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Letter-winged kite by
Casliber |
Kosmoceratops by
FunkMonk |
Guest column by Thomas Shafee ( Evolution and evolvability), Editor in Chief of WikiJournal of Science
Firstly, WikiJSci can be a complementary system for FA review (getting external review, input, and validity). When an Wikipedia article is nominated (via WP:JAN), journal editors go out to non-Wikipedian academics and researchers who have published on the subject on the last five years and invite them to give feedback comments (e.g. Peripatric speciation and Baryonyx). The resulting changes can then be integrated back into the Wikipedia article.
Getting more editors involved in Wikipedia is always a high priority. WikiJSci can also be a way to encourage new people to contribute articles (especially on missing/stub/start topics). An example of an article that was written from scratch by a group of non-Wikipedians is Teladorsagia circumcincta. This not only resulted in a new Wikipedia page on an underdeveloped topic, but introduced the idea of Wikimedia contribution to a group of people who had previously never considered it.
The journal can be a way to get multimedia content reviewed or encourage contribution. The same approach could be easily adapted to sounds (e.g. frog mating calls) or videos (e.g. starfish feet motion). It also allows for tracking of those images in new articles via Altmetric ( this example has >200, which is bananas). There aren't any biology examples in WikiJSci yet, but the sister medical journal has published a few summary diagrams, photography, and image galleries. Examples include this gallery by Blausen Medical or the diagram of cell disassembly during apoptosis.
For those interested in other Wikimedia sister projects, there's also broad scope for interactions with the WikiJournals. Perhaps peer reviewed teaching resources could be useful to sit alongside sets of Wikipedia articles and be integrated into Wikiversity courses (like this or this)? Can sections of Wikidata & Wikispecies be peer reviewed? What are the potential avenues for integration with WikiCite, WikiFactMine, Scholia, etc.? Currently, WikiJSci is aiming to be very flexible and try out different formats so long as they can be externally peer reviewed. For more info, see the 2019-06-30 Signpost article and the current sister project proposal. |
1) Enwebb: You're very prolific with DYKs, with over 2,000 nominations credited (in fact, I'll highlight which DYK nominations this month were yours below). What made you become so involved in this part of Wikipedia? Why should Tree of Life editors nominate articles for DYK?
2) Enwebb: I noticed that your DYK nominations reflect a diverse array of flora and fauna, from trees, marine invertebrates, birds, fishes, and mammals. How do you decide what to work on?
3) Enwebb: Which of your Wikipedia accomplishments are you most proud of?
4) Enwebb: What motivates you to keep contributing? What's your 10,000 ft view (pardon the non-SI) of the community and Tree of Life?
6) Enwebb: How did you first become interested in natural history?
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Sincerely,
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Kosmoceratops by
FunkMonk |
Apororhynchus by
Mattximus |
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This month saw a vanishingly rare occurrence for the Tree of Life: a new WikiProject joined the fold. WikiProject Diptera, however, is also unusual in being a classroom project. Whether or not this project will stay active once the semester ends remains to be seen. It does not bode well, however, that WP:WikiProject Vespidae—a creation from the same instructor at St. Louis University—faded to obscurity shortly after the fall semester concluded in 2014. WikiProject Vespidae is defunct and now redirects to the Hymenoptera task force of WikiProject Insects. Since 2014, the Tree of Life has seen a string of years where one or zero projects or task forces were created. The only projects and task forces created since then are WikiProject Animal anatomy (2014), Hymenoptera task force (2016), Bats task force (2017), WikiProject Hypericaceae (2018), and now WikiProject Diptera (2019). The year 2006 saw the greatest creation of WikiProjects and task forces, with fourteen still active and the remaining six as "semiactive", "inactive", or "defunct". |
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applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.
focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.
Meinhard Michael Moser by
J Milburn |
King brown snake by
Casliber |
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By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured: Did You Know (DYK)What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines:
The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page) Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK. Good Article (GA)What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article—you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article! Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you. Featured Article (FA)What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted. Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC. Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA. How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT. Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life ( 5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA. |
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I agree that the article should be blocked until a consensus is reached, but I believe that at least the current state of it should be what it was before until there is consensus. Please reverte the edition to the agreed one. SmithGraves ( talk) 09:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
It is Barjimoa who tries to add something to the article, I do not. I think that it should provisionally return to an edition that doesnt include the Barjimoa edition without consensus. SmithGraves ( talk) 09:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
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The file File:Xidazoon sketch.PNG has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard&diff=928566499&oldid=928565183 Thanks for cleaning that up for me, I wasn't aware of that being inappropriate in a talk page. Should I go through and move my comments to the bottom, or just leave things as they are for now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicahZoltu ( talk • contribs) 11:42, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind an objective pair of eyes at Tattooed Arm ( Talk:Tattooed Arm#Haitian or not) over this matter (if you have the time), and I know you also do a lot with southeastern Native American subjects. The logic of the other person is so far escaping me. I probably should have opened the talk page discussion earlier, but I thought my rational was sound at my last revert and still do (if you disagree that's fine, as I said I would like a fresh pair of eyes). Although, truth be told, I'm not sure if this person should even be in this class of category at all, since we know absolutely nothing about them after being sent to St Domingue by the French. Thanks, and hope all is well with you, He iro 00:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
I do understand your logic though. I was just trying to tell people this is the river mentioned in Stephen Foster and Al Jolson, who spelled it Swanee. I do not deny, however, that the government-issued spellings and popular culture spelling are two different things. JoeScarce ( talk) 00:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Fawcett (surname), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page William Fawcett ( check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
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Dear Mr. Albury, This is the African American History Honors Class at Newberry High School in Newberry, FL. We are requesting some guidance, we want to understand how we can source something, when the sources of the day were clearly racially biased and currently irrelevant. We just recently updated the Newberry Six Lynching Page with the actual information from the historical marker here in Newberry, FL, which has gone through Florida's historical board for accuracy. Our class has been studying and talking about this event since the start of the school year, and our teacher is the Mayor of Newberry. Any help you can give us on how to penetrate the institutional racism that permeates the sources of the day, would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely, The AfAH Class of Newberry HS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marlowejh ( talk • contribs) 17:23, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Damon Runyon's short story
"Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the
hot Tom and Jerry
No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well DA. MarnetteD| Talk 23:05, 18 December 2019 (UTC) |
I was in two minds about whether to create a separate article on her. I could still do that - do you have a strong view either way? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 13:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Fawcett (surname), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page William Fawcett ( check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 08:36, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Good man, there was a reason for changing Surgeon's knot video. The English version is wrong! This knot is shown incorrectly at the base with just a simple overhand knot. The first knot must be started with a Double overhand knot. If you want it to be an English-language video, you have to pay attention to it. Thank you. -- StromBer ( talk) 15:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).
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the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpretedrather than
reasonably construed.
I can't fınd any ıpa letters, ıf you can give me the whole set of ıpa letters, I will put the correct pronouncıatıon of "Nahuatl" that you reversed absent-mındedly. GlottalStop777 ( talk) 23:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
YOU reverted MY correct edit
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 14:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Me last month; I see an error in this article. Let me fix it! You; *removes correction* GlottalStop777 ( talk) 14:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
No, I edited it on THIS account
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 15:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
If you can't even be nice, you shouldn't be a mod.
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 15:50, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
I reckon aliens did it. Or the Illuminati. Or maybe fairies - they can be mean little suckers when they put their minds to it. Either way, at least you have an entertaining new story to tell 😁 Blue-Sonnet ( talk) 15:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm afraid I automatically use the date format of the article, so I used US dates there. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
The file File:Attackblockhouse.jpg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
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Added summary. Thanks for the reminder — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 16:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Fixed the Reimers cite and added some more information — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 11:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for you help. I think I (and you) finally have it right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi there Donald. I am disappointed in your revert of my edit ("per MOS:OVERLINK") of Stephen Dando-Collins for the following reasons:
We are both around WP for over 10 years so I hope we can come to an amicable solution. Regards. DadaNeem ( talk) 05:59, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
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wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.
that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.
