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Requesting a favor

@R8R, Double sharp, Fowler&fowler, and Iridescent: What a pleasure it is to read Island of stability. For years, I complained about our math FAs; reviewers implied that the articles were hard to follow because the content was so technical, while I argued that the articles were impossible to follow, not because of the content, but because they were poorly written. Reviewers were reluctant to engage, and often, poor prose passed.

You seem to have assembled a team of competent writers. Even in the instances where the content is technically heavy, the prose is the best it can be, and even a layreader to this highly technical concept can get the gist of the concept in the lead.

We have had discussions at WT:FAC about several issues affecting the throughput of FAC in recent years; those include the loss of several competent reviewers and Fowler&fowler particularly mentions "content-specific usage, coherence, and encyclopedic accessibility". But another problem is the lack of competent reviewers overall, leading to many FACs stalled at the bottom of the page. The hope is that we can engage more competent writers in FACs outside of their usual topic areas.

Recognizing that it is holiday season, I was hoping you, F&f, R8R and Double sharp might find time to weigh in at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Coropuna/archive1. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:09, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Thank you for your comments here and at the FAC; I'm glad that the prose is understandable despite the technical subject matter (for that, I must also thank everyone who commented at the PR, GAN, and FAC).
I may need to brush up on some finer MOS points, but I'd be glad to assist in checking grammar (copyediting) and prose structure for other nominations. I'm not sure how busy these next few days will be, though I should be able to give some feedback on that FAC no later than Thursday. I am surprised that articles whose comprehension is hindered by poor prose may pass at all—I would think it already is a red flag when a reviewer (with basic but not in-depth knowledge of the subject) cannot follow the prose of an article.
It's probably still better that I avoid certain topics, but I agree that every FAC—regardless of the subject—should meet a minimum prose standard (as per criterion 1a). And happy holidays to you as well. Cheers, ComplexRational (talk) 20:23, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
It is not necessary to follow the intricacies of Wikipedia's Manual of Style to add valued content to Featured article candidate pages; prose review is what is desperately needed everywhere. Anything you can do anywhere would be most useful, particularly following on the loss of User:Brianboulton. Happy holidays! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:07, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
While I was unable to do this, I do share your concern about too few reviewers. I think about it every time I plan to go for a FAC. So I'll try to make it a habit to review someone's article when going for one in the future; I have already, in fact, considered quid pro quo a few times. I would actually think it would be great it was mandatory for a reviewer who has had a broze star (or maybe three) to review someone's nomination before submitting their own, just like in DYK.--R8R (talk) 18:32, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia:--R8R (talk) 18:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
R8R I have historically opposed quid pro quo reviewing at FAC, because ... some people are just not good reviewers, and having them muck up a FAC might not help :) The coordinators (or delegates as we were called during my tenure, because we actually had a director who delegated "authority" to us) know who the good reviewers are, and should be/could be pinging them in to tough FACs. And, WP:FAC is at a manageable size for the first time in a long time. I am going to poke around to see if I can find someone else to finish your source review, or alternately, put on my big girl pants and do it myself. Having switched from physics to math in my third year of undergraduate (highly sexist physics department chair), source --> text integrity is over my head there, but I can try. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
Could there a way to train more potential reviewers for niche tasks such as source reviews or assessing source-text conformity in very particular topic areas? I haven't had a chance yet to read through WT:FAC in full, but I believe wider recruitment or training for specific (and sometimes tedious) tasks would do the process well, as long as the coordinators know where to look. QPQ is a good idea in principle, but we need to make sure every potential reviewer is able and willing to do specific tasks well. ComplexRational (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
* Here is some very old advice from the (former) master of source reviews: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches (although it may need updating). I am not aware if anyone recently is examining sources as carefully as Ealdgyth did in her day.
* Another possibly dated Dispatch here.
* Here's another at User:Ealdgyth/FAC, Sources, and You.
* And Brian Boulton's at Wikipedia:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC.
The info is out there, or could be updated, but we're doing nothing to invigorate FAC as we did when we ran regular Dispatches to stay in the community spotlight. The Signpost is a disaster these days, but that's another story. Another good (Brian) initiative is at Wikipedia:Mentoring for FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:11, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Members, I could ping in Count Iblis, Hal peridol, Headbomb, IRWolfie- , Materialscientist, Mike Peel, or Primefac. Ruslik0 would be my top choice, but I know he is swamped ... could still try? I know MaoGo well, and he would do it, but I am not sure English is his first language. Put your heads together, pick your poison, and let me know! I will ping within the FAC, asking them to complete source review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:38, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Hmm. As strange as it seems, none of them seem to be recently involved with heavy-duty content work or anything FAC-related. Hal peridol hasn't edited since May; I can't even search the contributions of IRWolfie (renamed?); the rest are very active, though mainly in other domains. Maybe you could try pinging Headbomb (who is active at WP:PHYS and has made some copyedits to the article) as well as Ruslik0 and MaoGo to see if they're willing. ComplexRational (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
(kibitzer) IRWolfie- is now Second Quantization and is marked as retired. QPQ has been discussed oneo-ff and as you can probably imagine the possibility that people might post shoddy reviews solely in order to earn QPQ-points has been repeatedly raised as a concern. I don't think we currently have a method to train reviewers. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 22:13, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
We had a most definite focus on training and educating and informing when Raul654 was director and I was delegate. Now the FA process has gone from four people total managing it (and processing four times more volume than today) to eleven, and the buck stops nowhere. With no one in charge, no one is responsible for monitoring trends, following stats, for initiating change or discussing problems, and I've gotten some pushback since I came back in roaring. We started the {{FCDW}} dispatches in 2008 and published in every Signpost. I'll answer the question above about training for source reviews in more detail after I ping to the FAC. Have a look at some of the old Dispatch Signpost articles. If you don't stay on top of issues, a process flounders with declining editorship ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
  • Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Sequence of tenses

