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Feel free to leave me a message. Old messages are archived here: Aug 2004–Oct 2005; Nov 2005–Mar 2008, Apr 2008–Oct 2010.

PGP key

Sorry for the delay in replying, don't check messages here as often as I used to. Yes I do still work in Hatfield, but no I don't have a PGP key; never encountered a situation where I've needed one. I have an ID commitment on Wikipedia because it's reasonably easy to deduce my real-world identity and in the event that my account was compromised I might suffer real-world reputation damage if I couldn't reassert control over it. Mhardcastle ( talk) 07:04, 6 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Spacehab logo.png

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Thanks for uploading File:Spacehab logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the " my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude2 ( talk) 06:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Notification: changes to "Mark my edits as minor by default" preference

Hello there. This is an automated message to tell you about the gradual phasing out of the preference entitled "Mark all edits minor by default", which you currently have (or very recently had) enabled.

On 13 March 2011, this preference was hidden from the user preferences screen as part of efforts to prevent its accidental misuse ( consensus discussion, guidelines for use at WP:MINOR). This had the effect of locking users in to their existing preference, which, in your case, was true. To complete the process, your preference will automatically be changed to false in the next few days. This does not require any intervention on your part and all users will still be able to manually mark their edits as being minor in the usual way.

For well-established users such as yourself there is a workaround available involving custom JavaScript. If you have any problems, feel free to drop me a note.

Thank you for your understanding and happy editing :) Editing on behalf of User:Jarry1250, LivingBot ( talk) 21:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Want to help?

Hi. I just created an article and I was wondering if you wanted to help with it. I used the Page History Statistics tool to find you based on your past edits.

In Section 8.2 Resources of Extrasolar planet there is a link to your website: http://astro.nickshanks.com/library/extrasolar.xml that displays an error. Also, the page http://astro.nickshanks.com/library/extrasolar shows Total Planets: 131 (After Retractions). It looks like you've put a lot of work into that, but if the data is outdated perhaps the link should be removed from the article. I'm new to editing, so wanting this email to come across polite and respectful towards you. Senator2029 ( talk) 17:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, I discontinued maintenance of that when the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia came online. — Nicholas ( reply) @

Nomination of Year 2000 baby boom for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Year 2000 baby boom is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Year 2000 baby boom until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 12:09, 3 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Boulton watt banknote illustration.jpeg

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Thanks for uploading File:Boulton watt banknote illustration.jpeg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Cloudbound ( talk) 20:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC) reply

MSU Interview

Dear Nickshanks,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.


So a few things about the interviews:

  • Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
  • Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
  • All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
  • All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
  • The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.


Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar -- Jaobar ( talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.206.39 ( talk) 03:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC) reply

File:Bradford and Bingley logo.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Bradford and Bingley logo.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Skier Dude ( talk) 02:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC) reply

June 2012

Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed a file deletion tag from List of web browsers. When removing deletion tags, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, as your removal of this template has been reverted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Please read WP:WTAF first. mabdul 18:03, 25 June 2012 (UTC) reply

Possibly unfree File:ISS lights on.jpeg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:ISS lights on.jpeg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator ( talk) 20:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC) reply

The article Lunar government has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

There is no evidence that the idea of a lunar government exists anywhere outside this article. It fails key WP criteria by being original research, not notable and lacking relevant reliable sources

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. andy ( talk) 10:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Greetings, a small offering and a clarification

Hello Nick,

I noticed a "Today I Learned" on Reddit, which irritated me. It was about the Georgia typeface, or font, and referenced Wikipedia. So I ambled on over, saw that your personal weblog was cited as the source for the alien heads story, and sighed in exasperation.

The Wikipedia article on Georgia typeface only quotes you selectively. Also, you don't provide a citation for that information in your blog, nor do you need to! Your blog says very clearly, "Personal Web Blog"! So I dug a bit, very tiny bit, saw that you wrote nicely and well about typefaces, might possibly be as good a source as any regarding the origins of Georgia font based on your LinkedIn bio, are indeed of UK origin, although I don't know why silly DomainTools says that you are running two different domains off the same server, yet lists that server's IP address as being physically located in both the UK and Germany, depending on which way I checked! I am not trying to be annoying, or unnerve you, I do that a lot with people, though unintentionally.

