User talk:Maralia/Archive 12

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Archive 5

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Archive 10

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for the New Year!

Wishing you and yours a joyous, healthful, and productive 2013!

Please accept a belated thank you for the well wishes upon my retirement as FAC delegate this year, and apologies for the false alarm of my first—and hopefully last—retirement; the well wishes extended me were most kind, but I decided to return, re-committed, when another blocked sock was revealed as one of the factors aggravating the FA pages this year.

Maintaining standards in featured content requires vigilance, dedication and knowledge of people like you, who are needed; reviews are always welcome at FAC, FAR and TFA requests. Somehow, somehow we never ever seem to do nothin' completely nice and easy, but here's hoping that 2013 will see a peaceful road ahead and a return to the quality and comaraderie that defines the FA process, with the help of many dedicated Wikipedians!

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks (Showcase)

Thanks for your edits to Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Showcase. I was thinking it needed work. Biosthmors (talk) 18:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

There are more edits coming; I'll post on the talk page to clarify what else I'm doing. That subpage has apparently been somewhat neglected. Maralia (talk) 18:40, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Great. Honestly, to keep things simple, how about we copy this format and then just put the year in in bold or bold/italics preceding the year groups. I don't think the date is important for the purposes of this list. I think quickly seeing how productive we've been per year (while also removing whitespace) is what we should go for. Biosthmors (talk) 18:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking about this again! And I saw your talk page comment where you said "I'm not following you around" or whatever! No worries. =) Best. Biosthmors (talk) 19:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

You can see User:Biosthmors/sandbox for a version, but silly me. I was thinking the dates are when the articles were promoted, not when they appeared on the main page. I think it's more important to note when they were promoted... Hmmm... Biosthmors (talk) 22:12, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

My original goal was to audit the Showcase's FA list for articles that should be added/removed. I have already made some changes; further suggestions here.

I think the usual objective of listing mainpage dates in a project showcase is to identify articles that have not been on the mainpage. This does not really apply to WP:MED as we only have one article that hasn't been mainpaged, and the primary author does not want it to be.

I am leaning towards no dates in the showcase; as you can see from my cursory review of article status at User:Maralia/MedShowcase#Current Showcase, mainpage dates and promotion dates are not hugely indicative of article status. Maralia (talk) 16:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The King and I is at FAC

Hi, Maralia. The King and I has been nominated for FAC. I see that you have reviewed FACs concerning the arts before. It would be great if you could take a look at the article and give comments at the FAC. Thanks for any time you could spare! -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Tablet hardness testing

I copied the page into my userspace instead of transcluding it. You can re-enable the category now. Sorry about that. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 22:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and re-enabled it for you. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 22:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Maralia (talk) 00:48, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Can I assist?

Is there anything I can do to make your editing here more enjoyable or rewarding? Send me an email if you'd like. We'd love to have you stick around. =) Biosthmors (talk) 18:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It's kind of you to ask. Some old wikidrama resurfaced, and I took a little time off to get my head back in the right place. I'm forcing myself to finish some open projects rather than (or at least before) getting distracted by everything shiny that passes by. Right now I'm working offline on a biography of a paleontologist that I committed to write as a sort of thank-you for a tour of the Smithsonian Archives last fall. Also on my list: epilepsy (if Colin has time to give me some research direction); a monstrous shipwreck article that I have been working on since 2007; the WP:MED Showcase revamp we discussed above; and of course the ever-necessary FAC reviews. So, I'm around, but trying not to spread myself quite so thin :) Maralia (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

That's understandable! Do you need sources for epilepsy? Biosthmors (talk) 02:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

And I sent Colin an email seeing if they will reply. =) Biosthmors (talk) 02:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Anyone who peeks at my contributions will see I haven't done any serious article writing for, well, years. For the past year, I've been more involved in taking and reviewing pictures, which requires much less commitment of time, aligns with my new hobby, and doesn't make my head hurt. I've got Engel's huge "Epilepsy: A Comprehensive Textbook" (3056 pages) and "Epilepsy (Oxford Specialist Handbooks in Neurology)" (608 pages) which I hope would together form the foundation wrt scope and core facts needed for the article. Then these would be supplemented by journal reviews where required (such as more up-to-date info on the latest classificiation or treatment). The article needs a complete overhaul. I guess I'm put off by the size of the task + other demands on my time. It would be great to collaborate on an article rather than face it alone until copy-edit stage, but also I don't want to disappoint anyone.