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must notundo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than
should not.
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hallo i am rick castro- i have made the changes on my page as best i can.. i'm not that tech- savvy so do what i can- all the info and references i've entered are correct- all the people i mentioned are people i know- have worked with or interacted with- i have posted noting false whatsoever- please restore my additions- thank you- rick castro — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eigilvesti ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).
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Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
On a recent edit to Winter Haven, Florida, you reverted an IP and issued a warning that their edit did not conform to Wikipedia policies. They merely added the word "confederate" to a person who was listed with a title of "Col.", which referred to their service in the confederate army. What policy could this have violated? If Henry Haines is a colonel, he is also a confederate. The IP's edit is absolutely factual and sourced. Perhaps it is "unnecessary", perhaps not, (I think it is necessary) but is this any way to treat a good faith editor? Thanks, Jacona ( talk) 11:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
King brown snake by
Casliber |
News at a Glance |
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Class is in Session in the Tree of Life |
In an interesting turn of events, this month's guest column is by my alter-ego, Elysia (Wiki Ed): *Puts on Wiki Education hat* Hi everyone, I'm Elysia and I work for Wiki Education. You may know me as Enwebb. I got a request last month to let you know how Wiki Education is intersecting with the Tree of Life subprojects. As one of Wiki Education's major goals is to improve topics related to the sciences, leading to our Communicating Science initiative, we end up supporting quite a few in the biological sciences. Here are the TOL-related courses active this term: What is the impact of student editors in Tree of Life? Altogether, these 16 courses have 347 student participants. As the end of the semester hasn't come yet, these numbers are still growing, but these students have:
Some of our best student work this semester (of any kind, not just biodiversity) has come from Agelaia's Behavioural Ecology course—you may remember this as the course that created WikiProject Diptera. The students have several Good Article nominations, including Dryomyza anilis, Anastrepha ludens, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Drosophila silvestris, Drosophila subobscura, and Ceratitis capitata. And while long-term participation from students is low, there's always the chance that we'll discover a Wikipedian. I had never edited before my Wikipedia assignment in 2017 and I'm still here nearly 20,000 edits later! After I poked around in the beginning of the semester, I had the realization that not many people write Wikipedia, and very few of those have a special interest in bats. If I didn't stick around to write the content, there was no guarantee that it would ever get done. Why are species articles suitable for students? Writing about taxonomic groups is a great fit for students, as it keeps them away from areas where new editors traditionally struggle. The notability policy is generous towards taxa, and there is little danger of a student's work getting removed for lack of notability; this is to be expected when students write biographies. Students may struggle with encyclopedic tone for biographies and stray towards promotional writing, but this is much less common when writing about a shrew or algae! Additionally, we're never going to run out of species to write about. Students have a bounty of stubs and redlinks to pick from. Creating a new article or expanding an existing one also takes a fairly predictable structure, with plenty of articles that students can model after. Don't students just create messes for volunteers to clean up? Our sincere hope is that, no, they don't, and we take several steps to try to minimize the burden on volunteer labor. With automatic plagiarism detection, alerts when students edit a Good or Featured Article, and notifications when students edit an article subject to discretionary sanctions, we try to stay ahead of problems as much as possible. We also review all student work at the end of each term. Ian, Shalor, and I are always happy to receive pings alerting us to student issues that need to be addressed. |
November DYKs |
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Apororhynchus by
Mattximus |
Cactus wren by
CaptainEek |
News at a Glance |
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Editor Spotlight: Plantdrew |
We're joined this month by long-time editor Plantdrew, who's currently engaged in streamlining the taxonomic structure of Wikipedia articles via the automated taxobox system. How did you become a Wikipedian? What are your particular interests (besides the obvious of "plants")?
What projects are keeping you busy around the 'pedia at present?
What's your favorite plant?
What's your background like? How did you come to have a special interest in biology?
What's something that would surprised TOL editors about your life off-wiki?
Anything else you'd like us to know?
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December DYKs |
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Megarachne by
Ichthyovenator |
Wolf by
LittleJerry |
News at a Glance |
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Vital Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The vital articles project on English Wikipedia began in 2004 when an editor transferred a list from Meta-Wiki: List of articles every Wikipedia should have. The first incarnation of the list became what is now level 3. As of 2019, there are 5 levels of vital articles:
Each level is inclusive of all previous levels, meaning that the 1,000 Level 3 articles include those listed on Levels 2 and 1. Below is an overview of the distribution of vital articles, and the quality of the articles. While the ultimate goal of the vital articles project is to have Featured-class articles, I also considered Good Articles to be "complete" for the purposes of this list. Animals (1,148 designated out of projected 2,400)
Plants, fungi, and other organisms (510 designated out of projected 1,200)
Many articles have yet to be designated for Tree of Life taxonomic groups, with 1,942 outstanding articles to be added. Anyone can add vital articles to the list! Restructuring may be necessary, as the only viruses included as of yet are under the category "Health". The majority of vital articles needing improvement are level 5, but here are some outstanding articles from the other levels:
· Abiogenesis · Death · Cell · Human evolution · Organism · Zoology · Cattle · Dog · Reptile · Flower · Nut · Seed · Algae · Eukaryote · Biodiversity · Extinction · Photosynthesis
· Sexual dimorphism · Feather · Fur · Hair · Gill · Plant anatomy · Plant morphology · Berry · Leaf · Root · Stoma · Shrub · Plant stem · Bark · Trunk · Epidermis · Ground tissue · Meristem · Vascular tissue · Vascular cambium · Hypha · Mycelium |
January DYKs |
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Segnosaurus by
FunkMonk |
Danuvius guggenmosi by
Dunkleosteus77 |
News at a Glance |
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The spread of coronavirus across Wikipedia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
With the outbreak of a novel coronavirus dominating news coverage, Wikipedia content related to the virus has seen much higher interest. Tree of Life content of particular interest to readers has included viruses, bats, pangolins, and masked palm civets. Viruses saw the most dramatic growth in readership: Coronavirus, which was the 105th most popular virus article in December 2019 with about 400 views per day, averaged over a quarter million views each day of January 2020. Total monthly viewership of the top-10 virus articles ballooned from about 1.5 million to nearly 20 million.