Anyway, I wanted to offer you this, as I was surprised that it hadn't yet been immortalized by WebCite: BBC News story. Thank you for sharing it on your user page, the original URL, that is.

Finally, I am now feeling guilty because I may have seemed to impugn your credibility, on Reddit, by mentioning your ownership of freeIPV6porn dot com, which I didn't intend to do. Do you want me to delete that? I am sorry, because I don't want to insult or annoy random people who have done nothing to cause me grief or sorrow, nor are doing so to anyone else. I personally think it is a rather clever idea, and wish that I had IPV6 in order to see what you have done with the site. Your third site just gave me some php /sysadmin style blahblah message. I also saw the page about Rebecca, bless her heart. She looks so pretty in her Wikipedia photo. I hope she is happier now, and I am happy that she has a friend here. Regards, -- FeralOink ( talk) 11:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi FeralOink, thanks for your long comment.
I was unaware that Wikipedia was citing my web site in regards to Georgia! I certainly didn't add this!
If the page you are referring to is /typography/font‐descriptions then I do provide a source, "as taken from within the font files themselves". I opened up each file in a font editor and copy & pasted the text from the area where font descriptions are stored (hence the URL of that page). I have however just noticed that there is an encoding error on the page, which I shall investigate.
I run many more than 2 domains on this server. The reason you see it as being in Germany sometimes is because my friend's always online server in Germany handles DNS and MX for "nickshanks.com" and palms off any HTTP requests to the Mac mini that sits under my TV in the UK. The UK server also handles all types of requests for "*.nickshanks.com". It's a complicated set‐up but works well with my DSL connection—I don't lose mail, I can redirect the dyndns pointer quickly if my IP address changes without having to wait for anyone else, and I have complete control over the web server.
Thanks for the webcite link. I did notice however that the "in a dress" part is no longer in the BBC article, if it ever was there. I wonder how I got that into the quote on my user page? I have removed it.
FreeIPv6Porn was an idea which I never got around to implementing properly. The goal is to give people a bit of carrot to get them to upgrade to dual‐stack v4 and v6, by offering something they would want. There have been a few attempts to do this before using porn as the bait, but alas they had all gone offline by the time I got my own v6 tunnel. Also, as I was trying to get hold of some content to put on the site, I realised that there was already more free porn on IPv4 than I could view in a lifetime, and that adding even more would not be much of an incentive to upgrade.
Which was the "third site" you refer to? As I say, I have many sites hosted on that machine, most of which I don't look at any more, and some are still configured even though the domain they were attached to has long since expired!

P.S. Why are you writing articles about Lunar Government if you are an Admin?

The concepts of extra‐terrestrial human habitation, becoming a multi‐planet species, interests me greatly. Consequently I happened upon a red link to a hypothetical article titled "Lunar Government", so I created it on a whim. I don't really care if it gets deleted.

And what is with that professor guy, leaving those creepy sounding messages all over Wikipedia during the summer? I wouldn't trust him unless I confirmed all his bona fide's, but I'm sure you know how to take care of yourself by now!

What, professor, hey, who, comment ça va? I'm confuddled.
Nicholas ( reply) @ 08:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Template:Pro has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. kwan-in ( talk) 23:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC) reply

Better source request for File:Bhuza.jpg

Thanks for your upload to Wikipedia:

You provided a source, but it is difficult for other users to examine the copyright status of the image because the source is incomplete. Please consider clarifying the exact source so that the copyright status may be checked more easily. It is best to specify the exact Web page where you found the image, rather than only giving the source domain or the URL of the image file itself. Please update the image description with a URL that will be more helpful to other users in determining the copyright status.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source in a complete manner. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page or me at my talk page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot ( opt-out) 21:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Image discussion at article 17 Mile Drive

A discussion is underway about images on an article you have contributed to. Please help find a consensus for the article stub at: Talk:17-Mile Drive#17 Mile Drive info box and section images replacement.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:22, 12 July 2013 (UTC) reply

Old and crusty

Hi!