I should have some time free this weekend. Let's see if I can get motivated about it and organise myself. Thanks Biosthmors about the sources. I'll be sure to let you know when I get to that stage. Colin°^Talk 13:16, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I sure can relate: the inertia of working solo is definitely a factor in my meagre output of late. I'll happily collaborate with you on epilepsy, and you needn't worry about the pace: I can't possibly be more disappointed by your progress than I already am by my own! Pondering how to acquire those two books without breaking the bank. My email is enabled, if it's easier to contact me offline. Maralia (talk) 18:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we three could collaborate and try for GA status in 2013? We could state our group goal at WP:MEDGA2013. =) Biosthmors (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Just noticed your replies. It is easy for edits to get lost in a watchlist and I confuse this one with Malaria. Those books were a considerable investment I wouldn't expect anyone to duplicate. I got the big one for a bargain price, though it was still probably the most expensive book I've bought. I'll contact you by email. Colin°^Talk 13:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Article history

Thank you for manually closing the promoted FAs! Please use the name {{article history}}, I am sure you learn the correct name (two words) faster than the bot ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Good grief. Last night I spent four incredibly monotonous hours manually doing the bot's FAC work. As part of that effort I frequently had to call a template, which I called by the name I've been using here for six years. Tonight, I returned to do more of the same work (this time for FAR), and found this baffling note. I'm aware that the template was renamed, but the name I used exists, works completely transparently, and has the added bonus of not breaking the bot. 'Correcting' me amidst all this work seems wildly inconsiderate, given that I've made no mistake and the distinction you make is wholly inconsequential—except perhaps to those vested in establishing the new name. Maralia (talk) 04:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry then. The template's name was ArticleHistory, is Article history, a recent effort to name it back found no support and may be the reason why the bot is not working. I see a future for the present name and would like to see it used, but don't want to cause (you or others) grief, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

A million thanks...

...for closing all those FAC candidates. I can't begin to imagine the tedium that it entailed. The community owes you a big favour, or at least a big hug. Graham. Graham Colm (talk) 21:47, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks; it's nice to be appreciated. The closing work itself wasn't too painful—just a few hours of boredom—but I found a few opportunities for process improvement along the way. (Only the first one is really important to FAC, but I'm listing all three here so I have a reference point for follow-up.)

First I documented the FAC/FAR closing process as best I could. I hope GimmeBot returns soon, but a bot owner has offered to write a backup/replacement so I'm trying to help cover our bases.
Next I tackled a frequent failure point in {{ArticleHistory}}: when the template attempts to lookup a GA topic name, it doesn't always get a result, causing an ArticleHistory error. This was complicated to research and rewrite because I had to make sure that none of the four other templates that use the same lookup table would be adversely affected by changes. I proposed a rewrite here.
Last of all, I found a few minor errors in the ArticleHistory code, and proposed a solution.

I probably already spent as much time on each one of these issues as it took me to do all the closings, but they had to be addressed eventually. Hoping to get them all resolved soon, to reduce the administrative demands of the closing process. Maralia (talk) 18:14, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

You're awesome. Maybe if those proposals don't get addressed at those talk pages we can escalate to WP:VPT? Biosthmors (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

What I am is exceedingly stubborn! Also tired of fixing ArticleHistory errors. And eminently distractible: let's not forget how I told you two sections above this that I was committed to finishing my open projects before attacking anything else...oops.