From October 2019 – December 2019, the top ten most popular bat articles fluctuated among 16 different articles, with the December viewership of those 10 articles at 209,280. For January 2020, three articles broke into the top-10 that were not among the 16 articles of the prior three months: Bat as food, Horseshoe bat, and Bat-borne virus. Viewership of the top-10 bat articles spiked nearly 300% to 617,067 in January. While bats have been implicated as a possible natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, an intermediate host may be the bridge between bats and humans. Pangolins have been hypothesized as the intermediate host for the virus, causing a large spike in typical page views of 2-3k each day up to more than 60k in a day. Masked palm civets, the intermediate host of SARS, saw a modest yet noticeable spike in page views as well, from 100 to 300 views per day to as many as 5k views per day. With an increase in viewers came an increase in editors. In an interview, longtime virus editor Awkwafaba identified the influx of editors as the biggest challenge in editing content related to the coronavirus. They noted that these newcomers include "novices who make honest mistakes and get tossed about a bit in the mad activity" as well as "experienced editors who know nothing about viruses and are good researchers, yet aren't familiar with the policies of WP:ToL or WP:Viruses." Disruption also increased, with extended confirmed protection (also known as the 30/500 rule, which prevents editors with fewer than 30 days tenure and 500 edits from making edits and is typically used on a very small subset of Wikipedia articles) temporarily applied to Coronavirus and still active on Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data. New editors apparently seeking to correct misinformation continuously edited the article Bat as food to remove content related to China: Videos of Chinese people eating bat soup were misrepresented to be current or filmed in China, when at least one such video was several years old and filmed in Palau. However, reliable sources confirm that bats are eaten in China, especially Southern China, so these well-meaning edits were mostly removed. Another level of complexity was added by the fluctuating terminology of the virus. Over a dozen moves and merges were requested within WikiProject Viruses. To give you an idea of the musical chairs happening with article titles, here are the move histories of two articles: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Awkwafaba noted that "the main authorities, WHO and ICTV, don't really have a process for speedily naming a virus or disease." Additionally, they have different criteria for naming. They said, "I remember in a move discussion from the article then called Wuhan coronavirus that a virus name cannot have a geographical location in it, but this is a WHO disease naming guideline, and not an ICTV virus naming rule. ICTV may have renamed Four Corners virus to Sin Nombre orthohantavirus but there are still plenty of official virus species names that don't abide by WHO guidelines." |
February DYKs |
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Argentinosaurus by
Slate Weasel and
Jens Lallensack |
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations by
Britishfinance |
News at a glance |
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A new WikiProject responding to the pandemic | ||
The newest Tree of Life WikiProject is about a taxon that is dominating the headlines, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and its many effects. We interviewed Another Believer, the founder of WikiProject COVID-19. This interview has been edited for length. Find the full interview here.
Number of participants of WikiProject Covid-19
Thank you to Another Believer for your time, both in this interview and in this project. Interested readers can join WikiProject COVID-19. And please stay safe and healthy out there. -- Awkwafaba |
March DYKs |
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News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).
Danuvius guggenmosi by
Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by
J Milburn |
Lythronax by
FunkMonk,
Lythronaxargestes and
IJReid |
News at a glance |
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Tree of Life's growing featured content | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inspired by a March 2020 post at WikiProject Medicine detailing the growth of Featured Articles over time, we decided to reproduce that table here, adding a second table showing the growth of Good Articles. Tree of Life articles are placed in the "Biology" category for FAs, which has seen a growth of 381% since 2008. Only two other subjects had a greater growth than Biology: Business, economics, and finance; and Warfare. Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend: Considerably above average, Above average, Average Below average , Considerably below average, Poor
*subset of natural sciences Unsurprisingly, the number of GAs has increased more rapidly than the number of FAs. Organisms, which is a subcategory of Natural sciences, has seen a GA growth of 755% since 2008, besting the Natural sciences overall growth of 530%. While Warfare had far and away the most significant growth of GAs, it's a clear outlier relative to other categories. |
April DYKs |
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News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).
Gigantorhynchus by
Mattximus |
News at a glance |
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Interview with Jts1882 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This month we're joined by Jts1882, who is active in depicting evolutionary relationship of taxa via cladograms. Part of this includes responding to cladogram requests, where interested editors can have cladograms made without using the templates themselves. How did you come to be interested in systematics? Are you interested in systematics broadly, or is there a particular group you're most fond of? As long as I can remember I’ve been interested in nature, starting with the animals and plants in the garden, school grounds, and local wood, and then more general wildlife worldwide. An interest in how things are classified grew from this. I like things to be organised and understanding the relationships between things and systems (not just living things) is a big part of that. Biology was always my favourite subject in school and took up a disproportionate part of my time. My interest in systematics is broad as I’d like to comprehend the whole tree of life, but the cat family is my favourite group. What's the background behind cladogram requests? I see that it isn't a very old part of the Tree of Life Well I can’t take any credit for the cladogram requests page, although I help out there sometimes. It was created by IJReid and there are several people who have helped there more than me. I think the motivation is that creating cladograms requires a knowledge of the templates that is daunting for many editors. It was one way of helping people who want to focus on content creation. My main contribution to the cladograms is converting the {{ clade}} template to use a Lua module. The template code was extremely difficult to follow and had to be repetitive (I can only admire the efforts of those who got the thing to work in the first place). The conversion to Lua made it more efficient, allowed larger and deeper cladograms, plus facilitating the introduction of new features. The cladogram request page was recently the venue for discussion on making time calibrated cladograms, which is now possible, if not particularly user friendly. What advice do you have for an editor who wants to learn how to make cladograms? The same advice I would give to someone facing any computer problem, just try it out. Start by taking existing code for a cladogram and make changes yourself. The main advice would be to format it properly so indents match the brackets vertically. Of course, not everyone wants to learn and if someone prefers to focus on article content there is the cladogram request page. Examples of cladograms Jts1882 has created, showing different proposed clades for
Neoaves
Do you have any personal projects or goals you're working towards on Wikipedia? As I said I like organisation and systems. So I find efforts like the automated taxobox system and {{ taxonbar}} appealing. I would like to see more reuse of the major phylogenetic trees on Wikipedia with more use of consensus trees on the higher taxa. Too often they get edited based on one recent report and/or without proper citation. Animals and bilateria are examples where this is a problem. Towards this I have been working on a system of phylogeny templates that can be reused flexibly. The {{ Clade transclude}} template allows selective transclusion, so the phylogenetic trees on one page can be reused with modifications, i.e. can be pruned and grafted, used with or without images, with or without collapsible elements, etc. I have an example for the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (see {{ Phylogeny/APG IV}}) and one for squamates that also includes collapsible elements (see {{ Phylogeny/Squamata}}). A second project is to have a modular reference system for taxonomic resources. I have made some progress along this lines with the {{ BioRef}} template. This started off simply as a way of hardlinking to Catalog of Fishes pages and I’ve gradually expanded it to cover other groups (e..g. FishBase, AmphibiaWeb and Amphibian Species of the World, Reptile Database, the Mammalian Diversity Database). The modular nature is still rudimentary and needs a rewrite before it is ready for wider use. What would surprise your fellow editors to learn about your life off-Wikipedia? I don’t think there is anything particularly surprising or interesting about my life. I’ve had an academic career as a research scientist but I don't think anyone could guess the area from my Wikipedia edits. I prefer to work on areas where I am learning at the same time. This why I spend more time with neglected topics (e.g. mosses at the moment). I start reading and then find that I’m not getting the information I want. Anything else you'd like us to know? My interest in the classification of things goes beyond biology. I am fascinated by mediaeval attempts to classify knowledge, such as Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning and Diderot and d’Alembert in their Encyclopédie. They were trying to come up with a universal scheme of knowledge just as the printing press was allowing greater dissemination of knowledge. With the internet we are seeing a new revolution in knowledge dissemination. Just look at how we could read research papers on the COVID virus within weeks of its discovery. With an open internet, everyone has access, not just those with the luxury of books at home or good libraries. Sites like the Biodiversity Heritage Library allow you to read old scientific works without having to visit dusty university library stack rooms, while the taxonomic and checklist databases provide instant information on millions of living species. In principle, the whole world can now find out about anything, even if Douglas Adams warned we might be disinclined to do so. This is why I like Wikipedia, with all its warts, it’s a means of organising the knowledge on the internet. In just two decades it’s become a first stop for knowledge and hopefully a gateway to more specialised sources. Perhaps developing this latter aspect, beyond providing good sources for what we say, is the next challenge for Wikipedia. |
May DYKs |
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Enwebb ( talk) 19:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).
RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).
Canada lynx by
Sainsf |
News at a glance |
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Categorizing life with DexDor |
DexDor is a WikiGnome with a particular interest in article categorization, including how organisms are categorized.
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June DYKs |
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July DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of Enwebb ( talk) 16:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
mustor
shoulduse the articles for creation process.