I just visited a page on your website: http://web.nickshanks.com/fonts/sinhala/

It says at the top: "You are using Firefox 2 which is old and crusty".

I am using Firefox 23, so there must be a bug somewhere :)

Can you please fix it? Thanks! -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 10:45, 17 August 2013 (UTC) reply

POTD notification

POTD

Hi Nick,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Earth-Moon.png is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on February 20, 2014. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2014-02-20. Thank you for all of your contributions! —  Crisco 1492 ( talk) 23:50, 3 February 2014 (UTC) reply

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Proposed deletion of .home

The article .home has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Insignificant TLD from an alternative DNS root. No assertion of notability.

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

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. � ( talk) 12:42, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Nomination of List of stellar angular diameters for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of stellar angular diameters is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. StringTheory11 ( t •  c) 00:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC) reply

At your request, I've moved the article to User:Nickshanks/List of stellar angular diameters. The original title now redirects to List of stars with resolved images. Huntster ( t @ c) 20:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC) reply
Thank you Huntster. I didn't know about List of stars with resolved images — that's basically what I was thinking about when I made the page a decade ago or whenever, stars with resolved discs and the coming day when we'd have a nice big list of them and lots of pretty pictures. In light of this I might just delete it anyway. — Nicholas ( reply) @ 17:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Sobhuza II.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Sobhuza II.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- B-bot ( talk) 02:36, 23 August 2015 (UTC) reply

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 08:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC) reply

Royal Opera House IPs

I've unblocked the range, as it doesn't appear to be used the banned user in question anymore. Please give our apologies to anyone who was unable to edit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:17, 2 February 2016 (UTC) reply

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Nickshanks. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

  • Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
  • A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:48, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC) reply

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Nickshanks.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins). MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC) reply

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 ( talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC) reply

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Your reference desk question about local versions of animation; mid-december 2016.

I own the Dutch/Belgian/French dvd of Zootopia/Zootropolis and the French version had signs changed. As I recall: the film title + the text on the cardboard in the children's play at the beginning of the film + the text above the gate at the police academy; but not the signs in the farmer's market after the children's play. Also the text Zootopia on the parking tickets was not changed to Zootropolis in the English version with Dutch subtitles. (This text is only readable in freeze frame.) Martin. 212.178.135.35 ( talk) 14:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirateSchwede66K6kaEaldgythFerretCyberpower678Mz7PrimefacDodger67
BriangottsJeremyABU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. ( T34950)
  • Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. ( T156448)
  • The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of The Mac for deletion

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. - CHAMPION ( talk) ( contributions) ( logs) 09:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hi, I've gone and moved this page back, as per several references in the Facade article which explain that "Facade" (and not "Façade") is the more common usage. A quick online dictionary search also shows this. The move was also done without any discussion or consensus, and you ignored a previous move which explained why "Facade" was the correct spelling. Also, in the future, please do not just do a "find and replace," as you blindly broke several files and Commons Categories in the process of changing every instance of the word. If you want to change a file name, you would have to re-upload it first before changing it in the article. All the best, Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 19:16, 2 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Nick,

I just wanted to thank you for having "gone to the trouble" of creating Macosx-allfonts.png. It's very helpful to have!

Nemodomi ( talk) 14:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Sobhuza II.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:Sobhuza II.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- B-bot ( talk) 05:02, 19 September 2018 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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

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

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

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, - Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

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Writing systems of the world map

Hello Mr. Shanks I enjoyed the amazing map you created on different writing systems of the world on this page [1]. I was just curious to know which languages in China use the Latin script as you have shown some regions on the map. Looking forward to your answer, Chevalier — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chevalier Ali ( talkcontribs) 11:57, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply

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Category:European archaeology has been nominated for renaming

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Number of planetary systems with exoplanets

Hello,

About this page

Lists of exoplanets

I wanted to update the value from 4150 to 4155

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/


But I see that, if I am not mistaken, you are using a custom counts.