Hi! I've got a question that really leaves me wondering. I'm taking a basic online course of Dutch, and the course is in English. The official translation of one of the sentences reads, "We agreed that we will let it go." This is rather amusing because I was told that there is a rule in English that is called the sequence of tenses (okay, I didn't know the English name for that, I just googled it). And the rule I was taught suggests that the sentence should be, "We agreed that we would let it go." Now I read a while ago that a sentence in the likes of the one I mentioned is possible in American English, but that it was merely possible in colloquial speech and it still wasn't correct per the standard rules. (The course is indeed in American English, and I even saw some British learners complain that their translations of some sentences were not deemed correct, though this has probably been fixed.) So my question is, is that sentence actually correct in American English now? That would be very interesting. If so, I'd love you to quote some source on that if that's possible.--R8R (talk) 14:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. Believe it or not, I never was formally educated (in school) in these grammar intricacies.
In any case, I can say that "we agreed that we would let it go" is generally more correct, and I would frown upon seeing the alternative construct even in AmE. This is because the action of agreement implies something in the past that was not definitive, so this requires the conditional form (would) rather than the indicative form (will). I would thus not advocate its usage, and I should also remark that spoken AmE really seems to be going downhill in terms of grammatical correctness as a whole. Do you remember where "we agreed that we will let it go" was used?
I hope this answers your question. ComplexRational (talk) 15:42, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
That's interesting because I had never heard of this being called the conditional form or the indicative form, I'll look it up later. I first realized that there may be a bunch of terms whose existence was a surprise to me actually also when studying Dutch, when I learned the latter had the terms "direct object" and "indirect object." I suppose these aren't really necessary to study English and that's why nobody told me about them or maybe I didn't care to remember (they are more important in Dutch because of their complicated word order).
Technically, they're different grammatical moods (or modes) that provide different structures to express different ideas, much like tenses but in sentences comprising several clauses. The indicative mood is used for simple assertions or declarations, while the conditional mood (which in English uses an auxiliary word rather than another set of conjugations) is used in complex sentences in which the action in one clause is dependent (hypothetically or actually) on the action of another. I'm not sure what these "forms" are in other languages, but I believe that the general idea of different moods and their uses is pretty widespread.
FWIW, I developed a deeper understanding of English grammar when I started studying Italian grammar (which has a wider array of conjugations and distinct uses) and tried to draw parallels. Now I realize how English is deceptively simple in some ways yet completely bizarre in others, and I still have to refresh myself on some of the finer points I was never explicitly tought. Anyway, now I pay a lot more attention to these nuances when reading and writing. ComplexRational (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Curiously enough, I had never before heard the term "grammatical mood"; before writing this, however, I checked what the translation of the term into my mother tongue would be and I immediately recognized it. We have three moods in Russian: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative (there is also a well-known idiom: "History does not know the subjunctive mood"). I didn't know, however, that there was a conditional mood in principle nor did I know that English had the concept of moods to begin with :) thank you very much for telling me this.