Horseshoe bat by
Enwebb |
Black-and-red broadbill by
AryKun |
Hoax taxon sniffed out after nearly fifteen years |
Cross posted from the Signpost On August 7, WikiProject Palaeontology member Rextron discovered a suspicious taxon article, Mustelodon, which was created in November 2005. The article lacked references and the subsequent discussion on WikiProject Palaeontology found that the alleged type locality (where the fossil was first discovered) of Lago Nandarajo "near the northern border of Panama" was nonexistent. In fact, Panama does not even really have a northern border, as it is bounded along the north by the Caribbean Sea. No other publications or databases mentioned Mustelodon, save a fleeting mention in a 2019 book that presumably followed Wikipedia, Felines of the World. The article also appeared in four other languages, Catalan, Spanish, Dutch, and Serbian. In Serbian Wikipedia, a note at the bottom of the page warned: "It is important to note here that there is no data on this genus in the official scientific literature, and all attached data on the genus Mustelodon on this page are taken from the English Wikipedia and are the only known data on this genus of mammals, so the validity of this genus is questionable." Editors took action to alert our counterparts on other projects, and these versions were removed also. As the editor who reached out to Spanish and Catalan Wikipedia, it was somewhat challenging to navigate these mostly foreign languages (I have a limited grasp of Spanish). I doubted that the article had very many watchers, so I knew I had to find some WikiProjects where I could post a machine translation advising of the hoax, and asking that users follow local protocols to remove the article. I was surprised to find, however, that Catalan Wikipedia does not tag articles for WikiProjects on talk pages, meaning I had to fumble around to find what I needed (turns out that WikiProjects are Viquiprojectes in Catalan!) Mustelodon remains on Wikidata, where its "instance of" property was swapped from "taxon" to "fictional taxon". How did this article have such a long lifespan? Early intervention is critical for removing hoaxes. A 2016 report found that a hoax article that survives its first day has an 18% chance of lasting a year. [1] Additionally, hoax articles tend to have longer lifespans if they are in inconspicuous parts of Wikipedia, where they do not receive many views. Mustelodon was only viewed a couple times a day, on average. Mustelodon survived a brush with death three years into its lifespan. The article was proposed for deletion in September 2008, with a deletion rationale of "No references given; cannot find any evidence in peer-reviewed journals that this alleged genus actually exists". Unfortunately, the proposed deletion was contested and the template removed, though the declining editor did not give a rationale. Upon its rediscovery in August 2020, Mustelodon was tagged for speedy deletion under CSD G3 as a "blatant hoax". This was challenged, and an Articles for Deletion discussion followed. On 12 August, the AfD was closed as a SNOW delete. WikiProject Palaeontology members ensured that any trace of it was scrubbed from legitimate articles. The fictional mammal was finally, truly extinct. At the ripe old age of 14 years, 9 months, this is the longest-lived documented hoax on Wikipedia, topping the previous documented record of 14 years, 5 months, set by The Gates of Saturn, a fictitious television show, which was incidentally also discovered in August 2020. How do we discover other hoax taxa? Could we use Wikidata to discover taxa are not linked to databases like ITIS, Fossilworks, and others?
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Spotlight with Mattximus |
This month's spotlight is with Mattximus, author of two Featured Articles and 29 Featured Lists at current count.
I think I have a compulsion to make lists, it doesn't show up in my real life, but online I secretly get a lot of satisfaction making orderly lists and tables. It's a bit of a secret of mine, because it doesn't manifest in any other part of my life. My background is in biology, so this was a natural (haha) fit.
This experiment was just to see if I could get any random article to FA status, so I picked the very first alphabetical animal species according to the taxonomy and made that attempt. Technically, there isn't enough information for a species page so I just merged the species into a genus and went from there. It was a fun exercise, but doing it alone is not the most fun so it's probably on pause for the foreseeable future. Note: Aporhynchus is the first alphabetical taxon as follows: Animalia, Acanthocephala, Archiacanthocephala, Apororhynchida, Apororhynchidae, Apororhynchus
I would recommend getting a good article nominated, then a featured list up before tackling the FA. Lists are a bit more forgiving but give you a taste of what standards to expect from FA. The most time consuming thing is proper citations so make sure that is in order before starting either.
My personality in real life does not match my wikipedia persona. I'm not a very organized, or orderly in real life, but the wikipedia pages I brought to FL or FA are all very organized. Maybe it's my outlet for a more free-flowing life as a scientist/teacher.
The fact that wikipedia exists free of profit motive and free for everyone really is something special and I encourage everyone to donate a few dollars to the cause. |
August DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of
Enwebb (
talk)
17:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.
Donald Albury I am seeking to write an article in wikipedia, however I have been overwhelmed with the process. I asking you as an experienced wiki editor to provide me a bit of guidance throughout this process. I live in Miami and noted you wrote an article on Miami's M.Athalie Range and other Florida-related articles. My interest is also Florida History based, primarily the lives of African americans and Caribbean descendants that migrated to Florida. I wanted to write an article on one of Ms. Range's associates (BLP) who is currently 80+ years old and a recently deceased Miamian, who was the first African American Florida Teacher of Year back in 1970.
I am having problems uploading pictures ..... can you offer any suggestions either with the picture loading process or just writing in general?
Ojuice1701 Oscar Braynon, Sr. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ojuice1701 ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
User:Ojuice1701, I have replied on your talk page. - Donald Albury 20:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Letter-winged kite by
Casliber |
Kosmoceratops by
FunkMonk |
Guest column by Thomas Shafee ( Evolution and evolvability), Editor in Chief of WikiJournal of Science
Firstly, WikiJSci can be a complementary system for FA review (getting external review, input, and validity). When an Wikipedia article is nominated (via WP:JAN), journal editors go out to non-Wikipedian academics and researchers who have published on the subject on the last five years and invite them to give feedback comments (e.g. Peripatric speciation and Baryonyx). The resulting changes can then be integrated back into the Wikipedia article.
Getting more editors involved in Wikipedia is always a high priority. WikiJSci can also be a way to encourage new people to contribute articles (especially on missing/stub/start topics). An example of an article that was written from scratch by a group of non-Wikipedians is Teladorsagia circumcincta. This not only resulted in a new Wikipedia page on an underdeveloped topic, but introduced the idea of Wikimedia contribution to a group of people who had previously never considered it.
The journal can be a way to get multimedia content reviewed or encourage contribution. The same approach could be easily adapted to sounds (e.g. frog mating calls) or videos (e.g. starfish feet motion). It also allows for tracking of those images in new articles via Altmetric ( this example has >200, which is bananas). There aren't any biology examples in WikiJSci yet, but the sister medical journal has published a few summary diagrams, photography, and image galleries. Examples include this gallery by Blausen Medical or the diagram of cell disassembly during apoptosis.
For those interested in other Wikimedia sister projects, there's also broad scope for interactions with the WikiJournals. Perhaps peer reviewed teaching resources could be useful to sit alongside sets of Wikipedia articles and be integrated into Wikiversity courses (like this or this)? Can sections of Wikidata & Wikispecies be peer reviewed? What are the potential avenues for integration with WikiCite, WikiFactMine, Scholia, etc.? Currently, WikiJSci is aiming to be very flexible and try out different formats so long as they can be externally peer reviewed. For more info, see the 2019-06-30 Signpost article and the current sister project proposal. |
1) Enwebb: You're very prolific with DYKs, with over 2,000 nominations credited (in fact, I'll highlight which DYK nominations this month were yours below). What made you become so involved in this part of Wikipedia? Why should Tree of Life editors nominate articles for DYK?