The audience for those template pages is quite small, so it may take a little time before my talk page notices garner attention. This is no big deal, as neither of those proposed changes is particularly urgent. If they fail to catch anyone's eye there after a while, I will approach a few folks who I know are already familiar with the specific templates—going to VPT would require asking some poor sod to learn the ArticleHistory code, and I'd rather not have that on my conscience :) Maralia (talk) 21:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

FAC

Hello sir, please talkback on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Priyanka Chopra/archive1. Continue the fac. We would be grateful.Prashant ✉ 04:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Are you going to have time to followup on your comments about the sources from 2 weeks ago? I would like to know (as would the other reviewers) that either they are okay now, or something more needs to be done. Thanks, BollyJeff | talk 14:19, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. BollyJeff | talk 19:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I am curious about something. This FAC only has 3 comments and no supports after 3 weeks. Is that a bad sign? Is there anything that can be done? I did not mean for Prashant to canvas for it, but it certainly seems to have not helped. BollyJeff | talk 22:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Stalling like this is unfortunately a common occurrence, especially when the FAC queue is so long. The messaging spree certainly didn't help, and may have actually been a hindrance since the language used in the messages was strange.

Your tweaking of the article introduction on the FAC page was a good idea. I'm struggling to come up with other suggestions for you. You might try asking those who recently reviewed Kareena Kapoor to now take a look at Priyanka, but only if they are prepared to do a full review; you do not want drive-by supports. You could also post a notice on the talk pages of the other WikiProjects that have tagged the article talk page, although I don't think any of them are very active besides WP:IND.

It's possible that the article won't make it through FAC the first try. This is annoying but it happens often and there is no stigma attached to it. The FAC delegates may leave it open a little longer if they can see that work is still continuing on the FAC page. I will go through my last post there tomorrow to check how you have addressed my requested changes. Maralia (talk) 03:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I think time is growing very short for additional comments or verdicts on this one. BollyJeff | talk 22:57, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, too late. BollyJeff | talk

Talkback

Hello, Maralia. You have new messages at Vacation9's talk page.
Message added 20:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Vaca tion 9 20:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Precious

ships and medicine
Thank you for quality articles, after thorough research, on ships such as SS Christopher Columbus, for cleaning up medicine, for collecting happystuff, for helping {{article history}}, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (7 March 2010)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:26, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Maralia (talk) 16:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

DC happy hour on Thursday, February 28!

Please join Wikimedia DC for Happy Hour at the Capitol City Brewery at Metro Center on Thursday, February 28 at 6 p.m. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 34. Hope to see you there! Harej (talk) 02:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to a discussion: Wikipedia and legislative data

Hi Maralia, since you are interested in meetups in DC, I'd like to invite you to attend the Cato Institute's "Wikipedia and Legislative Data" events on March 14. (There's also an all day workshop on March 15; let me know if you are interested, we may be able to add more people.)

There will be an introduction to Wikipedia and open edit-a-thon in the afternoon, and a Sunshine Week Reception in the evening. I hope you can make it!

Please sign up here
Announcement on Cato's blog
Background from Cato sponsor Jim Harper's perspective
Background from Wikipedian Pete Forsyth's perspective

Hope to see you there! -Pete (talk) 19:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Barbara McClintock FAR

Hi Maralia - You commented a while ago at WP:Featured article review/Barbara McClintock/archive1. The article has undergone quite a bit of work since the initial posting at FAR. In your comment, you offered to help with reference formatting, which is one of the remaining issues. If you still have the time and interest, would you mind stopping by the review and perhaps putting a bit of time into the references? Thanks in advance, Dana boomer (talk) 16:13, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, March 9!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Guapo's at Tenleytown-AU on Saturday, March 9 at 5 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 35. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 13:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Bots, bots, bots

