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Is that the actual text? English is not my native language, but I find this usage of "aspire" a bit odd in a professionally edited book published in the U.S. I'd expect "inspired", or maybe "goals to which the first Soviet cyberneticians aspired". But if that's the actual printed quote, then I guess that's what Wikipedia should have. [[User:Amire80|Amir E. Aharoni]] ([[User talk:Amire80|talk]]) 08:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC) |
Is that the actual text? English is not my native language, but I find this usage of "aspire" a bit odd in a professionally edited book published in the U.S. I'd expect "inspired", or maybe "goals to which the first Soviet cyberneticians aspired". But if that's the actual printed quote, then I guess that's what Wikipedia should have. [[User:Amire80|Amir E. Aharoni]] ([[User talk:Amire80|talk]]) 08:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC) |
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:I found it myself! :) Here's the full quote: "By the early 1970s, the cybernetics movement had changed completely in character. It no longer challenged the orthodoxy; instead, tactical uses of cyberspeak overshadowed the original reformist goals that aspired the first Soviet cyberneticians." |
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:As an English speaker, what would you say: is it an acceptable usage of "aspired", or is it indeed weird? [[User:Amire80|Amir E. Aharoni]] ([[User talk:Amire80|talk]]) 08:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC) |
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Revision as of 08:46, 10 February 2023
- Some other phoebes...
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you can also find me at: meta * other wikis * irc:brassratgirl
The tinfoil protects me from *government* conspiracies. You need more than a hat to protect against rogue Wikimedians! Thomas Dalton
Talk page archives:
- 2003-2004 -- in which I am welcomed to Wikipedia and asked to work on marine bio articles
- to the end of 2005 -- in which I return as a lapsed Wikipedian after a year+ of absence, and get invited to some meetups
- 2006 (a busy year) -- in which I organize Wikimania II: the Prodigal Son of Wikimania; and do some other stuff
- 2007 (a busier year) -- in which I go to Wikimania:Taiwan, and lots of other in-person events
- 2008 (an amazing year) -- in which I work on San Francisco-area meetups, the Signpost, and a few contentious articles; and publish a book, "How Wikipedia Works"
- 2009 (an active year) -- in which I work on the Signpost quite a bit, give some talks, and recover from writing HWW
- 2010 (an unprecedented year) -- in which I muck around with the 'post, run WikiSym, and get elected to the board
- 2011 (a distracted year) -- in which I edit very little but do a lot of outreach. And worry about the board
- 2012 (a year abides) -- in which SF meetups come into their own, we bring down Wikipedia for SOPA, and I finish up my board term
- 2013 (a year of deja vu?) -- in which I edit a lot, do outreach, get involved in some wikiprojects and and am reelected by the community to the board after a year break
- 2014 (a year of work) -- in which I do work at various UC campuses, debate superprotect, do board work and more.
- 2015 (a year of change) -- in which I work on classes, my second board term wraps up, and I move cross-country, which leads to a whole new set of meetups!
- 2016 (a year of new coasts) -- in which I spend the whole year in Boston, help run WikiConference in San Diego, do a bunch of editing training, and for the first time ever (!) skip Wikimania
- 2017 (a year of carrying on) -- in which I don't skip Wikimania. What else happened? who knows?
- 2018 (a year of editathons and wikidata) -- in which I run a bunch of edit-a-thons in Boston and MIT, and get more involved in Wikicite!
You are cordially invited to Stanford University to celebrate Wikipedia's birthday
- I am delighted to invite you to the 2019 Wikipedia Day party at Stanford, which will be held on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, at 5:00-8:30pm.
- There will be pizza, cake, and refreshments; both newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome! We will have a beginner track with tutorials, and an advanced track with presentations, lightning talks, and tips and tricks. Admission is free, and you do NOT have to be a Stanford University student to attend.