2) Enwebb: I noticed that your DYK nominations reflect a diverse array of flora and fauna, from trees, marine invertebrates, birds, fishes, and mammals. How do you decide what to work on?
3) Enwebb: Which of your Wikipedia accomplishments are you most proud of?
4) Enwebb: What motivates you to keep contributing? What's your 10,000 ft view (pardon the non-SI) of the community and Tree of Life?
6) Enwebb: How did you first become interested in natural history?
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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) at 15:43, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).
Share your experience in this survey
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Sincerely,
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Kosmoceratops by
FunkMonk |
Apororhynchus by
Mattximus |
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This month saw a vanishingly rare occurrence for the Tree of Life: a new WikiProject joined the fold. WikiProject Diptera, however, is also unusual in being a classroom project. Whether or not this project will stay active once the semester ends remains to be seen. It does not bode well, however, that WP:WikiProject Vespidae—a creation from the same instructor at St. Louis University—faded to obscurity shortly after the fall semester concluded in 2014. WikiProject Vespidae is defunct and now redirects to the Hymenoptera task force of WikiProject Insects. Since 2014, the Tree of Life has seen a string of years where one or zero projects or task forces were created. The only projects and task forces created since then are WikiProject Animal anatomy (2014), Hymenoptera task force (2016), Bats task force (2017), WikiProject Hypericaceae (2018), and now WikiProject Diptera (2019). The year 2006 saw the greatest creation of WikiProjects and task forces, with fourteen still active and the remaining six as "semiactive", "inactive", or "defunct". |
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Sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) at 22:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.
focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.
Meinhard Michael Moser by
J Milburn |
King brown snake by
Casliber |
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By request from another editor, this month I wrote an overview of ways that content is featured on Wikipedia. Below I have outlined some of the processes for getting content featured: Did You Know (DYK)What is it: A way for articles to appear on the main page of Wikipedia. A short hook in the format of "Did you know...that ___" presents unusual and interesting facts to the reader, hopefully making the reader want to click through to the article How it works: The DYK process has fairly low barriers for participation. The eligibility criteria are few and relatively easy to meet. Some important guidelines:
The process for creating the nomination is somewhat tedious. Instructions can be found here (official instructions) and here ("quick and nice" guide to DYK). Experience is the best teacher here, so don't be afraid to try and fail a few times. The last few DYK nominations I've done, however, have been with the help of SD0001's DYK-helper script, which makes the process a bit more streamlined (you create the template from a popup box on the article; created template is automatically transcluded to nominations page and article talk page) Once your nomination is created and transcluded, it will need to be reviewed. The reviewer will check that the article meets the eligibility criteria, that the hook is short enough, cited, and interesting, and that other requirements are met, such as for images. If you've been credited with more than 5 DYKs, the reviewer will also check that you've reviewed someone else's nomination for each article that you nominate. This is called QPQ (quid pro quo). You can check how many credited DYKs you've had here to see if QPQ is required for you to nominate an article for DYK. Good Article (GA)What it is: A peer review process to determine that an article meets a set of criteria. This adds a symbol to the top of the article. About 1 in 200 articles on Wikipedia is a GA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Anyone can nominate an article—you don't have to be a major contributor, though it is considered polite to inform the major contributors that you are nominating the article. The article is added to a queue to await a review. In the ToL, it seems that reviews happen pretty quickly, thanks to our dedicated members. Once the review begins, the reviewer will offer suggestions to help the article meet the 6 GA criteria. Upon addressing all concerns, the reviewer will pass the article, and voilà! Good Article! Advice to a first-time nominator: Look at other Good Articles in related areas before nominating. If you're unsure about nominating, consider posting to the talk page of your project to see what other editors think. You can also have a more experienced editor co-nominate the article with you. Featured Article (FA)What it is: An exhaustive peer review to determine that an articles meets the criteria. This adds a to the top of the article. About 1 in 1,000 articles on Wikipedia is a FA. How it works: You follow the instructions to nominate an article, placing a template on its talk page. Nominated articles are usually GAs already. Uninvolved editors can nominate, though the article's regular editors should be consulted first. Several editors will come by offering feedback, eventually supporting or opposing promotion to FA. A coordinator will determine if there is consensus to promote the article to FA. For an editor's first FA, spot checks to verify that the sources support the text are conducted. Advice to a first-time nominator: The Featured Article Candidate (FAC) process is a bit intimidating, but several steps can make your first one easier (speaking as someone who has exactly one). If you also did the GA nomination of the article, you can ask the reviewer for "extra" feedback beyond the GA criteria. You can also formally request a peer review and/or a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors to check for content and mechanics. First-time nominators are encouraged to seek the help of a mentor for a higher likelihood of passing their first FAC. Good and Featured Topics (GT and FT)What it is: It took me a while to realize we even had GT and FT on Wikipedia, as they are not very common relative to GA and FA. Both GT and FT are collections of related articles of high quality (all articles at GA or FA, all lists at Featured List). GT/FT have to be at least 3 articles with no obvious gaps in coverage of the topic, along with other criteria. For GT, all articles have to be GA quality and all lists must be FL. For FT, at least half the articles must be FA or FL, with the remaining articles at GA. How it works: Follow the nomination procedures for creating a new topic or adding an article to an existing topic. Other editors weigh in to support or oppose the proposal. Coordinators determine if there is consensus to promote to GT/FT. Advice to a first-time nominator: There are very few GT/FT in Tree of Life ( 5 GT and 11 FT). Most of the legwork appears to be improving a cohesive set of articles to GA/FA. |
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Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) at 03:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 ( talk)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).
Interface administrator changes
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I agree that the article should be blocked until a consensus is reached, but I believe that at least the current state of it should be what it was before until there is consensus. Please reverte the edition to the agreed one. SmithGraves ( talk) 09:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
It is Barjimoa who tries to add something to the article, I do not. I think that it should provisionally return to an edition that doesnt include the Barjimoa edition without consensus. SmithGraves ( talk) 09:26, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
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The file File:Xidazoon sketch.PNG has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
unused, low-res, no obvious use
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard&diff=928566499&oldid=928565183 Thanks for cleaning that up for me, I wasn't aware of that being inappropriate in a talk page. Should I go through and move my comments to the bottom, or just leave things as they are for now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicahZoltu ( talk • contribs) 11:42, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind an objective pair of eyes at Tattooed Arm ( Talk:Tattooed Arm#Haitian or not) over this matter (if you have the time), and I know you also do a lot with southeastern Native American subjects. The logic of the other person is so far escaping me. I probably should have opened the talk page discussion earlier, but I thought my rational was sound at my last revert and still do (if you disagree that's fine, as I said I would like a fresh pair of eyes). Although, truth be told, I'm not sure if this person should even be in this class of category at all, since we know absolutely nothing about them after being sent to St Domingue by the French. Thanks, and hope all is well with you, He iro 00:17, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
I do understand your logic though. I was just trying to tell people this is the river mentioned in Stephen Foster and Al Jolson, who spelled it Swanee. I do not deny, however, that the government-issued spellings and popular culture spelling are two different things. JoeScarce ( talk) 00:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).
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An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Fawcett (surname), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page William Fawcett ( check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
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Dear Mr. Albury, This is the African American History Honors Class at Newberry High School in Newberry, FL. We are requesting some guidance, we want to understand how we can source something, when the sources of the day were clearly racially biased and currently irrelevant. We just recently updated the Newberry Six Lynching Page with the actual information from the historical marker here in Newberry, FL, which has gone through Florida's historical board for accuracy. Our class has been studying and talking about this event since the start of the school year, and our teacher is the Mayor of Newberry. Any help you can give us on how to penetrate the institutional racism that permeates the sources of the day, would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely, The AfAH Class of Newberry HS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marlowejh ( talk • contribs) 17:23, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Damon Runyon's short story
"Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the
hot Tom and Jerry
No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well DA. MarnetteD| Talk 23:05, 18 December 2019 (UTC) |
I was in two minds about whether to create a separate article on her. I could still do that - do you have a strong view either way? Ghmyrtle ( talk) 13:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Fawcett (surname), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page William Fawcett ( check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).