I absolutely understand what you're talking about because at one point, English helped me understand Russian better in a similar way. I am, however, rather disappointed these days because I can clearly recognize the beauty of the English language and I stand in awe before German, but I have lost this intimacy with Russian (and I once had it). Over the last months, I've been worried that people tend to put blame for conflicts on others without recognizing they had to do with the development of the events, and if I were to pull that card, I'd say that English to be blamed for this. However, I realize that in the end of the day, nobody makes me spend as much time in the English-language environment as I do; humans, in the end of the day, have their limits, and this is about where mine is, though of course, I'm more than willing to push those limits. I often think my speech in Russian isn't anywhere as beautiful as it could or should be (after all, it's no exaggeration to say that being articulate is one of the most important things in life), and I'm finally getting ideas what could be done about that. This is why you can see me worked up about those language things. And it certainly doesn't help that I often cannot properly concentrate on what I am typing (maybe my writing would actually be better if I had to do it by hand), which often results in errors, usually grammatical but from time to time, I actually type not exactly what I wanted to.--R8R (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
The sentence was free from any context, so I could only tell you so much. Or if you're curious about the course itself, it comes from Duolingo. About half a year ago, I encountered an article about it, and I, previously unaware of the possibility to learn languages for free like that, decided I might give it a shot. (Later, I learned that there were many opportunities for that in general.) I picked Dutch for several reasons: first, I figured it should be easy given my existing knowledge of English and German and as such it would be good to test the platform; second, knowledge of the two languages made me curious what Dutch is like (it is said to be roughly in-between the two); and third, Dutch sounds very beautiful to me (German sounds very beautiful to me, too). When anybody asks me about it IRL, I usually tell them, however, about the Dutch cultural influence on Russia: for one, Peter the Great was originally not expected to be a heir to the Russian throne, and so he was trained in the military, where he learned about the importance of shipbuilding (Russia did not have a fleet back then, and indeed, he was the first ruler to have Russia have one), and one particularly dominant naval power was the Netherlands, and he spent much time learning from the Dutch. You may notice that the flag he invented ( Russia) also looks much like that of the Netherlands ( Netherlands) (that's actually only a part of the story of how Russia got its flag, but that is a part of the story). Or how the name of his, as he called it, paradise that he founded (Sankt-Peterburg) was actually Dutch in origin (Sankt Pieter Burch); as you probably guessed, in English that city is called Saint Petersburg. Many naval terms to this day are Dutch in origin as well as there are a few other words coming from Dutch as well.
I might take a deeper look into this; it could make an interesting backstory. And good luck, and have fun, if you decide to go further studying Dutch. ComplexRational (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. So far, when I try to think in Dutch, I often find myself switching to German without noticing it, which reflects the similarity between the two. I don't think I'll study it far beyond the course when I end it. I didn't really mention that (although I wanted to) I wanted to try Dutch in part to see how in general learning languages on my own would go and Dutch is an easier one for me so it's good to see the possibilities and difficulties on it before trying anything else. Although, of course, if I hadn't had other reasons, I wouldn't have bothered.
If it interests you, I might also add that the national color of the Dutch is orange, and so I was always rather amused not to find it on their national flag. I only learned a couple of years ago that that was because the red stripe was originally orange, and that orange dye changed color after prolonged affection by the sun, and so orange was replaced by red for practical reasons. To this day,  Luxembourg has a flag very similar to the Dutch one, and there have been talks in the country to change theirs to make it more distinct. Generally, I recall reading that these three colors are so commonly used in flags of many European countries because they were durable and cheap in those pre-industrial times (this also explains why there have been very few orange or purple flags) and then it became customary.--R8R (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
I digress again, sorry. If it relieves you somewhat, I can tell you that a similar thing is correct for Russian. Unlike those in English, Russian phrases are simpler in that they don't require auxiliary verbs or the like, so there's less room for error in colloquial speech, but the orthography is rather complicated, and people often write rather poorly, sometimes surprisingly so. I actually suspect this, in one form or another, must be the case for every language. Linguists have established that over time, languages tend to simplify, and that must be why.--R8R (talk) 10:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