See you soon! All the best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c)
Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
Facto Post – Issue 20 – 31 January 2019
Recently Jimmy Wales has made the point that computer home assistants take much of their data from Wikipedia, one way or another. So as well as getting Spotify to play Frosty the Snowman for you, they may be able to answer the question "is the Pope Catholic?" Possibly by asking for disambiguation (Coptic?). Headlines about data breaches are now familiar, but the unannounced circulation of information raises other issues. One of those is Gresham's law stated as "bad data drives out good". Wikipedia and now Wikidata have been criticised on related grounds: what if their content, unattributed, is taken to have a higher standing than Wikimedians themselves would grant it? See Wikiquote on a misattribution to Bismarck for the usual quip about "law and sausages", and why one shouldn't watch them in the making. Wikipedia has now turned 18, so should act like as adult, as well as being treated like one. The Web itself turns 30 some time between March and November this year, per Tim Berners-Lee. If the Knowledge Graph by Google exemplifies Heraclitean Web technology gaining authority, contra GIGO, Wikimedians still have a role in its critique. But not just with the teenage skill of detecting phoniness. There is more to beating Gresham than exposing the factoid and urban myth, where WP:V does do a great job. Placeholders must be detected, and working with Wikidata is a good way to understand how having one statement as data can blind us to replacing it by a more accurate one. An example that is important to open access is that, firstly, the term itself needs considerable unpacking, because just being able to read material online is a poor relation of "open"; and secondly, trying to get Creative Commons license information into Wikidata shows up issues with classes of license (such as CC-BY) standing for the actual license in major repositories. Detailed investigation shows that "everything flows" exacerbates the issue. But Wikidata can solve it.
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Books & Bytes, Issue 32
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 32, January – February 2019
- #1Lib1Ref
- New and expanded partners
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
- Global branches update
- Bytes in brief
French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:29, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
Facto Post – Issue 21 – 28 February 2019
Systematic reviews are basic building blocks of evidence-based medicine, surveys of existing literature devoted typically to a definite question that aim to bring out scientific conclusions. They are principled in a way Wikipedians can appreciate, taking a critical view of their sources.  Ben Goldacre in 2014 wrote (link below) "[...] : the "information architecture" of evidence based medicine (if you can tolerate such a phrase) is a chaotic, ad hoc, poorly connected ecosystem of legacy projects. In some respects the whole show is still run on paper, like it's the 19th century." Is there a Wikidatan in the house? Wouldn't some machine-readable content that is structured data help? Most likely it would, but the arcana of systematic reviews and how they add value would still need formal handling. The PRISMA standard dates from 2009, with an update started in 2018. The concerns there include the corpus of papers used: how selected and filtered? Now that Wikidata has a 20.9 million item bibliography, one can at least pose questions. Each systematic review is a tagging opportunity for a bibliography. Could that tagging be reproduced by a query, in principle? Can it even be second-guessed by a query (i.e. simulated by a protocol which translates into SPARQL)? Homing in on the arcana, do the inclusion and filtering criteria translate into metadata? At some level they must, but are these metadata explicitly expressed in the articles themselves? The answer to that is surely "no" at this point, but can TDM find them? Again "no", right now. Automatic identification doesn't just happen. Actually these questions lack originality. It should be noted though that WP:MEDRS, the reliable sources guideline used here for health information, hinges on the assumption that the usefully systematic reviews of biomedical literature can be recognised. Its nutshell summary, normally the part of a guideline with the highest density of common sense, allows literature reviews in general validity, but WP:MEDASSESS qualifies that indication heavily. Process wonkery about systematic reviews definitely has merit.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Women in Red April Events
|
--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 20:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
Facto Post – Issue 22 – 28 March 2019
Half a century ago, it was the era of the mainframe computer, with its air-conditioned room, twitching tape-drives, and appearance in the title of a spy novel Billion-Dollar Brain then made into a Hollywood film. Now we have the cloud, with server farms and the client–server model as quotidian: this text is being typed on a Chromebook. The term Applications Programming Interface or API is 50 years old, and refers to a type of software library as well as the interface to its use. While a compiler is what you need to get high-level code executed by a mainframe, an API out in the cloud somewhere offers a chance to perform operations on a remote server. For example, the multifarious bots active on Wikipedia have owners who exploit the MediaWiki API. APIs (called RESTful) that allow for the GET HTTP request are fundamental for what could colloquially be called "moving data around the Web"; from which Wikidata benefits 24/7. So the fact that the Wikidata SPARQL endpoint at query.wikidata.org has a RESTful API means that, in lay terms, Wikidata content can be GOT from it. The programming involved, besides the SPARQL language, could be in Python, younger by a few months than the Web. Magic words, such as occur in fantasy stories, are wishful (rather than RESTful) solutions to gaining access. You may need to be a linguist to enter Ali Baba's cave or the western door of Moria (French in the case of "Open Sesame", in fact, and Sindarin being the respective languages). Talking to an API requires a bigger toolkit, which first means you have to recognise the tools in terms of what they can do. On the way to the wikt:impactful or polymathic modern handling of facts, one must perhaps take only tactful notice of tech's endemic problem with documentation, and absorb the insightful point that the code in APIs does articulate the customary procedures now in place on the cloud for getting information. As Owl explained to Winnie-the-Pooh, it tells you The Thing to Do.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
PROD on Baby bedding
The article Baby bedding has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
Lack of notability, seems like a dictionary definition. Nothing that isn't already covered in Infant bed.