( Opt-out instructions.) -- DPL bot ( talk) 08:36, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Good man, there was a reason for changing Surgeon's knot video. The English version is wrong! This knot is shown incorrectly at the base with just a simple overhand knot. The first knot must be started with a Double overhand knot. If you want it to be an English-language video, you have to pay attention to it. Thank you. -- StromBer ( talk) 15:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).
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the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpretedrather than
reasonably construed.
I can't fınd any ıpa letters, ıf you can give me the whole set of ıpa letters, I will put the correct pronouncıatıon of "Nahuatl" that you reversed absent-mındedly. GlottalStop777 ( talk) 23:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
YOU reverted MY correct edit
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 14:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Me last month; I see an error in this article. Let me fix it! You; *removes correction* GlottalStop777 ( talk) 14:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
No, I edited it on THIS account
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 15:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
If you can't even be nice, you shouldn't be a mod.
GlottalStop777 ( talk) 15:50, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
I reckon aliens did it. Or the Illuminati. Or maybe fairies - they can be mean little suckers when they put their minds to it. Either way, at least you have an entertaining new story to tell 😁 Blue-Sonnet ( talk) 15:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm afraid I automatically use the date format of the article, so I used US dates there. Doug Weller talk 14:44, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
The file File:Attackblockhouse.jpg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
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Added summary. Thanks for the reminder — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 16:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Fixed the Reimers cite and added some more information — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 11:48, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for you help. I think I (and you) finally have it right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan T. Baumler ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi there Donald. I am disappointed in your revert of my edit ("per MOS:OVERLINK") of Stephen Dando-Collins for the following reasons:
We are both around WP for over 10 years so I hope we can come to an amicable solution. Regards. DadaNeem ( talk) 05:59, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).
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Interface administrator changes
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wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.
that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.
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must notundo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than
should not.
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hallo i am rick castro- i have made the changes on my page as best i can.. i'm not that tech- savvy so do what i can- all the info and references i've entered are correct- all the people i mentioned are people i know- have worked with or interacted with- i have posted noting false whatsoever- please restore my additions- thank you- rick castro — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eigilvesti ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).
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Arbcom RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. A draft RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC (Draft) and not open to comments from the community yet. Interested editors can comment on the RfC itself on its talk page.
On a recent edit to Winter Haven, Florida, you reverted an IP and issued a warning that their edit did not conform to Wikipedia policies. They merely added the word "confederate" to a person who was listed with a title of "Col.", which referred to their service in the confederate army. What policy could this have violated? If Henry Haines is a colonel, he is also a confederate. The IP's edit is absolutely factual and sourced. Perhaps it is "unnecessary", perhaps not, (I think it is necessary) but is this any way to treat a good faith editor? Thanks, Jacona ( talk) 11:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
King brown snake by
Casliber |
News at a Glance |
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Class is in Session in the Tree of Life |
In an interesting turn of events, this month's guest column is by my alter-ego, Elysia (Wiki Ed): *Puts on Wiki Education hat* Hi everyone, I'm Elysia and I work for Wiki Education. You may know me as Enwebb. I got a request last month to let you know how Wiki Education is intersecting with the Tree of Life subprojects. As one of Wiki Education's major goals is to improve topics related to the sciences, leading to our Communicating Science initiative, we end up supporting quite a few in the biological sciences. Here are the TOL-related courses active this term: What is the impact of student editors in Tree of Life? Altogether, these 16 courses have 347 student participants. As the end of the semester hasn't come yet, these numbers are still growing, but these students have:
Some of our best student work this semester (of any kind, not just biodiversity) has come from Agelaia's Behavioural Ecology course—you may remember this as the course that created WikiProject Diptera. The students have several Good Article nominations, including Dryomyza anilis, Anastrepha ludens, Aedes taeniorhynchus, Drosophila silvestris, Drosophila subobscura, and Ceratitis capitata. And while long-term participation from students is low, there's always the chance that we'll discover a Wikipedian. I had never edited before my Wikipedia assignment in 2017 and I'm still here nearly 20,000 edits later! After I poked around in the beginning of the semester, I had the realization that not many people write Wikipedia, and very few of those have a special interest in bats. If I didn't stick around to write the content, there was no guarantee that it would ever get done. Why are species articles suitable for students? Writing about taxonomic groups is a great fit for students, as it keeps them away from areas where new editors traditionally struggle. The notability policy is generous towards taxa, and there is little danger of a student's work getting removed for lack of notability; this is to be expected when students write biographies. Students may struggle with encyclopedic tone for biographies and stray towards promotional writing, but this is much less common when writing about a shrew or algae! Additionally, we're never going to run out of species to write about. Students have a bounty of stubs and redlinks to pick from. Creating a new article or expanding an existing one also takes a fairly predictable structure, with plenty of articles that students can model after. Don't students just create messes for volunteers to clean up? Our sincere hope is that, no, they don't, and we take several steps to try to minimize the burden on volunteer labor. With automatic plagiarism detection, alerts when students edit a Good or Featured Article, and notifications when students edit an article subject to discretionary sanctions, we try to stay ahead of problems as much as possible. We also review all student work at the end of each term. Ian, Shalor, and I are always happy to receive pings alerting us to student issues that need to be addressed. |
November DYKs |
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MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:40, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Apororhynchus by
Mattximus |
Cactus wren by
CaptainEek |
News at a Glance |
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Editor Spotlight: Plantdrew |
We're joined this month by long-time editor Plantdrew, who's currently engaged in streamlining the taxonomic structure of Wikipedia articles via the automated taxobox system. How did you become a Wikipedian? What are your particular interests (besides the obvious of "plants")?
What projects are keeping you busy around the 'pedia at present?
What's your favorite plant?
What's your background like? How did you come to have a special interest in biology?
What's something that would surprised TOL editors about your life off-wiki?
Anything else you'd like us to know?
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December DYKs |
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MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
Megarachne by
Ichthyovenator |
Wolf by
LittleJerry |
News at a Glance |
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Vital Articles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The vital articles project on English Wikipedia began in 2004 when an editor transferred a list from Meta-Wiki: List of articles every Wikipedia should have. The first incarnation of the list became what is now level 3. As of 2019, there are 5 levels of vital articles:
Each level is inclusive of all previous levels, meaning that the 1,000 Level 3 articles include those listed on Levels 2 and 1. Below is an overview of the distribution of vital articles, and the quality of the articles. While the ultimate goal of the vital articles project is to have Featured-class articles, I also considered Good Articles to be "complete" for the purposes of this list. Animals (1,148 designated out of projected 2,400)
Plants, fungi, and other organisms (510 designated out of projected 1,200)
Many articles have yet to be designated for Tree of Life taxonomic groups, with 1,942 outstanding articles to be added. Anyone can add vital articles to the list! Restructuring may be necessary, as the only viruses included as of yet are under the category "Health". The majority of vital articles needing improvement are level 5, but here are some outstanding articles from the other levels:
· Abiogenesis · Death · Cell · Human evolution · Organism · Zoology · Cattle · Dog · Reptile · Flower · Nut · Seed · Algae · Eukaryote · Biodiversity · Extinction · Photosynthesis
· Sexual dimorphism · Feather · Fur · Hair · Gill · Plant anatomy · Plant morphology · Berry · Leaf · Root · Stoma · Shrub · Plant stem · Bark · Trunk · Epidermis · Ground tissue · Meristem · Vascular tissue · Vascular cambium · Hypha · Mycelium |
January DYKs |
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MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Segnosaurus by
FunkMonk |
Danuvius guggenmosi by
Dunkleosteus77 |
News at a Glance |
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The spread of coronavirus across Wikipedia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
With the outbreak of a novel coronavirus dominating news coverage, Wikipedia content related to the virus has seen much higher interest. Tree of Life content of particular interest to readers has included viruses, bats, pangolins, and masked palm civets. Viruses saw the most dramatic growth in readership: Coronavirus, which was the 105th most popular virus article in December 2019 with about 400 views per day, averaged over a quarter million views each day of January 2020. Total monthly viewership of the top-10 virus articles ballooned from about 1.5 million to nearly 20 million.