Would it be possible to link this counts to the nasa.gov website ?


Best regards Canado29 ( talk) 18:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC) reply

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Feel free to leave me a message. Old messages are archived here: Aug 2004–Oct 2005; Nov 2005–Mar 2008, Apr 2008–Oct 2010.

PGP key

Sorry for the delay in replying, don't check messages here as often as I used to. Yes I do still work in Hatfield, but no I don't have a PGP key; never encountered a situation where I've needed one. I have an ID commitment on Wikipedia because it's reasonably easy to deduce my real-world identity and in the event that my account was compromised I might suffer real-world reputation damage if I couldn't reassert control over it. Mhardcastle ( talk) 07:04, 6 October 2010 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Spacehab logo.png

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Notification: changes to "Mark my edits as minor by default" preference

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Want to help?

Hi. I just created an article and I was wondering if you wanted to help with it. I used the Page History Statistics tool to find you based on your past edits.

In Section 8.2 Resources of Extrasolar planet there is a link to your website: http://astro.nickshanks.com/library/extrasolar.xml that displays an error. Also, the page http://astro.nickshanks.com/library/extrasolar shows Total Planets: 131 (After Retractions). It looks like you've put a lot of work into that, but if the data is outdated perhaps the link should be removed from the article. I'm new to editing, so wanting this email to come across polite and respectful towards you. Senator2029 ( talk) 17:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, I discontinued maintenance of that when the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia came online. — Nicholas ( reply) @

Nomination of Year 2000 baby boom for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Year 2000 baby boom is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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Orphaned non-free image File:Boulton watt banknote illustration.jpeg

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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Cloudbound ( talk) 20:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC) reply

MSU Interview

Dear Nickshanks,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.


So a few things about the interviews:

  • Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
  • Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
  • All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
  • All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
  • The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.


Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar -- Jaobar ( talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.206.39 ( talk) 03:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC) reply

File:Bradford and Bingley logo.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Bradford and Bingley logo.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Skier Dude ( talk) 02:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC) reply

June 2012

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Possibly unfree File:ISS lights on.jpeg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:ISS lights on.jpeg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator ( talk) 20:14, 20 August 2012 (UTC) reply

The article Lunar government has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

There is no evidence that the idea of a lunar government exists anywhere outside this article. It fails key WP criteria by being original research, not notable and lacking relevant reliable sources

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. andy ( talk) 10:56, 14 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Greetings, a small offering and a clarification

Hello Nick,

I noticed a "Today I Learned" on Reddit, which irritated me. It was about the Georgia typeface, or font, and referenced Wikipedia. So I ambled on over, saw that your personal weblog was cited as the source for the alien heads story, and sighed in exasperation.

The Wikipedia article on Georgia typeface only quotes you selectively. Also, you don't provide a citation for that information in your blog, nor do you need to! Your blog says very clearly, "Personal Web Blog"! So I dug a bit, very tiny bit, saw that you wrote nicely and well about typefaces, might possibly be as good a source as any regarding the origins of Georgia font based on your LinkedIn bio, are indeed of UK origin, although I don't know why silly DomainTools says that you are running two different domains off the same server, yet lists that server's IP address as being physically located in both the UK and Germany, depending on which way I checked! I am not trying to be annoying, or unnerve you, I do that a lot with people, though unintentionally.

Anyway, I wanted to offer you this, as I was surprised that it hadn't yet been immortalized by WebCite: BBC News story. Thank you for sharing it on your user page, the original URL, that is.