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. Gilded Snail (talk) 20:53, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019
Facto Post – Issue 23 – 30 April 2019
 Talk of cloud computing draws a veil over hardware, but also, less obviously but more importantly, obscures such intellectual distinction as matters most in its use. Wikidata begins to allow tasks to be undertaken that were out of easy reach. The facility should not be taken as the real point. Coming in from another angle, the "executive decision" is more glamorous; but the "administrative decision" should be admired for its command of facts. Think of the attitudes ad fontes, so prevalent here on Wikipedia as "can you give me a source for that?", and being prepared to deal with complicated analyses into specified subcases. Impatience expressed as a disdain for such pedantry is quite understandable, but neither dirty data nor false dichotomies are at all good to have around. Issue 13 and Issue 21, respectively on WP:MEDRS and systematic reviews, talk about biomedical literature and computing tasks that would be of higher quality if they could be made more "administrative". For example, it is desirable that the decisions involved be consistent, explicable, and reproducible by non-experts from specified inputs. What gets clouded out is not impossibly hard to understand. You do need to put together the insights of functional programming, which is a doctrinaire and purist but clearcut approach, with the practicality of office software. Loopless computation can be conceived of as a seamless forward march of spreadsheet columns, each determined by the content of previous ones. Very well: to do a backward audit, when now we are talking about Wikidata, we rely on integrity of data and its scrupulous sourcing: and clearcut case analyses. The MEDRS example forces attention on purge attempts such as Beall's list.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019
Facto Post – Issue 24 – 17 May 2019
Two dozen issues, and this may be the last, a valediction at least for a while. It's time for a two-year summation of ContentMine projects involving TDM (text and data mining). Wikidata and now Structured Data on Commons represent the overlap of Wikimedia with the Semantic Web. This common ground is helping to convert an engineering concept into a movement. TDM generally has little enough connection with the Semantic Web, being instead in the orbit of machine learning which is no respecter of the semantic. Don't break a taboo by asking bots "and what do you mean by that?" The ScienceSource project innovates in TDM, by storing its text mining results in a Wikibase site. It strives for compliance of its fact mining, on drug treatments of diseases, with an automated form of the relevant Wikipedia referencing guideline MEDRS. Where WikiFactMine set up an API for reuse of its results, ScienceSource has a SPARQL query service, with look-and-feel exactly that of Wikidata's at query.wikidata.org. It also now has a custom front end, and its content can be federated, in other words used in data mashups: it is one of over 50 sites that can federate with Wikidata. The human factor comes to bear through the front end, which combines a link to the HTML version of a paper, text mining results organised in drug and disease columns, and a SPARQL display of nearby drug and disease terms. Much software to develop and explain, so little time! Rather than telling the tale, Facto Post brings you ScienceSource links, starting from the how-to video, lower right.
The review tool requires a log in on sciencesource.wmflabs.org, and an OAuth permission (bottom of a review page) to operate. It can be used in simple and more advanced workflows. Examples of queries for the latter are at d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource project/Queries#SS_disease_list and d:Wikidata_talk:ScienceSource_project/Queries#NDF-RT issue. Please be aware that this is a research project in development, and may have outages for planned maintenance. That will apply for the next few days, at least. The ScienceSource wiki main page carries information on practical matters. Email is not enabled on the wiki: use site mail here to Charles Matthews in case of difficulty, or if you need support. Further explanatory videos will be put into commons:Category:ContentMine videos. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Books & Bytes, Issue 33
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019
- #1Lib1Ref
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
- Global branches update
- Bytes in brief
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Abortion Articles
Phoebe, thank you for all your work on the abortion articles. Would you please correct a typo that appears on each of the individual states’ abortion pages, under the Context Section?
“At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of insured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.[9]”
Every single state’s article regarding abortion has the same typo regarding insured rates for pregnant women. It should say “higher rates of uninsured”, not “higher rates of insured”.