I couldn't help but notice that you are chasing up issues over the archiving of FACs, etc. I'd bring this up with the bot operator, but I'm not totally sure of what is involved, and you may be better informed, so I thought I'd check with you first. Gimmebot, as well as doing all the FAC/FLC stuff, used to update the article histories to include GA reviews and PRs. I think I'm right in saying the new bot does not do this, and I think there were other tasks Gimmebot did too. Is there anyone we could pester to see if the bot could work on these too, as it really does tidy up talkpages. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately quite a few of GimmeBot's tasks are going undone in Gimme's absence/without his code. A bot operator kindly wrote new code to close FLs/FACs/FARs, but is not able to write more at this time. I'm going to have to find a new coder for the other tasks we need to cover (including automating AH implementation for GAs and PRs). Sorry; wish I had a simpler answer for you! Maralia (talk) 05:19, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

GA/Topic

Sorry for making more work for you. I moved some things around in the GA categories so they make more sense. I will try at some point to go through all the subpages and make sure they all point to the right place. I think we can change the Template:GA/Topic template now, but let me know if something more needs to be done. AIRcorn (talk) 11:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Priyanka Chopra

Hello! The article is getting a lot better. I think you should check it and comment on its FAC. please, continue the Fac. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Priyanka Chopra/archive1 Prashant talk 16:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks much

Thanks for your help at Talk:Bale Out, — Cirt (talk) 22:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Missed seeing this thread somehow—sorry about that! Lots of GAs had been mis-categorized into 'Art and architecture' because they were given the vague 'topic=arts' parameter, so I've been working to give them more appropriate topics. Thanks for noticing my cleanup. Maralia (talk) 17:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Minor Barnstar
		Thanks for your efforts to create "article history" sections for so many GAs--it's a big job, and I appreciate your taking it on. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! GimmeBot used to perform this task, but has been AWOL for a couple of months, so I'm trying to make a dent in the backlog while writing up a plan for a replacement. It's probably foolish to bother doing any manually, but it feels irresponsible to just let them all go for months. Thanks for noticing; it's nice to be appreciated. Maralia (talk) 17:41, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

A thanks from me too. I didn't realise you were doing this manually until I popped over to Gimmis page to see what was happening to Gimmebot. If it is possible could you add the review process into this bots function. I left a request at User talk:Gimmetrow#Update the article history following Good article reassessments a few months ago. It is not a major as GARs are much less common than GANs, but it might be easier to code it all at once. We can adapt the closing instructions to the bot so don't worry about adhering to them too closely. If it is too tricky don't worry about it, we have survived for years now doing it manually. Thanks again. AIRcorn (talk) 18:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I will work that in to my request. I've been away on vacation for a week, so I have some catching up to do: finalizing the lookups for GA topics, catching up on articlehistory for closed GAs, and then the massive bot request. Maralia (talk) 02:30, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29

In honor of Women's History Month, the Smithsonian and the National Museum of Women in the Arts are teaming up to organize a Women in the Arts Meetup & Edit-a-thon on Friday, March 29, 2013 from 10:00am - 5:00pm. The event is focused on encouraging women editors while improving Wikipedia entries about women artists and art world figures. This event is free of charge, but participation is limited to 20 volunteers, so RSVP today! Sarasays (talk) 23:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Article history, etc

Hullo stranger! I saw you'd updated article history on an article I recently GA-reviewed (Pohl) and then noticed you'd been feverishly doing a bunch of them -- been a while since I reviewed at GAN but isn't a bot supposed to do that? Something down? Well anyway, tks for tidying up, as ever. BTW if you have another sec, our oldest FAC may just need another pass by someone with an eye for prose, per John's comment... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Doh, just noticed above re. Gimmebot -- didn't realise it was the same for GAN as for FAC. The new FAC bot has some teething troubles too, assigning credit/blame for who closed to the wrong people but you probably new that -- if it gets ironed out perhaps they can turn it to GAN as well... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, GA closes were yet another GimmeBot task. It would be fair to say that I have spent the past month and a half largely operating as a bot, without the benefit of any sort of automation. I'm working on a solution for the various bot tasks (and portions thereof) that have been going undone.