Finally, I am now feeling guilty because I may have seemed to impugn your credibility, on Reddit, by mentioning your ownership of freeIPV6porn dot com, which I didn't intend to do. Do you want me to delete that? I am sorry, because I don't want to insult or annoy random people who have done nothing to cause me grief or sorrow, nor are doing so to anyone else. I personally think it is a rather clever idea, and wish that I had IPV6 in order to see what you have done with the site. Your third site just gave me some php /sysadmin style blahblah message. I also saw the page about Rebecca, bless her heart. She looks so pretty in her Wikipedia photo. I hope she is happier now, and I am happy that she has a friend here. Regards, -- FeralOink ( talk) 11:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi FeralOink, thanks for your long comment.
I was unaware that Wikipedia was citing my web site in regards to Georgia! I certainly didn't add this!
If the page you are referring to is /typography/font‐descriptions then I do provide a source, "as taken from within the font files themselves". I opened up each file in a font editor and copy & pasted the text from the area where font descriptions are stored (hence the URL of that page). I have however just noticed that there is an encoding error on the page, which I shall investigate.
I run many more than 2 domains on this server. The reason you see it as being in Germany sometimes is because my friend's always online server in Germany handles DNS and MX for "nickshanks.com" and palms off any HTTP requests to the Mac mini that sits under my TV in the UK. The UK server also handles all types of requests for "*.nickshanks.com". It's a complicated set‐up but works well with my DSL connection—I don't lose mail, I can redirect the dyndns pointer quickly if my IP address changes without having to wait for anyone else, and I have complete control over the web server.
Thanks for the webcite link. I did notice however that the "in a dress" part is no longer in the BBC article, if it ever was there. I wonder how I got that into the quote on my user page? I have removed it.
FreeIPv6Porn was an idea which I never got around to implementing properly. The goal is to give people a bit of carrot to get them to upgrade to dual‐stack v4 and v6, by offering something they would want. There have been a few attempts to do this before using porn as the bait, but alas they had all gone offline by the time I got my own v6 tunnel. Also, as I was trying to get hold of some content to put on the site, I realised that there was already more free porn on IPv4 than I could view in a lifetime, and that adding even more would not be much of an incentive to upgrade.
Which was the "third site" you refer to? As I say, I have many sites hosted on that machine, most of which I don't look at any more, and some are still configured even though the domain they were attached to has long since expired!

P.S. Why are you writing articles about Lunar Government if you are an Admin?

The concepts of extra‐terrestrial human habitation, becoming a multi‐planet species, interests me greatly. Consequently I happened upon a red link to a hypothetical article titled "Lunar Government", so I created it on a whim. I don't really care if it gets deleted.

And what is with that professor guy, leaving those creepy sounding messages all over Wikipedia during the summer? I wouldn't trust him unless I confirmed all his bona fide's, but I'm sure you know how to take care of yourself by now!

What, professor, hey, who, comment ça va? I'm confuddled.
Nicholas ( reply) @ 08:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC) reply

Template:Pro has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. kwan-in ( talk) 23:38, 17 March 2013 (UTC) reply

Better source request for File:Bhuza.jpg

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Image discussion at article 17 Mile Drive

A discussion is underway about images on an article you have contributed to. Please help find a consensus for the article stub at: Talk:17-Mile Drive#17 Mile Drive info box and section images replacement.-- Amadscientist ( talk) 04:22, 12 July 2013 (UTC) reply

Old and crusty

Hi!

I just visited a page on your website: http://web.nickshanks.com/fonts/sinhala/

It says at the top: "You are using Firefox 2 which is old and crusty".

I am using Firefox 23, so there must be a bug somewhere :)

Can you please fix it? Thanks! -- Amir E. Aharoni ( talk) 10:45, 17 August 2013 (UTC) reply

POTD notification

POTD

Hi Nick,

Just to let you know that the Featured Picture File:Earth-Moon.png is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on February 20, 2014. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2014-02-20. Thank you for all of your contributions! —  Crisco 1492 ( talk) 23:50, 3 February 2014 (UTC) reply

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC) reply

Proposed deletion of .home

The article .home has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Insignificant TLD from an alternative DNS root. No assertion of notability.