According to the he underlying citation (#9) ( (https://www.medicaldaily.com/states-more-abortion-restrictions-hurt-womens-health-increase-risk-maternal-death-306181) said this: “And out of all 50 states, it was the ones with more restrictions that also had higher, well, everything: maternal deaths, uninsured rates, infant and child death rates, teen drug and alcohol abuse, as well as lower preventive care and cancer screening rates.”
Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.214.28.253 (talk) 07:01, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
- good catch! I will work on this later, pinging @LauraHale: also :) -- phoebe / (talk to me) 14:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Portal:Seattle
Portal:Seattle, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Seattle and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Seattle during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:03, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Books & Bytes Issue 34, May – June 2019
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 34, May – June 2019
- Partnerships
- #1Lib1Ref
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
- Global branches update
- Bytes in brief
French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:21, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Mania
Stockholm libraries + museums are amazing.:! @ Hacking tables today ~ – SJ + 12:05, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 35, July – August 2019
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 35, July – August 2019
- Wikimania
- We're building something great, but..
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
- A Wikibrarian's story
- Bytes in brief
On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Can you kindly
help out with retrieving certain stuff from a book? ∯WBGconverse 16:44, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
- @Winged Blades of Godric: unfortunately this isn't something we have in my library. Sorry! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:38, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
ArbCom 2019 election voter message
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Books & Bytes – Issue 36
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 36, September – October 2019
- #1Lib1Ref January 2020
- #1Lib1Ref 2019 stories and learnings
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
You may be interested in a section I just added to that article's talk page. There's an important new bio. DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
You are cordially invited to the SPIE Photonics West edit-a-thon on 02.02.2020
- I am delighted to invite you to the SPIE Photonics West 2020 edit-a-thon, at Park Central Hotel (Franciscan I, 3rd Level / 50 Third Street / San Francisco, California), on Sunday, February 2, 2020, at 5:00-7:00pm.
- Newcomers and experienced Wikimedians are welcome to participate alongside SPIE conference attendees. Admission is free. Training will be provided.
- Details and sign-in here
See you soon! All the best, --Rosiestep (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging
Books & Bytes – Issue 37
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 37, November – December 2019
- #1Lib1Ref
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group
On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Real Life Barnstar |
| Thank you for your support at the Earth Day Edit-a-thon! Xplorecre84give (talk) 12:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC) |
Issue 38, January – April 2020
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 38, January – April 2020
- New partnership
- Global roundup
On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Edit
Hi - did you mean to delete as much as you did here? I assume not? ɱ (talk) 04:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
- Also, please, please, see Help:Archiving a talk page. ɱ (talk) 04:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
- Ɱ no of course not! eek. Not sure how that happened, a bad save I think. Thanks for the catch. And I always do get around to archiving my talk page...eventually :) -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar |
| Thanks for helping out with the George Floyd protests article. LoreMaster22 (talk) 05:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC) |
- yay! thank you too LoreMaster22! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 14:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
- +1, thanks for your work here, Phoebe. Curious if you're interested in responding here. Take care! ---Another Believer (Talk) 13:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Another Believer: done, thanks! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 02:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
- Wonderful, thank you! ---Another Believer (Talk) 02:10, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Another Believer: done, thanks! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 02:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
- +1, thanks for your work here, Phoebe. Curious if you're interested in responding here. Take care! ---Another Believer (Talk) 13:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
George Floyd protest map underlying data
Hello,
I've also sent a direct e-mail to Phoebe but am not sure which forum is best for contacting you. In brief, I am am looking for the underlying data for the George Floyd protest map. Any assistance you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_George_Floyd_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:George_Floyd_protests_map
Thanks!
Sam — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbrazys (talk • contribs) 11:15, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
- Hi @Sbrazys: -- thanks for your message. It's not rocket science - we are making by hand off the list in the text of List of George Floyd protests. There's no dataset - what you see is what you get, when you look at the source code for Template:George Floyd protests map. If it's out of sync or out of date, it's for one of a couple reasons:
- 1) no one's added a city yet by editing the map -- it's been difficult to keep up with changes in real time, and time zones affect how much people can work on it (for instance, I just got up)
- 2) we don't have a source that states that the protest was >100 people in that city
- 2a) there is a source, but no one's added it to the text yet so we can't easily verify it.
- 2b) the first iteration of the map with the list of cities that this one was based on was made ~24 hours ago, and as you know a lot has happened -- news reports lag the actual events by a bit so we are still catching up. (This map has a lot more cities than the first map did, but there's still a lag).
