcontribs) 10:12, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

The UN quote doesn't support the claim you attributed to it, and your DSM quotes were your own synthesis from them, Please review No original research - David Gerard (talk) 10:24, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Creation Tron (Cryptocurrency) - Currently salted article edit

Hi David, as per discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:Tron_(cryptocurrency) and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TRON_(cryptocurrency), the Wikipedia page for Tron has been deleted and salted (and with good reason!). However, since Tron is a fairly popular cryptocurrency, I've gone out of my way to accumulate accurate sources and create a page for the article I was hoping I could get your approval for - it can be seen on my Sandbox here: User:Dr-Bracket/sandbox/TronSandbox. I initially inquired to MER-C about this (see here), and he said I would have to get it approved through WP:DRV, but should get your opinion on the matter first. Thanks! Dr-Bracket (talk) 18:22, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

The sourcing is a lot better in this version - it's definitely not just a recreation of the deleted content. Though the Yahoo Finance article is just a reblog from CryptoCoinsNews so should probably be left out, and Tron is literally mentioned only once in "World's Top-Ranked Crypto Exchange Adds 240,000 Users in One Hour". And the article's pretty short. So I'd add more mainstream media sources - e.g. [10] (the price), [11] (BitTorrent purchase). (This Newsweek piece is definitely mainstream, but is all a bit forward-looking, about what Sun says his plans are rather than facts about the present.) Are there any peer-reviewed academic papers on Tron as yet? So basically, polish it up a bit and add the good sourcing, and take it to AFC for consideration.
I'm not sure DRV is the correct venue, given the previous deletion isn't disputed, and this is new text with an attempt at proper sources - it doesn't seem to fit any of the "what DRV is for" criteria at the top. @MER-C: which DRV purpose were you thinking of here? - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
Number 3, given that it's been deleted at AFD and MFD. MER-C 19:30, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
I suppose you could take it to DRV then - though I suspect the correct answer there would be "yeah, take it to AFC" - David Gerard (talk) 19:39, 12 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
They deleted it without giving it a discussion, and now I don't even have the draft I worked on anymore. They originally said it had no reliable sources, which I disputed, then they said it was deleted twice already so they put it up for AfD, so I left a comment saying it solved both issues from previous deletion, and I woke up this morning and it was speedily deleted without discussion due to Section G4 of CSD, which the article didn't violate at all. Is there anything I can do? Dr-Bracket (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2018 (UTC)Reply
Deletion review, perhaps - David Gerard (talk) 15:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

PROD AccessApps edit

I noticed you've done some work on AccessApps. I'm just letting you know that I've proposed that this article be deleted.CircleGirl (talk) 03:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Deletion review for Draft:Tron Cryptocurrency edit

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Draft:Tron Cryptocurrency. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Dr-Bracket (talk) 16:58, 14 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Merry Merry edit

  Happy Christmas!
Hello David Gerard,
Early in A Child's Christmas in Wales the young Dylan and his friend Jim Prothero witness smoke pouring from Jim's home. After the conflagration has been extinguished Dylan writes that

Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"

My thanks to you for your efforts to keep the 'pedia readable in case the firemen chose one of our articles :-) Best wishes to you and yours and happy editing in 2019. MarnetteD|Talk 18:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Happy Holidays edit

  Best wishes for this holiday season! Thank you for your Wiki contributions in 2018. May 2019 be prosperous and joyful. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:27, 22 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Noël ~ καλά Χριστούγεννα ~ З Калядамі ~ חנוכה שמח ~ Gott nytt år!

Request edit

David,

Can you please review this Wikipedia page? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:ODEM

Thanks,

Jeff — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeff at ODEM (talkcontribs) 07:55, 24 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Problem's simple: all the sources are crypto blogs or primary sources. Needs substatial third-party coverage in mainstream sources that pass WP:RS. I'd suggest not using crypto blogs as a source at all - David Gerard (talk) 08:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Reverted edits on Guttmann method edit

  How is my edit advertising or promotion? There is a whole Section here listing all the software implementations of the Gutmann method. I happened to come across another one that was not on the list, so I added it. How's everything else on the list not an advertisement but my addition is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kleanmyf (talkcontribs) 12:29, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Literally your only contributions were adding this - David Gerard (talk) 12:43, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018 edit

Facto Post – Issue 19 – 27 December 2018
 

The Editor is Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him, on his User talk page.
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Learning from Zotero

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

 
Zotero logo

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

Zotero demo video

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

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

Links

Diversitech, the latest ContentMine grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation, is in its community review stage until January 2.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:08, 27 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Cryonics: Legal situation in Switzerland edit

Hi David, why did you remove the sentence "The Swiss association CryoSuisse states that this applies to Switzerland as well." from the Cryonics article? It has been accepted in the German Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryonik "CryoSuisse gibt an, dass dies auch für die Schweiz gelte."

So why do you think it's not acceptable here? Thanks... Nicolai — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:DE:C70F:3896:3466:E641:D345:CB26 (talk) 22:39, 27 December 2018 (UTC)Reply