From October 2019 – December 2019, the top ten most popular bat articles fluctuated among 16 different articles, with the December viewership of those 10 articles at 209,280. For January 2020, three articles broke into the top-10 that were not among the 16 articles of the prior three months: Bat as food, Horseshoe bat, and Bat-borne virus. Viewership of the top-10 bat articles spiked nearly 300% to 617,067 in January. While bats have been implicated as a possible natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, an intermediate host may be the bridge between bats and humans. Pangolins have been hypothesized as the intermediate host for the virus, causing a large spike in typical page views of 2-3k each day up to more than 60k in a day. Masked palm civets, the intermediate host of SARS, saw a modest yet noticeable spike in page views as well, from 100 to 300 views per day to as many as 5k views per day. With an increase in viewers came an increase in editors. In an interview, longtime virus editor Awkwafaba identified the influx of editors as the biggest challenge in editing content related to the coronavirus. They noted that these newcomers include "novices who make honest mistakes and get tossed about a bit in the mad activity" as well as "experienced editors who know nothing about viruses and are good researchers, yet aren't familiar with the policies of WP:ToL or WP:Viruses." Disruption also increased, with extended confirmed protection (also known as the 30/500 rule, which prevents editors with fewer than 30 days tenure and 500 edits from making edits and is typically used on a very small subset of Wikipedia articles) temporarily applied to Coronavirus and still active on Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data. New editors apparently seeking to correct misinformation continuously edited the article Bat as food to remove content related to China: Videos of Chinese people eating bat soup were misrepresented to be current or filmed in China, when at least one such video was several years old and filmed in Palau. However, reliable sources confirm that bats are eaten in China, especially Southern China, so these well-meaning edits were mostly removed. Another level of complexity was added by the fluctuating terminology of the virus. Over a dozen moves and merges were requested within WikiProject Viruses. To give you an idea of the musical chairs happening with article titles, here are the move histories of two articles: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Awkwafaba noted that "the main authorities, WHO and ICTV, don't really have a process for speedily naming a virus or disease." Additionally, they have different criteria for naming. They said, "I remember in a move discussion from the article then called Wuhan coronavirus that a virus name cannot have a geographical location in it, but this is a WHO disease naming guideline, and not an ICTV virus naming rule. ICTV may have renamed Four Corners virus to Sin Nombre orthohantavirus but there are still plenty of official virus species names that don't abide by WHO guidelines." |
February DYKs |
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Argentinosaurus by
Slate Weasel and
Jens Lallensack |
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations by
Britishfinance |
News at a glance |
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A new WikiProject responding to the pandemic | ||
The newest Tree of Life WikiProject is about a taxon that is dominating the headlines, Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, and its many effects. We interviewed Another Believer, the founder of WikiProject COVID-19. This interview has been edited for length. Find the full interview here.
Number of participants of WikiProject Covid-19
Thank you to Another Believer for your time, both in this interview and in this project. Interested readers can join WikiProject COVID-19. And please stay safe and healthy out there. -- Awkwafaba |
March DYKs |
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News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).
Danuvius guggenmosi by
Dunkleosteus77, reviewed by
J Milburn |
Lythronax by
FunkMonk,
Lythronaxargestes and
IJReid |
News at a glance |
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Tree of Life's growing featured content | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Inspired by a March 2020 post at WikiProject Medicine detailing the growth of Featured Articles over time, we decided to reproduce that table here, adding a second table showing the growth of Good Articles. Tree of Life articles are placed in the "Biology" category for FAs, which has seen a growth of 381% since 2008. Only two other subjects had a greater growth than Biology: Business, economics, and finance; and Warfare. Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend: Considerably above average, Above average, Average Below average , Considerably below average, Poor
*subset of natural sciences Unsurprisingly, the number of GAs has increased more rapidly than the number of FAs. Organisms, which is a subcategory of Natural sciences, has seen a GA growth of 755% since 2008, besting the Natural sciences overall growth of 530%. While Warfare had far and away the most significant growth of GAs, it's a clear outlier relative to other categories. |
April DYKs |
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News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).
Gigantorhynchus by
Mattximus |
News at a glance |
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Interview with Jts1882 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This month we're joined by Jts1882, who is active in depicting evolutionary relationship of taxa via cladograms. Part of this includes responding to cladogram requests, where interested editors can have cladograms made without using the templates themselves. How did you come to be interested in systematics? Are you interested in systematics broadly, or is there a particular group you're most fond of? As long as I can remember I’ve been interested in nature, starting with the animals and plants in the garden, school grounds, and local wood, and then more general wildlife worldwide. An interest in how things are classified grew from this. I like things to be organised and understanding the relationships between things and systems (not just living things) is a big part of that. Biology was always my favourite subject in school and took up a disproportionate part of my time. My interest in systematics is broad as I’d like to comprehend the whole tree of life, but the cat family is my favourite group. What's the background behind cladogram requests? I see that it isn't a very old part of the Tree of Life Well I can’t take any credit for the cladogram requests page, although I help out there sometimes. It was created by IJReid and there are several people who have helped there more than me. I think the motivation is that creating cladograms requires a knowledge of the templates that is daunting for many editors. It was one way of helping people who want to focus on content creation. My main contribution to the cladograms is converting the {{ clade}} template to use a Lua module. The template code was extremely difficult to follow and had to be repetitive (I can only admire the efforts of those who got the thing to work in the first place). The conversion to Lua made it more efficient, allowed larger and deeper cladograms, plus facilitating the introduction of new features. The cladogram request page was recently the venue for discussion on making time calibrated cladograms, which is now possible, if not particularly user friendly. What advice do you have for an editor who wants to learn how to make cladograms? The same advice I would give to someone facing any computer problem, just try it out. Start by taking existing code for a cladogram and make changes yourself. The main advice would be to format it properly so indents match the brackets vertically. Of course, not everyone wants to learn and if someone prefers to focus on article content there is the cladogram request page. Examples of cladograms Jts1882 has created, showing different proposed clades for
Neoaves
Do you have any personal projects or goals you're working towards on Wikipedia? As I said I like organisation and systems. So I find efforts like the automated taxobox system and {{ taxonbar}} appealing. I would like to see more reuse of the major phylogenetic trees on Wikipedia with more use of consensus trees on the higher taxa. Too often they get edited based on one recent report and/or without proper citation. Animals and bilateria are examples where this is a problem. Towards this I have been working on a system of phylogeny templates that can be reused flexibly. The {{ Clade transclude}} template allows selective transclusion, so the phylogenetic trees on one page can be reused with modifications, i.e. can be pruned and grafted, used with or without images, with or without collapsible elements, etc. I have an example for the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification (see {{ Phylogeny/APG IV}}) and one for squamates that also includes collapsible elements (see {{ Phylogeny/Squamata}}). A second project is to have a modular reference system for taxonomic resources. I have made some progress along this lines with the {{ BioRef}} template. This started off simply as a way of hardlinking to Catalog of Fishes pages and I’ve gradually expanded it to cover other groups (e..g. FishBase, AmphibiaWeb and Amphibian Species of the World, Reptile Database, the Mammalian Diversity Database). The modular nature is still rudimentary and needs a rewrite before it is ready for wider use. What would surprise your fellow editors to learn about your life off-Wikipedia? I don’t think there is anything particularly surprising or interesting about my life. I’ve had an academic career as a research scientist but I don't think anyone could guess the area from my Wikipedia edits. I prefer to work on areas where I am learning at the same time. This why I spend more time with neglected topics (e.g. mosses at the moment). I start reading and then find that I’m not getting the information I want. Anything else you'd like us to know? My interest in the classification of things goes beyond biology. I am fascinated by mediaeval attempts to classify knowledge, such as Bacon in his The Advancement of Learning and Diderot and d’Alembert in their Encyclopédie. They were trying to come up with a universal scheme of knowledge just as the printing press was allowing greater dissemination of knowledge. With the internet we are seeing a new revolution in knowledge dissemination. Just look at how we could read research papers on the COVID virus within weeks of its discovery. With an open internet, everyone has access, not just those with the luxury of books at home or good libraries. Sites like the Biodiversity Heritage Library allow you to read old scientific works without having to visit dusty university library stack rooms, while the taxonomic and checklist databases provide instant information on millions of living species. In principle, the whole world can now find out about anything, even if Douglas Adams warned we might be disinclined to do so. This is why I like Wikipedia, with all its warts, it’s a means of organising the knowledge on the internet. In just two decades it’s become a first stop for knowledge and hopefully a gateway to more specialised sources. Perhaps developing this latter aspect, beyond providing good sources for what we say, is the next challenge for Wikipedia. |
May DYKs |
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Enwebb ( talk) 19:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).