That FAC is interesting—I have made the trek to 'civilization' from a dry town in NJ on more than one occasion. I will try to find the time to take a look at the FAC. Maralia (talk) 03:03, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, April 13!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, April 13 at 5:30 PM All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 36. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 19:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks much

Thank you for your formatting help at the talk page for Dan Savage bibliography. Much appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 03:46, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

DC meetups on April 19 and 20

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for two exciting events this weekend:

On the evening of Friday, April 19, we're hosting our first-ever WikiSalon at our K Street office. The WikiSalon will be a twice-monthly informal meetup and collaborative editing event to help build the community of Wikimedia enthusiasts here in DC; please join us for its inaugural session. Light refreshments will be provided.

On Saturday, April 20, we've partnered with the George Washington University to host the All Things GW Edit-a-Thon at the Teamsters Labor History Research Center. Please join us for behind-the-scenes tours of the University Archives and help edit articles about GWU history.

We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these events! Kirill ^[talk] 20:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, May 11!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, May 11 at 5:30 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 23:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

DC WikiSalon on May 24

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of May 24 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 18:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!

Hi Maralia! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Webinar / edit-a-thon at the National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Join us at the NLM next week, either in person or online, to learn about NLM resources, hear some great speakers, and do some editing!

On Tuesday, 28 May there will be a community Wikipedia meeting at the United States National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland - with a second on Thursday, 30 May for those who can't make it on Tuesday. You can participate either in-person, or via an online webinar. If you attend in person, USB sticks (but not external drives) are ok to use.

Please go to the event page to get more information, including a detailed program schedule.

If you are interested in participating, please register by sending an email to [email protected]. Please indicate if you are coming in person or if you will be joining us via the webinar. After registering, you will receive additional information about how to get to our campus (if coming in-person) and details about how to join the webinar. Klortho (talk) 00:44, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

DC WikiSalon on June 6

Wikimedia DC invites you to join us for our next DC WikiSalon, which will be held on the evening of Thursday, June 6 at our K Street office.

The WikiSalon an informal gathering of Wikimedia enthusiasts, who come together to discuss the Wikimedia projects and collaboratively edit. There's no set agenda, and guests are welcome to recommend articles for the group to edit or edit on their own. Light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there! Kirill ^[talk] 11:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Have time on Saturday?

I'm sorry for the last-minute notice, but on Saturday, June 8, from 3 to 6 PM, Wikimedia DC and the Cato Institute are hosting a Legislative Data Meetup. We will discuss the work done so far by WikiProject U.S. Federal Government Legislative Data to put data from Congress onto Wikipedia, as well as what more needs to be done. If you have ideas you'd like to contribute, or if you're just curious and feel like meeting up with other Wikipedians, you are welcome to come! Be sure to RSVP here if you're interested.

I hope to see you there!

(You can unsubscribe from future notifications for D.C.-area events by removing your name from this list.)

Harej (talk) 04:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

DC meetup & dinner on Saturday, June 15!

Please join Wikimedia DC for a social meetup and dinner at Vapiano (near Farragut North/Farragut West) on Saturday, June 15 at 5:30 PM. All Wikipedia/Wikimedia and free knowledge/culture enthusiasts, regardless of editing experience, are welcome to attend! All ages welcome!

For more information and to sign up, please see the meetup page. Hope to see you there! Kirill ^[talk] 19:45, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Join us this Sunday for the Great American Wiknic!

	Great American Wiknic DC at Meridian Hill Park
	You are invited to the Great American Wiknic DC at the James Buchanan Memorial at Meridian Hill Park. We would love to see you there, so sign up and bring something fun for the potluck! :)

Boilerplate message generously borrowed from Wikimedia NYC. To unsubscribe from future DC area event notifications, remove your name from this list.

Harej (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)