New message from Jo-Jo Eumerus

Hello, ComplexRational. You have new messages at Talk:Coropuna.
Message added 11:21, 1 February 2020 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail!

I've sent you a small message that I presume may be of interest for you. Please check your email.--R8R (talk) 11:45, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

@R8R: Thank you; I replied via e-mail. ComplexRational (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
I've got another unrelated matter; I think it may be even more interesting for you. Please check your email once more.--R8R (talk) 12:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
R8R I will take a look most likely tomorrow; I've been having several very busy days. I hope this won't keep you waiting too long. ComplexRational (talk) 02:59, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter February 2020

Hello ComplexRational,

Source Guide Discussion

The first NPP source guide discussion is now underway. It covers a wide range of sources in Ghana with the goal of providing more guidance to reviewers about sources they might see when reviewing pages. Hopefully, new page reviewers will join others interested in reliable sources and those with expertise in these sources to make the discussion a success.

Redirects

New to NPP? Looking to try something a little different? Consider patrolling some redirects. Redirects are relatively easy to review, can be found easily through the New Pages Feed. You can find more information about how to patrol redirects at WP:RPATROL.

Discussions and Resources
Refresher

Geographic regions, areas and places generally do not need general notability guideline type sourcing. When evaluating whether an article meets this notability guideline please also consider whether it might actually be a form of WP:SPAM for a development project (e.g. PR for a large luxury residential development) and not actually covered by the guideline.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7095 Low – 4991 High – 7095

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here

16:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Island of stability

This is to let you know that the above article has been scheduled as today's featured article for March 21, 2020. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 21, 2020.—Wehwalt (talk) 20:43, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

@Wehwalt: Thank you for the notification. I intend to do some work on the blurb in the next several days, and I will do a quick check to ensure that the article is up-to-date (it was heavily copyedited and scrutinized through FAC, so the only significant change would be new research). ComplexRational (talk) 02:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Coropuna

Greetings,

checking in to note that Coropuna is ready for a final review before FAC2. Take note that I've commented on some of the proposals you made on February 2. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:24, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Thanks for the heads-up, I'm doing a final read-through of the article now (for prose). I saw your comments, and have to reread some of the later ones; sorry for not being more active there as I have been unexpectedly busy with RL matters until a few days ago. ComplexRational (talk) 21:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I was planning to send this back to FAC somewhere today or tomorrow, under the assumption that any remaining issue does not require large amounts of work to resolve. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: In my read-through, I didn't find any major issues or anything requiring substantial work. If I find anything else, or have any other comments (minor suggestions or the like), I will post them at the new FAC. ComplexRational (talk) 13:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Notification about a FAC renomination

Greetings,

since you did comment on this later withdrawn FAC I wanted to notify you that I've renominated it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Coropuna/archive2. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
  • A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

  • Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous


Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:20, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Precious

elements and reviews

Thank you for quality articles around chemical elements, such as Island of stability, Unbibium, Unbiquadium and Unbihexium, for GA and FA reviewing, for "Welcome, and thank you for your attempt to lighten up Wikipedia", for appreciation, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

You are recipient no. 2326 of Precious, a prize of QAI. - Happy 2020! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, Thank you! ComplexRational (talk) 15:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you today for Island of stability, "about the theoretical island of stability, a hypothetical set of superheavy nuclides (isotopes of the heaviest known chemical elements) that may be longer-lived than those currently known. This concept has guided research in the field of nuclear physics for decades, with various calculations corroborating predictions and numerous experiments designed to seek these nuclides. Although the island itself has not yet been discovered, experimental evidence strongly suggests its existence and that we are approaching the "shores"."! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Working on it was an insightful and enjoyable adventure the whole way through. I will soon turn my attention elsewhere, and let's hope we make "landfall" on the island soon! ComplexRational (talk) 11:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