- Also note that the map isn't showing protests outside the US, because we need to build a different worldwide baselayer map for those (so it doesn't get super out of scale). And, you'll probably see some changes today as we indicate larger (>1000) and multiday protests. Stay tuned! If you want to help, the most useful thing is adding sources that state size of protest (eg hundreds, 500, etc) to the text list of protests in the article and then making a comment on the template talk page. cheers, phoebe / (talk to me) 12:48, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
Thank you for the kind welcome and for sharing the very helpful resources, Phoebe. I have been planning to join Wikipedia for a while and finally did now, so I hope to stay around!
StarryPenguin (talk) 19:02, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 39, May – June 2020
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 39, May – June 2020
- Library Card Platform
- New partnerships
- ProQuest
- Springer Nature
- BioOne
- CEEOL
- IWA Publishing
- ICE Publishing
- Bytes in brief
On behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:13, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Signpost Interview
Hello! I'm one of the writers putting together this month's WikiProject Report for the The Signpost, and you were one of the editors who answered the questions. Thanks! Going over the answers before publication, I noticed that in your answer to the last question you advertised an event that happened June 19, which is unfortunately no longer relevant. Would you like to refactor the text, or can we remove the text entirely? as it's no longer something readers can do? The link is here if you want to change the answer. If you don't have the time to respond within publication time (tomorrow or the day after) I'll just go ahead and remove it for clarity, hoping that you're fine with it. If you weren't, we can add it back after publication if you want. Thank you, and we apologize for the inconvenience! For the Signpost, -- puddleglum2.0 22:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
- @Puddleglum2.0: thanks for the heads up! I'd forgotten I put that in there. I refactored! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 05:32, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks! Cheers -- puddleglum2.0 13:19, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi Phoebe! I just saw your post here — I don't know of any article/discussion on that currently, and it seems like a fine thing to create. Your notes look good to me. Wikipedia:WikiProject COVID-19/Tips might be a useful checklist, although you're probably fine without it. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
- @Sdkb: thanks! I added a bit to the CARES Act article, and I was thinking of doing a section for the economic impact in the US article next, and then splitting it if it got large enough. I'll try to get back to it this week. cheers, -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:17, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
DYK for Bail fund
On 17 July 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Bail fund, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a bail fund was started by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920 to release people arrested for sedition? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Bail fund. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Bail fund), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
 | |
| Two years! |
|---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Black vulture
Sorry about deleting your video - clumsy mistake on my part. Actually I do wish there are more vids of wildlife. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterwchen (talk • contribs) 16:16, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
- Dear @Peterwchen: no problem! You might be interested in going through this category on Commons -- drill down by country too -- there are lots of good videos of animals that aren't in the relevant articles yet! That's how I found this vulture one. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 20:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Videos
Thanks for the tip on videos in the Commons. I had uploaded my few vids in webm, but I don't think they play on iPhone. I notice many vids in the Commons are ogv - is that more widely playable? I tried converting a MOV original to ogv with ffmpeg but the output is very jumpy on playback on my Linux desktop, as if it has a low framerate. Any suggestions would be appreciated.Peterwchen (talk) 16:30, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 40
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 40, July – August 2020
- New partnerships
- Al Manhal
- Ancestry
- RILM
- #1Lib1Ref May 2020 report
- AfLIA hires a Wikipedian-in-Residence
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
Adminship
Hey, any particular reason you're not an admin? Asking for a friend.... Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:39, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
- @Ritchie333: no special reason. A long, long, long time (like centuries in Wikipedia years) I refused a nomination for adminship on the grounds that I was doing a lot of speaking about Wikipedia, and I did not want to give the impression that admins were more important than ordinary editors (because they are not). Secondarily, I don't do that much editing that requires the tools, and I'm unlikely to start. Nowadays, I feel like the politics of adminship have changed considerably in en.wp. I'm still unlikely to use the tools much though :) -- phoebe / (talk to me) 15:45, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, that's all fair enough. I agree that admins should not have more importance than ordinary editors; indeed, in a content dispute with yelling, if one of them is an admin they are more at fault because they are supposed to set an example. While some of our best editors don't need to go anywhere near the tools, equally some of our best admins don't use the tools unless necessary. In the previous example of an admin and non-admin having a content dispute, the best resolution by far is to use a bit of diplomacy, sympathetically state both party's views, and suggest ways to reach a consensus. If you have to reach for any of the tools, you've kind of failed in your management role. Anyway, when I took a look at your track record, with many years of having a kind and welcome attitude towards new editors, and a model level of civility and encouragement, I couldn't believe you weren't an admin (by contrast, Andrew Lih / Fuzheado has been one for longer than all of my kids have been alive!) and I assumed you must have been offered adminship in the past and refused. I think I know about ten editors in exactly the same position, or have been in the past - Cullen328 needed a lot of persuasion to put his name forward, and when he did the level of support was incredible, as I predicted. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