RfC regarding on-wiki harassment. The RfC has been posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC and is open to comments from the community.
all discussions about pharmaceutical drug prices and pricing and for edits adding, changing, or removing pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing from articles.
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).
Canada lynx by
Sainsf |
News at a glance |
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Categorizing life with DexDor |
DexDor is a WikiGnome with a particular interest in article categorization, including how organisms are categorized.
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June DYKs |
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July DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of Enwebb ( talk) 16:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
mustor
shoulduse the articles for creation process.
Horseshoe bat by
Enwebb |
Black-and-red broadbill by
AryKun |
Hoax taxon sniffed out after nearly fifteen years |
Cross posted from the Signpost On August 7, WikiProject Palaeontology member Rextron discovered a suspicious taxon article, Mustelodon, which was created in November 2005. The article lacked references and the subsequent discussion on WikiProject Palaeontology found that the alleged type locality (where the fossil was first discovered) of Lago Nandarajo "near the northern border of Panama" was nonexistent. In fact, Panama does not even really have a northern border, as it is bounded along the north by the Caribbean Sea. No other publications or databases mentioned Mustelodon, save a fleeting mention in a 2019 book that presumably followed Wikipedia, Felines of the World. The article also appeared in four other languages, Catalan, Spanish, Dutch, and Serbian. In Serbian Wikipedia, a note at the bottom of the page warned: "It is important to note here that there is no data on this genus in the official scientific literature, and all attached data on the genus Mustelodon on this page are taken from the English Wikipedia and are the only known data on this genus of mammals, so the validity of this genus is questionable." Editors took action to alert our counterparts on other projects, and these versions were removed also. As the editor who reached out to Spanish and Catalan Wikipedia, it was somewhat challenging to navigate these mostly foreign languages (I have a limited grasp of Spanish). I doubted that the article had very many watchers, so I knew I had to find some WikiProjects where I could post a machine translation advising of the hoax, and asking that users follow local protocols to remove the article. I was surprised to find, however, that Catalan Wikipedia does not tag articles for WikiProjects on talk pages, meaning I had to fumble around to find what I needed (turns out that WikiProjects are Viquiprojectes in Catalan!) Mustelodon remains on Wikidata, where its "instance of" property was swapped from "taxon" to "fictional taxon". How did this article have such a long lifespan? Early intervention is critical for removing hoaxes. A 2016 report found that a hoax article that survives its first day has an 18% chance of lasting a year. [1] Additionally, hoax articles tend to have longer lifespans if they are in inconspicuous parts of Wikipedia, where they do not receive many views. Mustelodon was only viewed a couple times a day, on average. Mustelodon survived a brush with death three years into its lifespan. The article was proposed for deletion in September 2008, with a deletion rationale of "No references given; cannot find any evidence in peer-reviewed journals that this alleged genus actually exists". Unfortunately, the proposed deletion was contested and the template removed, though the declining editor did not give a rationale. Upon its rediscovery in August 2020, Mustelodon was tagged for speedy deletion under CSD G3 as a "blatant hoax". This was challenged, and an Articles for Deletion discussion followed. On 12 August, the AfD was closed as a SNOW delete. WikiProject Palaeontology members ensured that any trace of it was scrubbed from legitimate articles. The fictional mammal was finally, truly extinct. At the ripe old age of 14 years, 9 months, this is the longest-lived documented hoax on Wikipedia, topping the previous documented record of 14 years, 5 months, set by The Gates of Saturn, a fictitious television show, which was incidentally also discovered in August 2020. How do we discover other hoax taxa? Could we use Wikidata to discover taxa are not linked to databases like ITIS, Fossilworks, and others?
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Spotlight with Mattximus |
This month's spotlight is with Mattximus, author of two Featured Articles and 29 Featured Lists at current count.
I think I have a compulsion to make lists, it doesn't show up in my real life, but online I secretly get a lot of satisfaction making orderly lists and tables. It's a bit of a secret of mine, because it doesn't manifest in any other part of my life. My background is in biology, so this was a natural (haha) fit.
This experiment was just to see if I could get any random article to FA status, so I picked the very first alphabetical animal species according to the taxonomy and made that attempt. Technically, there isn't enough information for a species page so I just merged the species into a genus and went from there. It was a fun exercise, but doing it alone is not the most fun so it's probably on pause for the foreseeable future. Note: Aporhynchus is the first alphabetical taxon as follows: Animalia, Acanthocephala, Archiacanthocephala, Apororhynchida, Apororhynchidae, Apororhynchus
I would recommend getting a good article nominated, then a featured list up before tackling the FA. Lists are a bit more forgiving but give you a taste of what standards to expect from FA. The most time consuming thing is proper citations so make sure that is in order before starting either.
My personality in real life does not match my wikipedia persona. I'm not a very organized, or orderly in real life, but the wikipedia pages I brought to FL or FA are all very organized. Maybe it's my outlet for a more free-flowing life as a scientist/teacher.
The fact that wikipedia exists free of profit motive and free for everyone really is something special and I encourage everyone to donate a few dollars to the cause. |
August DYKs |
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Delivered on behalf of
Enwebb (
talk)
17:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.
Donald Albury I am seeking to write an article in wikipedia, however I have been overwhelmed with the process. I asking you as an experienced wiki editor to provide me a bit of guidance throughout this process. I live in Miami and noted you wrote an article on Miami's M.Athalie Range and other Florida-related articles. My interest is also Florida History based, primarily the lives of African americans and Caribbean descendants that migrated to Florida. I wanted to write an article on one of Ms. Range's associates (BLP) who is currently 80+ years old and a recently deceased Miamian, who was the first African American Florida Teacher of Year back in 1970.
I am having problems uploading pictures ..... can you offer any suggestions either with the picture loading process or just writing in general?
Ojuice1701 Oscar Braynon, Sr. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ojuice1701 ( talk • contribs) 14:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
User:Ojuice1701, I have replied on your talk page. - Donald Albury 20:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)