NBSP

Just to be clear, there still is no MOS that supports this styling. (One could consider writing Z = 108, for instance; after all is is a running sentence, not an isolated, full-line complete formulae we often see in textbooks). I see no use in discussing this here with you, but this note is no warn you that there is no consensus for these edits. -DePiep (talk) 19:58, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the notice. Your suggestion is fine (one nbsp), but I would have to disagree on a lack of MOS support. It is really quite awkward when there is a line break on either side of the equals sign, and in the absence of further clarity, it seems that breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward is subject to each editor's judgement. This is the best we have, and since I don't think many displays outside tables are seven characters per line, there's no harm in doing this and no strict guideline against it.
I did what you suggested and raised the issue at WT:MOS, and it admittedly has clarified to not use NBSP with written-out units (which I refrained from doing last time we discussed this, and now it is clear that I should continue to do so). I still believe some instances such as these display awkwardly without them (it was apparent to me when a line break occurred here in an image caption), and since the MOS prefers NBSP in shorter blocks of text including symbols, this use seems justified enough. If you disagree, and believe the status quo will not inconvenience readers, I'm open to your ideas – quite on the contrary to no use in discussing this here with you, but if we don't discuss anything, this certainly won't go anywhere. ComplexRational (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

April–May 2020 GAN Backlog Drive

Harrias talk 06:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Harrias: Thank you for the notice! I'd be glad to help out and review a few articles during these times, not to mention that I have perhaps too much time on my hands. ComplexRational (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • There is an ongoing request for comment to streamline the source deprecation and blacklisting process.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The WMF has begun a pilot report of the pages most visited through various social media platforms to help with anti-vandalism and anti-disinformation efforts. The report is updated daily and will be available through the end of May.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Secret Society - citation Question

Hi there! How do I cite something that is suppose to be a secret yet people should know about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.32.233 (talk) 17:33, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi! If it's really a secret, you shouldn't even include it in Wikipedia, as this is a very public place and the page history is searchable by anybody. If you still would like to include it, you need to provide a citation to a reliable source that describes these secret societies—not necessarily in detail, but at least some strong, unambiguous evidence from a source with a reputation for fact-checking and credibility. This means some news outlets, many academic publications, and the rest of what is described in the page I linked. Without such sources, one might believe this is made up one day or so-called original research; such additions usually are quickly removed to keep credibility and verifiability intact. That said, all you need to do is provide a citation to a reliable source that describes the existence of secret societies during this period of social distancing (and also, make sure it fits into the article, and is not intertwined with completely unrelated content). ComplexRational (talk) 17:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The authority on English

Hi! I've been wondering about something about American English and I was wondering if you could help me.

You study English in school; that is only natural. The question is, who exactly decides what rules of English are the rules you learn? Upon checking, I couldn't find such a thing as a federal standardized test obligatory for every student to take; if there were such a test, it could be traced to the organization that runs it. But still, somebody decides what is correct what is not, your tests are checked somehow. Is there a U.S.-wide frame of reference for English for such a purpose? Or does it vary by the state? I know that the ultimate frame of reference in Russia is the Russian Language Institute but I've learned that one difference between Russia and the United States is that there is a general understanding in Russia that there is a great authority for many matters, and that authority is a part of the state, and that there is a general understanding in the United States that the state should be excluded from as many matters as possible (with some variance in both cases).--R8R (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Surprisingly enough, there isn't and has never been any such language regulator for English (British or American). But then again, maybe it should not be so surprising for British English since the UK doesn't have a codified constitution either. ;) Double sharp (talk) 14:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I've heard the notion that there is no language regulator in English, but the language is still taught somehow in schools, and I want to understand who decides what language young Americans (and Britons, for that matter, but asking ComplexRational about the U.S. alone seemed a safer bet) learn.
I recall that when I had English courses at a foreign language academy, I had coursebooks from Oxford and that there is no such thing as a state-run All-British Institute of the English language named after W. Shakespare in Oxford (I purposely made a very Soviet-styled name there, and this sort of mannerisms is alive and well in contemporary Russian as well). But if I recall correctly, there was some state recommendation to use those coursebooks for teaching English as a foreign language.--R8R (talk) 14:58, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Now that you mention it, I cannot help but find the contents of {{International cultural promotion organizations}} rather hilarious for its juxtaposition of institutes named after great literary figures and such (dare I say it) unimaginative names as "British Council", "Czech Centres", "Japan Foundation"... Double sharp (talk) 15:08, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I see the German one is named all right: "Goethe-Institut" is a bit more imaginative :) by the way, do you recall how I suddenly disappeared in January 2014, just before the final fluorine FAC? I was actually going there (Goethe-Institut in Moscow has a big building, which has some diplomatic status and is German property, just like embassies are) but I was hit by a car just next to it. It took me a lot of time to not only recover but also catch up to the rest of the university group, and I barely passed that examination period. Eventually, I still had to take a year off. That was a huge challenge that I didn't pass all that well, but it was also a great lesson in life.--R8R (talk) 16:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh my. Well, I'm very glad you are better now. ^_^
You remind me that I should get back to improving my German when I have more time. ;) Double sharp (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your concerns :) Yes, I'm fine now.--R8R (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Content removal