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

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Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. � ( talk) 12:42, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Nomination of List of stellar angular diameters for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of stellar angular diameters is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. StringTheory11 ( t •  c) 00:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC) reply

At your request, I've moved the article to User:Nickshanks/List of stellar angular diameters. The original title now redirects to List of stars with resolved images. Huntster ( t @ c) 20:53, 10 January 2015 (UTC) reply
Thank you Huntster. I didn't know about List of stars with resolved images — that's basically what I was thinking about when I made the page a decade ago or whenever, stars with resolved discs and the coming day when we'd have a nice big list of them and lots of pretty pictures. In light of this I might just delete it anyway. — Nicholas ( reply) @ 17:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Sobhuza II.jpg

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Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 08:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC) reply

Royal Opera House IPs

I've unblocked the range, as it doesn't appear to be used the banned user in question anymore. Please give our apologies to anyone who was unable to edit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:17, 2 February 2016 (UTC) reply

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Nickshanks. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

  • Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
  • A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
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Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC) reply

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Nickshanks.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins). MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC) reply

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. Mdann52 ( talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC) reply

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Your reference desk question about local versions of animation; mid-december 2016.

I own the Dutch/Belgian/French dvd of Zootopia/Zootropolis and the French version had signs changed. As I recall: the film title + the text on the cardboard in the children's play at the beginning of the film + the text above the gate at the police academy; but not the signs in the farmer's market after the children's play. Also the text Zootopia on the parking tickets was not changed to Zootropolis in the English version with Dutch subtitles. (This text is only readable in freeze frame.) Martin. 212.178.135.35 ( talk) 14:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

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Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. ( T34950)
  • Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. ( T156448)
  • The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of The Mac for deletion

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. - CHAMPION ( talk) ( contributions) ( logs) 09:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Nickshanks. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hi, I've gone and moved this page back, as per several references in the Facade article which explain that "Facade" (and not "Façade") is the more common usage. A quick online dictionary search also shows this. The move was also done without any discussion or consensus, and you ignored a previous move which explained why "Facade" was the correct spelling. Also, in the future, please do not just do a "find and replace," as you blindly broke several files and Commons Categories in the process of changing every instance of the word. If you want to change a file name, you would have to re-upload it first before changing it in the article. All the best, Katniss May the odds be ever in your favor ♥ 19:16, 2 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Nick,

I just wanted to thank you for having "gone to the trouble" of creating Macosx-allfonts.png. It's very helpful to have!

Nemodomi ( talk) 14:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Orphaned non-free image File:Sobhuza II.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Sobhuza II.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. -- B-bot ( talk) 05:02, 19 September 2018 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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

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

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

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:48, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, - Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

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

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:03, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Writing systems of the world map

Hello Mr. Shanks I enjoyed the amazing map you created on different writing systems of the world on this page [1]. I was just curious to know which languages in China use the Latin script as you have shown some regions on the map. Looking forward to your answer, Chevalier — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chevalier Ali ( talkcontribs) 11:57, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Notice

The file File:Thamilton.jpeg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Fails WP:NFCC#8. The article subject is the criminal event itself, not the perpetrator. Critical commentary insufficient to justify using the prolific image. Deleting the image hasn't been proven (yet) harmful to the understanding of the article subject.

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

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

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. George Ho ( talk) 16:14, 13 March 2020 (UTC) reply

File:Thamilton.jpeg listed for discussion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Thamilton.jpeg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. George Ho ( talk) 01:28, 14 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Notice

The article Singapore chow mein has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Uncited article based on WP:OR. There is already an article for Singapore-style noodles.

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

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

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Haleth ( talk) 03:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. —  JJMC89 bot 00:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC) reply

Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.

Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. —  JJMC89 bot 00:00, 24 June 2021 (UTC) reply

Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity

Information icon Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions have been removed.

Subject to certain time limits and other restrictions, your administrative permissions may be returned upon request at WP:BN.

Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — xaosflux Talk 00:29, 1 July 2021 (UTC) reply

Category:European archaeology has been nominated for renaming

Category:European archaeology has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Laurel Lodged ( talk) 12:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Number of planetary systems with exoplanets

Hello,

About this page

Lists of exoplanets

I wanted to update the value from 4150 to 4155

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/


But I see that, if I am not mistaken, you are using a custom counts.

Would it be possible to link this counts to the nasa.gov website ?


Best regards Canado29 ( talk) 18:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC) reply


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