- That is very kind of you! Well, I am not opposed to it at this point, but I'll also probably not go out of my way to seek it. It's funny; insofar as it's a matter of 'trusted users', I have previously held just about every *other* position of trust in our movement (I've stewarded the WMF budget, had OTRS access, been under multiple NDAs for WMF & user data, etc. etc.) but I have never been an admin :) ps user:Cullen328 and user:Fuzheado are both good friends, and we have spent time on projects IRL for many years! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:25, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
- Okay, that's all fair enough. I agree that admins should not have more importance than ordinary editors; indeed, in a content dispute with yelling, if one of them is an admin they are more at fault because they are supposed to set an example. While some of our best editors don't need to go anywhere near the tools, equally some of our best admins don't use the tools unless necessary. In the previous example of an admin and non-admin having a content dispute, the best resolution by far is to use a bit of diplomacy, sympathetically state both party's views, and suggest ways to reach a consensus. If you have to reach for any of the tools, you've kind of failed in your management role. Anyway, when I took a look at your track record, with many years of having a kind and welcome attitude towards new editors, and a model level of civility and encouragement, I couldn't believe you weren't an admin (by contrast, Andrew Lih / Fuzheado has been one for longer than all of my kids have been alive!) and I assumed you must have been offered adminship in the past and refused. I think I know about ten editors in exactly the same position, or have been in the past - Cullen328 needed a lot of persuasion to put his name forward, and when he did the level of support was incredible, as I predicted. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
2014 locusts to illustrate 2019 ??
Hello, surprising : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2019%E2%80%9320_locust_infestation#2014_locusts_to_illustrate_2019_?? --Wisdood (talk) 11:22, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 41
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 41, September – October 2020
- New partnership: Taxmann
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Your draft article, Draft:Map of George Floyd protests
Hello, Phoebe. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Map of George Floyd protests".
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.
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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:42, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Books & Bytes - Issue 42
The Wikipedia Library
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Issue 42, November – December 2020
- New EBSCO collections now available
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Help on Wikiproject Climate change project
Hi,
any chance you want to help out on increasing coverage and info on this ? Carbon sink upscaling additional info on carbon sink upscaling (missing info) --Genetics4good (talk) 16:36, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Sunday 7 February virtual Movement Strategy implementation meeting on environmental sustainability
Hi Phoebe, following (not only, but also) our conversations in Stockholm, I would like to invite you to join the Movement Strategy implementation meeting on environmental sustainability, which is taking place next Sunday. Thank you, --Gnom (talk) 22:26, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Gnom: thanks for letting me know! I'll try to join. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Concern regarding Draft:Sadie Red Wing
Hello, Phoebe. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Sadie Red Wing, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Draft space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for article space.
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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. Bot0612 (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Your draft article, Draft:Sadie Red Wing
Hello, Phoebe. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Sadie Red Wing".
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.
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Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! CommanderWaterford (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 42
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 42, January – February 2021
- New partnerships: PNAS, De Gruyter, Nomos
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Books & Bytes – Issue 43
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Issue 43, March – April 2021
- New Library Card designs
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Precious anniversary
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Books & Bytes – Issue 45
The Wikipedia Library
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Issue 45, May – June 2021
- Library design improvements continue
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Books & Bytes – Issue 46
The Wikipedia Library
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Issue 46, July – August 2021
- Library design improvements deployed
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:15, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Climate Justice page
Hi Phoebe,
Hope you're good.