I am Tirthankar. I saw that you removed my sentence from cerium. I would like to give you the source. It is from lanthanides and actinides by Simon cotton, page 12. Please read it and add the sentence cause I don't know how to add it. Tirthankar de (talk) 04:36, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Tirthankar, thank you for bringing this up and mentioning the source. I took a look at it, and can't find anything resembling what you added in [2]. Namely, you mention that its configuration is "a matter of debate", but in fact the ground-state configuration is well-known and established (as the article says); it's included in Table 2.1 on page 10. In that case, I'm not sure exactly what you would like to add. ComplexRational (talk) 19:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2020).

Administrator changes

removed Gnangarra • Kaisershatner • Malcolmxl5

CheckUser changes

readded Callanecc

Oversight changes

readded HJ Mitchell

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

My concern about reverted edits

I reverted European School i checked (diff) and i could use undo but i reverted again because its mistake, thanks -BEAMALEXANDER25, talk 20:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I noticed, thank you. In the future, though, please review edits more carefully before reverting. ComplexRational (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Draft:K. Y. Arad

Dear ComplexRational,

Please consider this request to have Kobi's draft approved. Kobi Arad is currently blacklisted, and this blacklisting was removed by User:Anthony Appleyard last year, as requested by you at Wikipedia requested moves. The page stood online without any issues for nearly one year, until another editor removed it claiming that undisclosed paid editing was involved. This time we would like to get it right and avoid all paid editors.

As a friend and long-time fan of Kobi Arad, I would like to clearly and unequivocably disclose my conflict of interest. I am a fellow jazz musician who is in no way paid to edit Wikipedia for him. Kobi had previously tried to hire paid editors to publish his Wikipedia page, but this was rejected by the community.

Kobi is already on the German Wikipedia and many other language versions of Wikipedia, and he clearly meets notability standards. German Wikipedia's notability requirements are actually stricter than the English Wikipedia's notability requirements, so there is no reason Kobi Arad should be blacklisted from the English version.

All we are doing this time is to translate the currently existing Wikipedia pages in German and other languages and adding a few minor updates to the discography in an effort to bring non-English Wikipedia content to the English Wikipedia content.

You can request to run CheckUser checks on me to confirm that I am not related to any of the other previous paid editors.

We would also like you to look at the amount of news and notability and collaborations with many other related artists of similar notability and not decline due to COI, since we are clearly disclosing the COI. Kobi has numerous music awards and is clearly meets encyclopedic notability criteria.

Thanks and blessings from your fellow jazz musicians.

MosheKabbalisticSefer (talk) 23:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@MosheKabbalisticSefer: Thank you for the notification, and for disclosing your conflict of interest. I do not have enough time right now to do a full review of the content myself, but I can say the following to your request:
As already discussed on several other pages, the notability guidelines for de.wiki and en.wiki are not the same, so that by itself is not sufficient grounds for inclusion. I took a quick glance, and though some sources might be promising, the last reviewer of the draft left a comment saying that many of the sources are not reliable and do not offer sufficient coverage. By that, the general notability guideline is not fulfilled, so the draft should be expanded further based on more extensive coverage in reliable sources if possible. I see it has not been edited since this last comment, so there's not much more for me to say on that, but from a quick read, it certainly looks on the right track.
As far as other articles, there might be some that haven't been snuffed out for not meeting notability guidelines or a few borderline cases; we do not use WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS to assess content.
In the case that this draft gets approved, I strongly encourage you to add {{connected contributor}} to the talk page to make known your connection with Kobi. Additionally, I would suggest that you refrain from making major edits, and instead submit edit requests or collaborate with other editors, to avoid running into any issues. It's not a must, but COI editing is generally discouraged here and has led to numerous controversies in the past, such as the salting on this article (which was partially removed after further discussion).
And finally, the local CheckUser policy prohibits usage of the tool upon request, so there's nothing to do there. (Plus, even if it were not forbidden, CheckUser data is only kept for 90 days, so there would be nothing to find and compare to previous deleted versions of this article from several years ago.) As long as you disclose your COI and the article is approved by an impartial reviewer, there should be no issues.
I'm sorry I can't say too much more now, but should I have enough time, I'll take another look. And if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. ComplexRational (talk) 21:36, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice

Hi ComplexRational, you are receiving this notice because you are listed as an active Articles for Creation reviewer.

Recently a list of reviewers by area of expertise was created. This notice is being sent out to alert you to the existence of that list, and to encourage you to add your name to it. If you or other reviewers come across articles in the queue where an acceptance/decline hinges on specialist knowledge, this list should serve to facilitate contact with a fellow reviewer.

To end on a positive note, the backlog has dropped below 1,500, so thanks for all of the hard work some of you have been putting into the AfC process!

Sent to all Articles for Creation reviewers as a one-time notice. To opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Regards, Sam-2727 (talk)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:35, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2020).

Administrator changes

added CaptainEek • Creffett • Cwmhiraeth
removed Anna Frodesiak • Buckshot06 • Ronhjones • SQL

CheckUser changes

removed SQL

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • A motion was passed to enact a 500/30 restriction on articles related to the history of Jews and antisemitism in Poland during World War II (1933–45), including the Holocaust in Poland. Article talk pages where disruption occurs may also be managed with the stated restriction.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Barnstar!

The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
This is for your valuable efforts on countering Vandalism and protecting Wikipedia from it's threats. I appreciate your effort. You are a defender of Wikipedia. Thank you. PATH SLOPU 11:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
@Path slopu: Thank you! You too, keep up the good work! ComplexRational (talk) 14:56, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter June 2020

Hello ComplexRational,

Your help can make a difference

NPP Sorting can be a great way to find pages needing new page patrolling that match your strengths and interests. Using ORES, it divides articles into topics such as Literature or Chemistry and on Geography. Take a look and see if you can find time to patrol a couple pages a day. With over 10,000 pages in the queue, the highest it's been since ACPERM, your help could really make a difference.

Google Adds New Languages to Google Translate

In late February, Google added 5 new languages to Google Translate: Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen and Uyghur. This expands our ability to find and evaluate sources in those languages.

Discussions and Resources
  • A discussion on handling new article creation by paid editors is ongoing at the Village Pump.
  • Also at the Village Pump is a discussion about limiting participation at Articles for Deletion discussion.
  • A proposed new speedy deletion criteria for certain kinds of redirects ended with no consensus.
  • Also ending with no change was a proposal to change how we handle certain kinds of vector images.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 10271 Low – 4991 High – 10271

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

redirest

Hello! Those were no vandalisme. Unfortunately I need remove redirect in order to connect page to wikidata item. Please see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T54564 Workaround

Remove the redirect code from the redirect page you want to link to. Add the page as a sitelink in Wikidata. Revert the removal of the redirect code from the redirect page. --212.178.219.79 (talk) 17:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for reaching out. Sorry about the misunderstanding; I was not aware of this bug.
In that case, could you please leave an edit summary when making these edits? When unexplained like this, they appear to be tests or vandalism, in that it is not clear why you remove and immediately reinstate redirects (unfortunately things or so-called "vandalbots" like that are rather common on here). I will retract my warning, and I apologize once more, but please be mindful and indicate your reasoning in an edit summary (mentioning Phabricator or Wikidata should suffice), so there are no more misunderstandings involving myself or other users. Thank you. ComplexRational (talk) 17:59, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2020).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

New message from Nikkimaria

Hello, ComplexRational. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Photon/archive2.
Message added 21:06, 11 July 2020 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Nikkimaria (talk) 21:06, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: My apologies, I was without internet for the last two days. I will do a quick read-through and reply there as soon as I can. ComplexRational (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for beta-reading

My draft of the RFC is not finished yet, but it now has so much there that I think we may pass it to you for commentary. What's complete is marked so: what's not is also marked so.

Some sections are very much not complete (the history, for one thing). However some are extremely close (the big chemistry exposé of Q19 designed to teach people from the ground up what is going on). Therefore I humbly request your comments. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 09:02, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020).

Administrator changes

added Red Phoenix
readded Euryalus • SQL
removed Jujutacular • Monty845 • Rettetast • Madchester

Oversight changes

readded GB fan
removed Keegan • Opabinia regalis • Premeditated Chaos

Guideline and policy news

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. The thread is "Periodic table".The discussion is about the topic Periodic table.

Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!

--Double sharp (talk) 08:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

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