I saw your message on the Climate Justice talk page suggesting an editing 'to do' list. Thanks for that. I wrote some of the original versions of the entry. It's gotten really messy now, with lots of repetition, poor writing and quite a few questionable sections added. Would you be up for working on improving it together? I don't have much wikipedia experience, but do people work together in groups sometimes? Seems like coming up with a plan (maybe based on your to do list) and having different people writing/editing various sections could be a good way to go. Do you know any others that might be interested?
let me know what you think :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberperson (talk • contribs) 15:39, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
- hi @Cyberperson: yes that's a great idea! You can also propose it on the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change - where you are also welcome to join. That project serves as a "to do" list as well for people interested in the topic. People do sometimes work in groups and we do occasionally run edit-a-thons where we combine training and working on an article. However since we are all distributed it might be a good idea to keep using the talk page to work on a restructure and then tackle it a section at a time? @Sadads: may also be interested in working on this. Cheers, phoebe / (talk to me) 18:01, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi again, sorry for the delay in following up with this. I've made a similar suggestion here: [[1]]. Is that the right place? Sorry I'm not very experienced at editing wikipedia! Cyberperson (talk) 16:06, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 47
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 47, September – October 2021
- On-wiki Wikipedia Library notification rolling out
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Books & Bytes – Issue 48
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Issue 48, November – December 2021
- 1Lib1Ref 2022
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Nomination for deletion of Template:George Floyd protests timeline
Template:George Floyd protests timeline has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Nigej (talk) 07:42, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 49
The Wikipedia Library
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Issue 49, January – February 2022
- New library collections
- Blog post published detailing technical improvements
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CRC Handbook Access
I would like to reach out about asking CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa Group company to let Wikipedia Editors access the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 102nd Edition. This is a leading source of information in engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, forensics, geophysics, astronomy, and acoustics. I'm not sure if asking a database is reasonable but I like it when databases collaborate with Wikipedia editors so people editing Wikipedia can use databases such as Cambridge University database for free. Thank you very much ScientistBuilder (talk) 22:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 50
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Issue 50, March – April 2022
- New library partner - SPIE
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Books & Bytes – Issue 51
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Issue 51, May – June 2022
- New library partners
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Invitation to Local Wikimania Event in San Francisco this Friday
Hi!
Wikimania is happening and hopefully you're enjoying the sessions. While it's fairly last minute, you're warmly invited to participate in the local Wikimania-themed meetup in the Wikimedia Foundation office this Friday (tomorrow!). You will have to register in advance, but we would love to see more people from the WikiSalon community participate! For more information and registration, please check out meta:Wikimania 2022/San Francisco Meetup.
The event will involve hacking, teaching, learning, and celebrating and we'll have snacks. We will have the opportunity to watch live sessions at Wikimania together in the afternoon. The rest of the day we'll have opportunity to participate in the hackathon, and we may have some on-demand workshops/learning sessions.
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Books & Bytes – Issue 52
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 52, July – August 2022
- New instant-access collections:
- SpringerLink and Springer Nature
- Project MUSE
- Taylor & Francis
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- Feedback requested on this newsletter
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
astronaut
Do you like being an astronaut 41.184.242.255 (talk) 14:18, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Wiki talk
Thank you! Bearian (talk) 20:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 53
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 53, September – October 2022
- New collections:
- Edward Elgar
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- Ancestry
- New feature: Outage notification
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
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Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
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Inventation to Boston-Gathering, celebrating Wikipedias 22th Birthday
Afers several years of distancing, I wan to invite you tomorrow (Jan 17th at 6pm) to the Boston-gathering at MIT.
Details can be found at Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston/Wikipedia_22th_Anniversary_Celebration
I hope I see you there — Johannes Kalliauer - contrib. 19:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 54
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 54, November – December 2022
- New collections:
- British Newspaper Archive
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Cybernetics in the Soviet Union
Hi! I need to check a quote from a book to which you may be able to have relatively easy access: Gerovitch, Slava (2002). From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN 9780262572255
According to the article Cybernetics in the Soviet Union, it's on page 288: "tactical uses of cyberspeak overshadowed the original reformist goals that aspired the first Soviet cyberneticians."
Is that the actual text? English is not my native language, but I find this usage of "aspire" a bit odd in a professionally edited book published in the U.S. I'd expect "inspired", or maybe "goals to which the first Soviet cyberneticians aspired". But if that's the actual printed quote, then I guess that's what Wikipedia should have. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
- I found it myself! :) Here's the full quote: "By the early 1970s, the cybernetics movement had changed completely in character. It no longer challenged the orthodoxy; instead, tactical uses of cyberspeak overshadowed the original reformist goals that aspired the first Soviet cyberneticians."
- As an English speaker, what would you say: is it an acceptable usage of "aspired", or is it indeed weird? Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 08:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC)