User talk:David Levy

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Contents

Ambiguous statement[edit]

Re [1] due to the ambiguity of the indenting and the pronoun "that" I don't know what you're agreeing with. NE Ent 11:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I was responding to SergeWoodzing, who seconded my recommendation that users "read the two sections instead of relying on SergeWoodzing's account or mine." The indentation became ambiguous when Vanisaac accidentally inserted a reply above my message (instead of below it). —David Levy 12:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi there![edit]

Read your message on my talk page. No hard feelings at my end. Thanks for 'Fiona'! :) All the best to you. AnonNep (talk) 11:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you the David Levy that discovered the comet that hit Jupiter?[edit]

Shoemaker-Levy 9 (1994) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sagittarian Milky Way (talkcontribs) 04:38, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Nope. I'm an American with no claim to fame. —David Levy 12:00, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Enjoy![edit]

Weihnachten10.gif Happy Holiday Cheer
Season's Greetings! This message celebrates the holiday season, promotes WikiLove, and hopefully makes your day a little better. Spread the seasonal good cheer by wishing another user an Awesome Holiday and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone with whom you had disagreements in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Share the good feelings! Joys! Paine

Merry Christmas![edit]

Christmas tree.jpg
P snowflake.svg

Dear David Levy,
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Best wishes to you, your family and relatives this holiday season! Take this opportunity to bond with your loved ones, whether or not you are celebrating Christmas. This is a special time for everybody, and spread the holiday spirit to everybody out there! Face-smile.svg
From a fellow editor,
--Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook)

This message promotes WikiLove. Created by Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook).

Merry Christmas[edit]

Christmas tree sxc hu.jpg
Merry Christmas!!
Hello, I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year,

Thanks for all your help on the 'pedia! Face-smile.svg
   –Davey2010 Merry Xmas / Happy New Year 04:53, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Quick note - I hope you don't mind me posting here as I know we both got rather pissed at each other months ago, Anyway on a nicer note enjoy the rest of your day :)

Hi, This is BnPerdue16, I don't know how to leave a message so I'm hoping this will work. Anyway, Stennisville is NOT a hoax. It is real. It is where Napoleon used to be before they located the settlers off the land in the 1960's for the building of Stennis Space Center. Several homeless people continue to dwell there. It is located back in a thicket next to the space center. A barbed wire fence boarders it on one side and and the highway to Pearlington borders it on the other side. The reason I know about it is because my grandfather lived there for many years, and died there. I've seen it before. The workers at the space center are unaware of it, because the highway department are the ones who allow the homeless to stay there. there is a page for Napoleon at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon,_Mississippi . It is no longer referred to as Napoleon though, it is now called Stennisville. I suggest that you delete the page for Napoleon and replace it with the page that I created. Thank you so much for contacting me, and I hope we can get this all cleared up quickly :) -Benjamin Perdue (AKA BnPerdue16), Downers Grove, IL — Preceding unsigned comment added by BnPerdue16 (talkcontribs) 17:46, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Vice President of Ghana[edit]

Merge-arrows.svg

An article that you have been involved in editing, Vice President of Ghana, has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. →Enock4seth (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks yourself![edit]

I appreciate that you pay attention to the "forced bold lead" nonsense; it really drives me nuts. Plus the guy got it wrong, the poisoning was reported to the world press on the 11th, but occurred on the 9th. μηδείς (talk) 23:00, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, the resultant statement (that the poisoning occurred when when it was reported) was utterly nonsensical. Thanks again for reverting. —David Levy 23:11, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I've reverted a second time from a different user, so I added some hidden boilerplate and a comment on talk. I have also restored the pluperfect past where it was grammatically correct--it is odd how this scares people. So I ask you share the style-ogre burden and stay on top of the MOS:BOLDTITLE issue. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 03:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
You were mentioned at ANI when I asked that the IP vandal be blocked. μηδείς (talk) 18:30, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon[edit]

Saturday February 7 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg
Schomburg-center.jpg

You are invited to join us at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for our upcoming editathon, a part of the Black WikiHistory Month campaign (which also includes events in Brooklyn and Westchester!).

12:00pm - 5:00 pm at NYPL Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue), by W 135th St

The Wikipedia training and editathon will take place in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, with a reception following in the Langston Hughes lobby on the first floor of the building at 5:00pm.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

File:Historical.png listed for deletion[edit]

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Historical.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Add bs.wiki to the list[edit]

Hi David. Some time ago there was a discussion about adding bs.wiki on this list. If there are no further arguments against it, could you please perform this addition? Thanks. -- Edinwiki (talk) 18:14, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Done. —David Levy 18:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you David. Could you also please update the template for the main page interwikis? Regards -- Edinwiki (talk) 11:33, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Done. My apologies for forgetting. —David Levy 15:36, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

O great Main Page Picture Czar...[edit]

Prokopis Pavlopoulos is the top item in ITN, and has a valid pic to go with it. Can you update? Grassy ass. --Jayron32 00:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Done. —David Levy 01:25, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
You da man... --Jayron32 01:30, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference[edit]

Sunday March 22: Wikipedia Day NYC 2015
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg
2014 Barnard College Barnard Hall entrance facade.jpg

You are invited to join us at Barnard College for Wikipedia Day NYC 2015, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference for the project's 14th birthday. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

10:00pm - 9:00 pm at Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, by W 118th St

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 21:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

ITN image[edit]

I note you've updated the image to show one of the victims of the recent helicopter crash, for which thanks. But... there has been some discussion as to whether it is appropriate to highlight just one of the three notable deceased, when we have free images for all three. If the article is still pictured when you're next around could you possibly rotate in one of the other two? Many thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 22:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello! Indeed, I planned such a rotation (barring the addition of a new item with an image). In the past, I believe that we've usually waited about a day, so that's what I had in mind. Do you think that sooner would be better? —David Levy 23:19, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Excellent! I'd suggest rotating more frequently than 24 hours, if you've got the energy, to make it clear there's a rotation ongoing and reduce the likelihood of one being left out. 12 hours, perhaps -- if that works in your timezone, of course? (I really must get my head around how to protect main-page images if one isn't a Commons admin.) Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 23:36, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Instead of rotating the images manually, I set up some code to handle it automatically on a pseudo-random basis (with one in three odds of a particular image being displayed in a given page load). —David Levy 00:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
That's a very good solution, thank you. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Cascading protection on templates[edit]

I noticed you recently applied cascading protection to Template:In the news/random; I watch for this because cascading protection on templates is usually the wrong thing to do (details at WP:PROT#Protection of templates). In this case, it looks like you have already protected the intentional subtemplates, and further if it really does become transcluded onto Main Page then the main page's cascading protection will handle it (and do so correctly even if the template gets a /doc subpage). Is there a reason for the cascading protection on this template specifically that I'm missing? Anomie 18:33, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I cascaded the protection as a measure of redundancy. Did this cause some sort of harm that I'm missing?
In fact, Template:In the news/random exists purely to enable said redundancy and prevent the subpages thereof from having no immediate parent page; it isn't intended to serve any other purpose. Only the aforementioned subpages were transcluded at Main Page (via Template:In the news), and any future reuse (which is strictly hypothetical at this point) would be the same. —David Levy 23:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
The harm is only that protecting a template itself doesn't always behave like people would expect.
I note that Template:Random number is currently cascade-protected thanks only to this template. Template:Mod too, but that's already fully-protected so it doesn't matter so much. Anomie 21:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I hadn't noticed that {{random number}}'s protection level was reduced (and I'm not sure that it should have been, but that's a separate matter). I've removed the cascading protection. —David Levy 23:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

April 29: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday April 29, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our inaugural evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Featuring a keynote talk this month on Lady Librarians & Feminist Epistemologies! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Grass[edit]

Thanks for your help re Günter Grass ITN. Sca (talk) 21:10, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment on mk.wiki topic[edit]

Hello David. Can you take a look at my commment, including statistical facts about mk.wiki. I wrote it some time ago, so I hope it will be informative. Cheers --B. Jankuloski (talk) 18:33, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, I've been too busy to edit lately. I promise to look over the information when I have the time. If I forget again, please whack me with a wet fish. —David Levy 19:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Odd stuff at ITN images[edit]

Hi David, thanks for all your image work at ITN, but right now, at least in Safari, I'm seeing just one image and a } in the blurb. I have no idea what that crazy "random" syntax is up to, so perhaps you could fix it? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Despite this, it's still broken as far as I'm concerned.... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Drat. I was about to ask. Does it look exactly the same as before? Also, have you tried purging your cache? (If not, please click here to do it.). —David Levy 20:21, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Curly bracket gone, but just one image, I thought it was intended to show both images? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Due to server-side caching, the page's content isn't updated in real time. If you clear your client-side cache (an easy way being to use the "Reload this page" link in the OTD section), you should see the image change within a moment or two.
Apologies for the bracket error. I looked over and tested the code (with different results on my end, obviously) countless times, but I still managed to miss those curls. —David Levy 20:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Ok, bad curly bracket gone, but not seeing both images, was that the intent? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
For the record, I see either image when I reload the page a few times. It doesn't strictly alternate for me, but the two images do show somewhat randomly in succession. --Jayron32 20:53, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Never mind. For some reason now, the main page is only showing the man's image, while T:ITN is only showing the female image. Weird. --Jayron32 20:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, but WP:ITN is still showing a curly bracket. Perhaps we should just revert to a single normal image until we understand all this freakiness? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Did your subsequent dummy edit take care of the bracket issue on your end? —David Levy 21:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
The images are alternating, but not as frequently as last time. As far as I can tell, the servers currently are slower to update transclusions (including the two that you mentioned, which happened to differ).
Nonetheless, the swaps should still result in the display of each image approximately 50% of the time. —David Levy 21:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I reversed your edit[edit]

Based on MOS:BOLDTITLE. The media is calling it the Nepal earthquake. I mentioned the seismologists reports but it is not necessary to wait for them. I don't see how we're seeing this so differently, but I certainly see how you've spent a lot of energy on this. I don't think that's necessary either; we can both relax and move on. We simply bold the titles because its the given name. That's what the MoS says to do. Like I said, there's a few cases where earthquake articles have not done this. I have seen them and have not applied bold because of a lack of coverage. This one has media talking about it with this name. Dawnseeker2000 04:04, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I attempted to discuss the matter with you. I spent a great deal of time writing an explanation of my position, only to receive the curt reply "I don't know where you're going with this. It's fine. Have a great night." You then explicitly confirmed that you were "dismissing [my] concern" because you were "trying to relax". Only then (after being told by you – the reverter – that my input would be ignored) did I reinstate my edit.
And now you've reverted again (and again ignored my explanation and reiterated the same argument to which it was a response). This is unacceptable. You can either comply with Wikipedia's communication standards (by addressing good-faith questions and comments, as explained on the two pages to which I linked in the talk page edit that you reverted) or you can "relax" and dismiss the matter (effectively conceding the point). You can't have it both ways. —David Levy 04:21, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Nothing was conceded. We're somehow interpreting MOS:BOLDTITLE exactly the opposite. My evening consisted of replying to questions that shouldn't have to be answered. The MoS says "If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold as early as possible in the first sentence". After reading this, I dont understand what conversation there is to have, and felt bothered with all the banter. I feel like this is a simple item to follow and a non-issue, but here we are.
Someone recently told me that it's just about impossible to edit WP and not ruffle anyone's feathers, and that appears to be the case, though I absolutely try to avoid it. I'd rather spend my evenings in peace. Dawnseeker2000 04:40, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Please don't misunderstand. I don't mean that you changed your mind. I said that you effectively conceded the point by openly dismissing my good-faith concern. As noted above, only then did I reinstate the edit.
And please don't think that my intent was to wear you down or exploit your frustration. You expressed a desire to relax, which is perfectly reasonable. Had you written something along the lines of "I really need to rest and don't feel up to discussing this tonight. We can resume the conversation tomorrow.", I'd have had no objection. Instead, you declared that there would be no further discussion (and evidently expected this to conclude the matter, with your preferred outcome locked in).
I've attempted – in the text that you've dismissed – to explain why I disagree with your assertion that the article's title constitutes a formal or widely accepted name for the subject. (Incidentally, I wrote and proposed that portion of the guideline's language. It's somewhat amusing to be told that I've misinterpreted my own words.) —David Levy 05:10, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Cops article protected[edit]

Hi! I'm wondering about why Cops (TV series) article is still protected since December 12, 2014. I would like to make episodes section but I'm unable. I know I can send a request but it's just different. Why that protection? --Giacomo Sarrocco (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

December 12 is when I reverted a page move, which automatically transferred preexisting semi-protection from one title to the other. (That's why my name is mentioned in the log.)
A different administrator enacted the semi-protection in March 2013‎, for a reason that clearly no longer applies. Accordingly, I've removed it. —David Levy 11:02, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
Thank you very much! You've been very willing --Giacomo Sarrocco (talk) 12:41, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

June 10: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting[edit]

Wednesday June 10, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon / Wikimedia NYC Annual Meeting
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our next evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month will also feature on our agenda: recent and upcoming editathons, the organization's Annual Meeting, and Chapter board elections.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 16:06, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Today's TFA[edit]

Hi David, thanks for keeping an eye on TFA. I'm sorry, I didn't understand this rationale. - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

@Dank: My apologies for being unclear. Under several common display configurations, the text wraps below the image – only slightly, so it comes across as a glitch. Here's an example:
Those screenshots (derived via Windows 8.1) reflect the output of a full-screen Google Chrome window with the default text size at the 1920x1080 (1080p) resolution. The same or worse spillover can occur in other browsers, at some narrower resolutions, and when the window is not full-screen.
This cannot be prevented entirely, but the shorter the blurb, the less likely it is to wrap below the image. However, this is a relatively minor concern, far outweighed by the importance of preventing misunderstandings on the part of readers. I apologize if the shortened statement (which seemed unambiguous to me) was likely to convey one or more incorrect interpretations that I failed to consider. Thanks very much for spotting the problem and and undoing the edit. —David Levy 05:22, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Chris knows more about image issues than I do, so I'm pinging for his help with that issue. (Chris, the text that seems too long to David is 1065 chars; I typically aim for 1000 up to a max of 1250). My concern was that some readers would mentally locate both sets of incisors in the upper jaw ... my thinking (though I can't prove this) is that the 10M Main Page clickers are a very diverse group, and that I should be more explicit for them than, say, the typical reader who would pick one of our scientific articles and read all the way to the end. Glad to hear your thoughts on this. - Dank (push to talk) 12:52, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Re: the edit above: This is one of those situations where our lack of data on the average resolution with which people access Wikipedia is a problem. On my screen (Chrome; 1366*768), there are still six lines of text under the image. David's screen is considerably wider, leading to the issue he mentioned. People are on lower resolutions (1024 wide is common for netbooks) would have even more lines under the image, while someone on a larger display would end up with white space next to the image.
Personally, since the image was changed to a more "in your face" one, I'd have shrunk the image a bit more. 133px is generally for landscape oriented photographs which don't show up well otherwise. The current image would have been recognizable at smaller sizes. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@Crisco 1492: I'm aware that this is highly dependent on resolution and the other factors mentioned above. I'm quite mindful of this fact, so any relevant edit that I perform is based on the belief that it does more good than harm (and preferably does no harm at all). For example, I typically investigate reducing a section's length "to improve main page balance" when either the right- or left-hand column appears much longer than the other on my end, and I don't do so until after checking multiple configurations and ensuring that the opposite imbalance doesn't exist among them. Then I'm conservative in what I remove/add, typically leaving some (but less) of the original lopsidedness on my end (due to the likelihood that the change will be more significant for some users).
In the instance discussed above, the blurb was on the wrap-around cusp (making it likely to spill over only slightly, which is what resembles a layout glitch) for many users at my resolution and others with similar widths. I performed the edit on the basis that it would be beneficial in that circumstance and neutral for those with higher or lower resolutions (or a comparable disparity stemming from the other factors noted above). This, of course, relied on the premise that the trimmed sentence remained unambiguous.
Regarding the image, I used the 128x128px dimensions (by which the losslessly-cropped image's native 1024x1024px dimensions are evenly divisible, which theoretically maximizes the scaling's accuracy) to maintain approximately the same sizing that I found.
To provide a bit of backstory, I'll note that we settled on 100px as the page's default maximum image width (excluding TFP, obviously) in the interest of preventing the one-sentence blurbs present in ITN, DYK and OTD from being squeezed into narrow columns at lower resolutions. Later, we adopted a matching default image height to prevent portrait-oriented thumbnails from being wildly larger than their landscape-oriented counterparts. TFA always has received additional leeway, due to the section's editorial significance and its paragraph-based formatting. Notably, we never adopted the aforementioned 100px default maximum height at TFA, so portrait-oriented images routinely appear as substantially larger thumbnails than those of the other sections. For example, we began the month with a thumbnail measuring 100x166px – 16,600 square pixels. (The current image, at 128x128px, comprises 16,384 square pixels.) But I agree that 100x100px would be fine, so I'll go ahead and change it for the remainder of the day. —David Levy 17:55/18:06, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • The part about screen resolutions was more for Dank, actually; I recognized that, with the stuff you often do on the MP, you were certainly aware of the issue. Sorry I was unclear.
Re: image size. Tower House used the default size, so I'm not quite sure if it's directly comparable. Although the number of pixels remained the same, the dimensions were different enough that they may have had an effect on the line breaking. Anywho, any more discussion would be purely theoretical, since the image will be off the main page in less than an hour. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:22, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@Crisco 1492: You mentioned "David's screen", so I knew that you were addressing Dank. I just like to be thorough – or verbose, as I'm often reminded.  :)
Regarding the image, I'm sorry that I was unclear. I wasn't referring to the potential effects on line breaking. I was responding to your comments regarding the presentation of the image itself – specifically, sizing the thumbnail to show up well and ensure that its subject is recognizable. In the Tower House example, 75x125px would have accomplished that (and even 60x100px may have been acceptable, though that's a bit on the small side). But yes, there certainly are other factors to consider. —David Levy 00:26, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Hmmm... in the future I'll try and play with image sizes, to avoid having them too big or small. Might be better than "one size sorta fits all". We've been using individually determined sizes for POTD since mid-2013, I believe. I forget when I made the shift. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:45, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
@Crisco 1492: As a rule of thumb, a maximum size of roughly 10,000 square pixels (100x100px, 125x80px, 75x133px, etc.) usually works well. But given TFA's format (a single paragraph, included for only one day and almost never repeated) and the achievement that it reflects, I think that it's okay to go a bit beyond what's sufficient. —David Levy 04:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Formal titles[edit]

The uppercase "P" is correct, per our house style.

– This is contrary to (U.S., at least) media style and has been for decades. Perhaps our house style should be changed. AP Stylebook:
president Capitalize president only as a formal title before one or more names: President Obama, Presidents Clinton and Bush.
Lowercase in all other uses: The president said today. He is running for president. Lincoln was president during the civil war.
Of course the same rules apply to other formal titles. Sca (talk) 13:22, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I'm aware that our house style differs from that of most style guides (in the U.S., at least), though not in a respect evident in any of the quoted examples.
I don't know whether the convention varies elsewhere. If so, this is one of several circumstances in which we adhere to a project-wide style instead of varying it by English variety. —David Levy 13:40, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Do British pubs always capitalize president or other formal titles? Sca (talk) 17:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
I feel as though I'm missing some sort of joke. —David Levy 17:35, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

ITN image of Blatter[edit]

Curious why you changed the image from the original taken in 2013 to an older one from 2007. Though the updated file is named File:2014 FIFA Announcement (Joseph Blatter) 6.jpg, it is actually a 2007 photo from an announcement for the 2014 World Cup. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 00:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

In the past, we've received complaints about incongruously displaying photographs of people smiling in conjunction with blurbs about negative events in their lives.
In this instance, it's tempting to use an image like this, this or this, Sadly, the pursuit of neutrality isn't always compatible with that of amusement. So I selected a photo in which Blatter appears dignified (and in which he's facing frame-left, which is a plus). —David Levy 01:20, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
He won the election and was not fired. That's worth smiling :-)—Bagumba (talk) 01:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
I am reading your talk page, and laughing at item after item! This one was especially great, "In the past, we've received complaints about incongruously displaying photographs of people smiling in conjunction with blurbs about negative events in their lives." A separate, and unrelated question, which you could chide me about interjecting at this point: Why do you redirect your user page to your talk page on Wikimedia projects? I haven't checked on all of them (I'm not THAT compulsively curious!) but I noticed it on a few. Also, I wondered if the people who wished you Merry Christmas with big giant banners in the past were doing it as a form of mild trolling, as your name is so Jewish. I am Jewish too (I am Ellie Kesselman) so I am just wondering idly, not anti-Semitically, and found the possibility to be a somewhat amusing form of passive-aggressive trolling. I like a lot of your Commons work, by the way! --FeralOink (talk) 00:57, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Yangtze[edit]

Surely you don't attribute fallibility to my intuition? Face-grin.svg Sca (talk) 17:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
[icon appended 00:42, 6 June 2015‎ (UTC)]

In the statement to which you've referred, "this" = "the premise that U.S. readers are relatively unfamiliar with the Yangtze". —David Levy 17:35, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Horse Racimg[edit]

For a minute and 25 seconds American Pharoah was the best racimg horse out there! Face-smile.svg EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 02:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. Unpleasant things happen when my trusty red squiggle fails to appear. Face-smile.svgDavid Levy 02:24, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

TFL images[edit]

Yes, David, I am getting your messages. I'm trying to do the best I can at TFL, but I do make mistakes from time to time despite my best efforts. Thank you for cleaning up after me, and I'll try to be more careful with the photo parentheses from now on. Giants2008 (Talk) 16:08, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Template:TFAVIDEO[edit]

Can you please explain what this monster of a template is trying to achieve ? It's humongous and it's breaking videos on the mobile website version... If I know what it's purpose is, maybe I can help. See also phab:T101708TheDJ (talkcontribs) 18:17, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Given your tone, I'm tempted to inform you that my "idiocy" prevents me from formulating a cogent response.
Instead, I'll note that the template is essentially a combination of {{TFAIMAGE}} (whose place it took today) and {{plain image with caption}} (which may have been the problem's source). I just removed the template (after confirming that this would eliminate the display issue). —David Levy 19:12, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I never said it was your idiocy, i pretty much expected that it was copied idiocy :) What functionality do you need ?, just a 'plaintext' caption underneath the video ? —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 19:25, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, along with a fix for whatever problem still exists (see below). —David Levy 19:28, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Actually, with the current revision (containing the content of {{TFAIMAGE}} with thumbnail formatting and a timecode specified for the still frame), I'm still seeing some overlap in my mobile browser (despite the mobile version generating properly in my desktop browser). If you know how to fix it, that would be appreciated. I have no idea, as I've simply deployed others' code (which is beyond my full understanding) —David Levy 19:28, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I've started a simpler version in Template:TFAVIDEO/sandbox. The remaining issue you were seeing is due to the negative margins on the mp-tfa-img element. These negative margins are probably added to 'reduce' the standard margins on desktop around images, but mobile inline videos have no such margins to begin with.... TFA Images have similar problems, but they are not as visible I suspect.. I've implemented that slightly differently in the sandbox version. The params are 1: file, 2: size, 3:caption, thumbtime. —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 20:04, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
That seems like an improvement. Kaldari (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
That appears to have done the trick. Thanks! Would {{TFAIMAGE}} and/or the other main page sections' transclusions benefit from such a change? —David Levy 20:45, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Good. TFAIMAGE is using some different techniques (mostly because it doesn't require a caption), and it seems it does not require this kind of change right now. I've also added some documentation to the {{ TFAVIDEO }} template. And I have done some cleanup on {{Plain image with caption}} as well, because that was a really bad example, especially for something from only 2010. :) —TheDJ (talkcontribs) 21:50, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
All of the above is sincerely appreciated. Thanks again! —David Levy 21:55, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Example[edit]

133px

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

July 8: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday July 8, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month will also feature on a review of past and upcoming editathons, including Black Lunch Table Editathon @ MoMA on July 13.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 05:45, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Thanks for correcting licensing info[edit]

Thanks for helping out at the Falcon 9 explosion page. I was about to correct it and you came first. --Fazbear7891 (talk) 03:20, 29 June 2015 (UTC) LGBT flag square.svg

ITN numbers[edit]

Hi David, yesterday you changed all the numbers to words, today you changed them all to numerals. What's your guidance on how we could be more consistent? Stephen 07:38, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Hello! Per MOS:NUMERAL, consistency is desirable when dealing with comparable quantities (human death counts, in this instance). For explanatory purposes, four scenarios are possible:
A) If all are ≥ 10 and all are expressible in one or two words, neither format is preferable.
B) If any are < 10 and all are expressible in one or two words, words are preferable.
C) If all are ≥ 10 and any are not expressible in one or two words, numerals are preferable.
D) If any are < 10 and any are not expressible in one or two words, numerals are preferable. (Single-digit numerals are considered acceptable in that context. So are spelled-out numbers expressed in more than two words, but the community seems to regard the latter as the greater of two evils – in part because the MoS doesn't permit the "and" construct that many people prefer.)
Yesterday, an update increased a blurb's death count from "more than 140" to "more than 200"/"more than two hundred", resulting in scenario B. Today, a new blurb restored "140" to the mix (coincidentally), resulting in scenario D.
For practical purposes, this can be simplified greatly.
  • If any of the comparable quantities are not expressible in one or two words, use numerals for all of them. Otherwise:
  • If any of the comparable quantities are lower than 10, use words for all of them.
  • If neither rule applies, use numerals or words (not a combination of both) for all comparable quantities. —David Levy 10:51, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Prosecutor General[edit]

Hi David, no great issue but why shouldn't this be capitalised? I looked at analogies, like United States Attorney General and Prosecutor General of Russia and other sources which note the AG as fully capitalised, so why should the Egyptian position be any different? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Per MOS:JOBTITLES, we style such a term in lowercase when it's used generically. ("Hisham Barakat, Egypt's prosecutor general" is analogous to the example "Mitterrand was the French president". This wording is appropriate, given the link's generic target.)
We capitalize it when it precedes the relevant person's name ("Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat") or appears as part of a formal title ("Prosecutor General of Egypt"). We also capitalize it if it's "used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name", but that's more likely to apply in cases along the lines of "the Queen" or "the Prime Minister". —David Levy 21:29, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Sunday August 2: WikNYC Picnic[edit]

Sunday August 2, 1-7pm: WikNYC Picnic
Wiknic logo.svg
Prospect Park Bartel-Pritchard Circle Columns.jpg

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.

1pm–7pm - come by any time! @ Bartel-Pritchard Square entrance (Prospect Park West and 15th St), immediately on the lawn to your left as you walk through the lovely lotus columns.
Subway: NYCS-bull-trans-F.svg NYCS-bull-trans-G.svg to 15th Street – Prospect Park (IND Culver Line)

We hope to see you there! --Pharos (talk) 03:31, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

(Bonus event: WikiWednesday Salon @ Babycastles - Wednedsay, August 19)

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T:ITN[edit]

So it's a new consensus format? I assumed that it had gotten updated by someone who wasn't familiar with the Main Page's normal working and added a caption as in an article, instead of the Main Page standard of (pictured). People are always so picky about where the italics go (italicise the parentheses, don't italicise the parentheses), and I can't remember, so I just skip them entirely and wait for someone else to add them. Nyttend (talk) 14:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that; I was completely unaware of the discussion. Thanks for helping me understand. I don't watch Talk:MP and don't remember the last time I participated in any discussions about it, aside from WP:ERRORS. Nyttend (talk) 20:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

August 19: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday August 19, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 15:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

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Please remove "cascading" protection from Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Protection[edit]

Please remove "cascading" protection from Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Protection. As of April 2013, it is marked as historical so it may not need any protection at all.

In April 2013 you protected it and added "cascading" protection, which effectively fully-protects Template:Historical. Normally that template would only be semi-protected. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Done. Apologies for the oversight. —David Levy 01:56, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

ITN images[edit]

Hi David, just a note to say thanks to you and The Rambling Man for working out the new method of adding images to ITN. Much, much easier than a local upload. Cheers, Stephen 23:04, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Brilliant Idea Barnstar Hires.png What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
I agree completely. Have one of these things, and thank you. --Bongwarrior (talk) 03:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

You're ...[edit]

... being paged. Sca (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

September 16: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday September 16, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month, we will also host a Newcomer's Wiki Workshop for those getting started on the encyclopedia project!

We hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

Featuring a keynote talk this month to be determined! We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 15:11, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Bonus events, RSVP now for our latest upcoming editathons:

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Images at TFA[edit]

You've made most of the edits to images at TFA this month IIRC. Before August, I was tentatively assigning captions and adding "pictured" as needed, but I've never been comfortable with image issues, and after the August discussions about captions, I'd rather step back from doing anything with images at TFA, at least for a while. I'm not positive, but it appears Chris and Brian are hesitant as well. Would you like to make those calls for the rest of September? - Dank (push to talk) 22:07, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dank: Absolutely. And if you'd like me to continue beyond September, I'd be glad to. I perform similar edits at ITN and DYK (and occasionally OTD and TFL) as needed, so including TFA in the mix is no problem at all. —David Levy 23:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks a truckload. Thoughts, Chris and Brianboulton? - Dank (push to talk) 23:33, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I've been swamped IRL (yeah, that hoped-for break didn't happen) so I haven't followed developments to the images. It's fine with me if David wants to go through the images as well. More eyes (hopefully) means fewer mistakes get through. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
Breaking news: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 19, 2015 was just swapped out. - Dank (push to talk) 12:58, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

VW update[edit]

Thanks, great job. It's nice to see at least one part of the main page being so carefully maintained. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Saturday October 3: WikiArte Latin America Edit-a-thon @ MoMA[edit]

Saturday October 3: WikiArte Latin America Edit-a-thon @ MoMA
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg
Black Lunch Table Editathon MoMA July 2015 105.jpg

You are invited to join us for a full Saturday (drop-in any time!) of social Wikipedia editing at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for our upcoming "WikiArte" Latin America Edit-a-thon, for Wiki Arte y Cultura Latinoamericana, a communal day of creating, updating, improving, and translating Wikipedia articles about Latin American art and culture.

11:00am - 5:00 pm (drop-in anytime!) at MoMA Cullman Education and Research Building, 4 West 54th Street

All are invited, with no specialized knowledge of the subject or Wikipedia editing experience required. We will provide training sessions and resources for beginner Wikipedians, WiFi, reference materials, and suggested topics, as well as childcare and refreshments.

Please bring your laptop, power cord, and ideas for articles that need to be updated, translated, or created. You are welcome to edit all day or drop by to show your support, and to follow #WikiArte on social media!

Trainings for new and less experienced Wikipedia editors will be offered (in English) at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. Tutorials and resources in Spanish will be available online, and participants are also encouraged to work on the Spanish and Portuguese language editions of Wikipedia.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 10:33, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

P.S. Next event, October 15 - Women in Architecture editathon @ Guggenheim

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Thursday October 15: Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon @ Guggenheim (drop-in any time, noon-8pm!)[edit]

Thursday October 15: Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon @ Guggenheim
Women in Architecture Guggenheim Logo.jpg
NYC - Guggenheim Museum.jpg

You are invited to join us for a full afternoon and evening of social Wikipedia editing at the Guggenheim (drop-in any time, noon-8pm!), during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles covering the lives and works of women in architecture.

noon - 8pm (drop-in anytime!) at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Garrett Lobby @ 1071 5th Ave by E 88 St

In conjunction with Archtober and New York Archives Week, the Guggenheim will host its third Wikipedia edit-a-thon—or, #guggathon— to enhance articles related to women in architecture on Wikipedia. The Guggenheim aims to further the goals of Ada Lovelace Day for STEM, and Art+Feminism for art, in a field that, by its nature combines both.

The Guggenheim will work alongside ArchiteXX, the founders of WikiD: Women Wikipedia Design #wikiD, the international education and advocacy program working to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on women in architecture and the built environment. New and experienced editors are welcome.

Can’t join us in New York? Visit our global partnerships page to discover an edit-a-thon in a city near you or simply join remotely.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 19:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Thursday October 15: Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon @ Guggenheim (drop-in any time, noon-8pm!)[edit]

Thursday October 15: Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon @ Guggenheim
Women in Architecture Guggenheim Logo.jpg
NYC - Guggenheim Museum.jpg

You are invited to join us for a full day and evening of social Wikipedia editing at the Guggenheim (drop-in any time, noon-8pm!), during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles covering the lives and works of women in architecture.

noon - 8pm (drop-in anytime!) at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Garrett Lobby @ 1071 5th Ave by E 88 St

In conjunction with Archtober and New York Archives Week, the Guggenheim will host its third Wikipedia edit-a-thon—or, #guggathon—to enhance articles related to women in architecture on Wikipedia. The Guggenheim aims to further the goals of Ada Lovelace Day for STEM, and Art+Feminism for art, in a field that, by its nature combines both.

The Guggenheim will work alongside ArchiteXX, the founders of WikiD: Women Wikipedia Design #wikiD, the international education and advocacy program working to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on women in architecture and the built environment. New and experienced editors are welcome.

Can’t join us in New York? Visit our global partnerships page to discover an edit-a-thon in a city near you or simply join remotely.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 19:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

AB InBev – Miller[edit]

discussions about the evilness and/or ignorance of Americans can go on elsewhere

– David, I hope you realize that the discussion was not about evilness or ignorance, it was about making the blurb readily understandable to our global English-speaking audience. The author of the above statement read something into it that wasn't there at all as far as I was concerned. Sca (talk) 21:44, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
Sca: Agreed. Jayron's edit summary surprised me, as I perceived nothing of the sort (and I'm American). —David Levy 23:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
TNX. Best, Sca (talk) 00:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
Per both of your reasonable requests, I have restored the discussion so you may continue to contribute to it. --Jayron32 01:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.[edit]

Peacedove.svg

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. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! This is relation to the Talk:Edgar Allan_Poe#On_the_precise_description_of_Poe_and_Others dispute. I am not the filing party. Cheers, Drcrazy102 (talk) 00:07, 16 October 2015 (UTC) PS. I fixed some bad coding/formatting on the page that messed with the VisualEditor display

A barnstar for you![edit]

Peace Barnstar Hires.png The Barnstar of Diplomacy
Thanks for defending me (and yourself) from the spurious accusations "Dr. Crazy" made accusing us of "personal attacks. You did so with firmness AND grace, DC's last rant about "hounding" notwithstanding. Keep up the good work! Hallward's Ghost (Kevin) (My talkpage) 04:11, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

DYK padding[edit]

David Levy, can you please move that padded hook you just added to the DYK set on the main page so it isn't in the final position? The DYK hook sets try to feature a "quirky" hook last, and a double suicide is the sort of depressing hook we try to avoid. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Done. —David Levy 23:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you again; much appreciated. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Oct 28: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday October 28, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month, we will also host a Newcomer's Wiki Workshop for those getting started on the encyclopedia project!

We will also include a look at our annual plan and budget ideas, to see if the chapter is able to fiscally sponsor more ongoing projects tied to our core mission of expanding and diversifying free knowledge.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 17:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Bonus events, RSVP now for our latest upcoming editathons:

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Your lede in Poe bio[edit]

Hi David,

You might have noticed that the Poe discussion is closed now that we have an agreement on using your lede. I have edited the Poe bio to include that lede. Please take a look when you get a chance. JoePeschel (talk) 18:40, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Joe. —David Levy 18:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

TQ[edit]

Should probably move the block one to {{Talk blockquote}} (and give it a {{tbq}} shortcut). It's hard to remember which is which.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  05:31, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I've confused them once or twice. I agree that the distinction should be more obvious and less arbitrary. —David Levy 05:39, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

[edit]

Hi David, please see https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2015-November/009916.html. Would you be willing to lead a discussion and/or add the appropriate tags to make Template:Main Page banner appear on the mobile site's main page? --Pine 23:05, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello! When it comes to handling this request without misunderstanding/breaking something, I'm more confident in Edokter's ability than I am in my own. —David Levy 04:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  • OK, I've put a note on his talk page. Thanks. --Pine 05:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 15, 2015‎[edit]

Great work on images. Would you prefer to keep handling image issues solo, or should we recruit someone to help us? I'm trying to avoid ERROR reports of any kind, when possible. - Dank (push to talk) 00:48, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Corinne, obviously I'm not in any position to assign work to you, but you've been doing a great job at TFA so I'm giving you first right of refusal on this job. There was a change in the way TFA handles captions in August after a discussion at Talk:Main Page. Nowadays, sometimes there are captions, sometimes (pictured) appears in the TFA text, sometimes with additional text. Sometimes we have both. I confess to having a short fuse with image issues of all kinds, and I just prefer not to think about it. David Levy has been in charge of handling these and other image issues, but I'd like to recruit some extra help (just with captions and the (pictured) text, not with the images themselves). You can get an idea of what's needed by looking at this month's TFAs at WP:TFAA. Are you interested in the job? - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
Dank: Apologies for the delay in implementing today's formatting. I've been in the habit of performing these edits to one or two subpages at a time, often shortly before one goes live. In this instance, I was distracted by an offline matter, so I didn't get the changes saved until 00:14 UTC. (I noticed the 00:12 error report afterward.) In the interest of preventing future tardiness, I intend to build and maintain additional lead time.
In my view, it's appropriate for any user in good standing to improve content in accordance with the community's standards, so I consider all such edits welcome. If Corinne wishes to accept the above invitation, I believe that this would be helpful. —David Levy 17:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
Sure, that sounds good to me. Thanks for your help with this David, you've been doing a great job. - Dank (push to talk) 18:10, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I'd love to do that. I skimmed the entire page at Talk:Main Page, however, and didn't see anything specific regarding a policy change on captions. Can you point me to what it was you wanted me to read? I also looked at this month's TFAs at WP:TFAA and saw that November 1 had no image, November 2 had an image but no caption, November 3 had two images, with "pictured left" and "pictured right" in the summary, and November 4 had an image with a caption. I guess that kind of sums up the variety. I think I'll need some guidance. How do I do this? What is that new policy regarding captions? Corinne (talk) 21:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if it will help, but the links are Talk:Main_Page/Archive_185#Captions and Talk:Main_Page/Archive_185#I need your suggestions on these captions. If the image is a picture of the subject of the article, we generally don't use a caption. Other than that ... I get confused. - Dank (push to talk) 22:23, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
I read both discussions. In the first one, there seems to be, sort of, a consensus:
(a) If the image is a picture of the subject of the article, generally no caption is needed; and
(b) if there is a chance that the reader will not know what the image is illustrating, it's all right to add a caption or, possibly, (pictured). It seems to be left to the judgment of the person who generally writes the captions. Does that sound right?
I still don't understand what I am supposed to be doing.
1) Do I add captions (as needed) or (pictured), when appropriate, to all TFA summaries, or just some? If just to some, how do I know which? (I mean, I know that not all images will get captions or even (pictured) in the text. What I mean is, will I be responsible for making this determination and writing necessary captions for all TFA summaries or just for some?) Corinne (talk) 23:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
2) When do I add captions, etc. – before the summary has been shortened/copy-edited or after?
3) Is there some kind of deadline for each one, and, if so, what is it? Corinne (talk) 23:33, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
I think what David is saying is that he expects he can generally keep up. He's only been behind on the work a few times, so I expect he doesn't need a lot of help, that's up to him. For now, just watch his work on TFA captions. I'll come back to this in a couple of weeks to see if David's comfortable with the workload, and if the process is making more sense to you, after you've had some time to study it. - Dank (push to talk) 01:10, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
O.K. Corinne (talk) 14:26, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Any questions or comments regarding my edits are welcome, of course. —David Levy 17:15, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Further thoughts? If you're happy, I'm happy. - Dank (push to talk) 14:55, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
All seems well on my end.  :) —David Levy 15:02, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Sunday Nov 22: Soviet Jewry Edit-a-thon & Women In Science Edit-a-thon[edit]

Two options for this Sunday: Soviet Jewry Edit-a-thon & Women In Science Edit-a-thon
Metal pin from the Papers of Jerry Goodman, “Free Soviet Jews”.jpg
Women scientists- standing.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for one of two edit-a-thons this Sunday, just bring your laptop and an interest in participating!

No special knowledge of the subject or Wikipedia knowledge is required, and there will be Wikipedia training workshops for new folks.


Soviet Jewry Edit-a-thon @ Center for Jewish History

  • 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
  • 11:00 am - 4:00 pm, Sun Nov 22

Join at the Center for Jewish History (drop-in any time!), during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to the American Soviet Jewry movement.


Women In Science Edit-a-thon @ NY Academy of Sciences

  • 7 World Trade Center - 40th Floor
  • 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Sun Nov 22

Join at the NY Academy of Sciences, during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to the lives and works of women scientists. Note that seating is limited for the Women in Science event, as well as signing up on-wiki, please RSVP by email.


Bonus event:

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

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ArbCom elections are now open![edit]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Dec 9: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC; Dec 12: Art & Law editathon + Dec 13: Black Film editathon[edit]

Wednesday December 9, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month, we will also host a Newcomer's Wiki Workshop for those getting started on the encyclopedia project!

We will also include a look at our annual plan and budget ideas, and welcome input from community members on the sorts of projects the chapter should support through both volunteer and budgetary efforts.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! (One talk this month will be on use of Wikipedia press passes for photographers.) Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 13:38, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


Bonus events, RSVP now for our upcoming editathons:

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Sibelius[edit]

I woke up to the swap of the queues and am not happy. The idea was to celebrate Sibelius on his birthday with as many hooks and images as possible. You will know that on 12 December we will have two sets with two different images which will ALL deal with Frank Sinatra. Modesty for Sibelius: only one hook each set. Can the pictured one please be in queue 4?? The image in the TFA fits that article but is not THE image for Sibelius. IF we get a different hook for the composer, that could go with the image, unless the alternative image is preferred. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:26, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

We almost always seek to avoid covering similar subjects in more than one main page section simultaneously, even on special occasions. (For example, a holiday mentioned at TFA, TFP or TFL is omitted from OTD.) Normally, we also try to avoid highlighting something that appeared on the main page recently (by spreading out similar material as much as possible), but I made an exception in recognition of the 150th birthday.
I'd overlooked the blurb in queue 3. I just swapped it into queue 2 and added another Sibelius image (replacing the photograph of Sarah Kalley, which you correctly described as "pale"). This sets up forty-eight consecutive hours of Sibelius content on the main page (including its most prominent slot on his birthday), with his likeness appearing throughout. I sincerely hope that you consider this acceptable. (To me, the commemoration actually seems more noticeable this way.) —David Levy 10:14, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
I like what you did in spreading it out! However, the TFA - as even the main author would agree - covers a very a-typical work with a very a-typical image, and is more or less a place-holder for the composer who didn't quite make it to FA in time. My ideal would be to run the approved Cassazione hook in queue 3 (instead of Snöfrid) and have the (not yet approved) Sibelius hook ALT4 as lead in Q4, to make his political influence better known, and more of his music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
I think that I understand your point regarding the work's atypical nature, but I'm using the phrase "similar subjects" in a much broader sense. In this context, two articles about British prime ministers, bird species, or destructive storms would be considered similar.
Given the time sensitivity, I've added the Cassazione hook to queue 2, where its quirkiness makes it a good fit at the bottom. If the remaining Sibelius hook is approved in time, I suggest placing it first in queue 5, with the Voces intimae hook shifted to the bottom. —David Levy 11:16, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
In a way, I would almost like to have the TFA swapped to the 9th and give readers on the birthday some real Sibelius instead of the spurious Eighth but that may be just me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
Keep in mind that many readers of the Symphony No. 8 (Sibelius) article will click through to the Jean Sibelius article to read about Sibelius and his other works. —David Levy 11:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
That was my assumption too. It was therefore important for the biography to reach GA in time. I also think presenting various DYKs on Sibelius over the next few days or weeks will reinforce interest in the composer. If we had a string of DYKs in addition to the TFA today, I don't think many people would bother to look at them all. (Ditto the DYK overkill on Sinatra.) So I fully support your decision. I also sincerely appreciate Brianboulton's efforts in planning ahead and making sure Sibelius appeared as TFA. Even if people don't turn up the full biography, the summary of S's life in the article on the eighth symphony provides an excellent overview. Thanks for sorting everything out.--Ipigott (talk) 08:28, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Editing the DYK queues[edit]

As you are obviously unfamiliar with the way the DYK Queues function, I would like to give you some tips to prevent problems like those created this morning.

  1. When you move a hook from the "Hooks" section of one queue to another queue, the associated credit information in the "Credits" section also needs to be moved. DYKUpdateBot is good, but it is well short of the level of artificial intelligence needed to divine the information needed to provide DYK credits from just the information in the hooks. This also applies to moves between prep areas as well as moves from a prep area to a queue.
  2. When you promote a hook to a queue (e.g. [2]), you need to copy the credit information along with the hook and also close the nomination you got the hook from. Instructions for this procedure are available at Template talk:Did you know#How to promote an accepted hook.
  3. Please remove any "(pictured)" comments from a hook you promote if the hook is not being placed in the first (image) slot.

As always, please feel free to ask for help at Wikipedia talk:Did you know when you find yourself in over your head with DYK related issues. --Allen3 talk 13:33, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips (though I presume that you overlooked the image's relevance to the last hook). Sincere apologies for the errors and any problems that resulted therefrom. My past DYK edits have been simpler. In this instance, I sought to preserve a special commemoration of Jean Sibelius's 150th birthday, which required extensive editing of a time-sensitive nature.
If I may offer some advice in return, I suggest that DYK's denizens give the upcoming main page content (particularly TFA) a cursory glance to ensure that you haven't scheduled a hook on a related topic – including a second picture of a person – for the same day. That way, an administrator unfamiliar with the section's procedures won't have to wade in and attempt to resolve the issue at the last minute. —David Levy 14:21, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Paris Agreement[edit]

He David, quite a "copy-edit" you made to the In the News-item on COP21. In principle no problem of course, but I am not sure if this is correct. 195 countries + EU could send delegates, but did they all come? At least they did not all present credentials we know, so formal voting would have left quite a few out. Could you think of a rephrase (I would do it myself, but it seems only admins can change)? L.tak (talk) 16:59, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much for bringing this concern to my attention. I based the wording on statements by reliable sources (including those cited in our articles). Of course, it's quite possible that they're wrong on this detail, just as some of them were in reporting the involvement of 196 countries.
I've substituted "parties to the UNFCCC". Thanks again. —David Levy 17:21, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I think COP21 managed to get their message of "for the first time" and "universal" well across the media, even though that's only one way of qualifying the event. The problem is in these events that we either perform original research by interpreting ourselves, or use older background articles, or use the fast pace of news outlets. That all has its disadvantages... L.tak (talk) 17:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2015 December 12#File:2015 Climate Conference.svg[edit]

Why is the discussion inappropriate? We are discussing just one image in general. Can you reopen it? --George Ho (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @George Ho: It's stated that the "forum" is inappropriate, not the discussion. Mlpearc (open channel) 20:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Still, we can't depend on older discussions any longer, can we? --George Ho (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
@George Ho: You seem to have misunderstood. As Mlpearc noted, I closed the discussion because the forum (TfD) was inappropriate; the deletion rationale is applicable to every fair-use SVG appearing in Wikipedia, not to "just one image" in particular. You're welcome to raise your concern (and propose a policy change to disallow the use of non-free SVGs) at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). —David Levy 21:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I started a central discussion at the Village pump. Finnertop concurs that the closure was too soon. If you won't undo the closure, I'll do the deletion review soon. --George Ho (talk) 07:13, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I just reduced the level of detail in the SVG's Eiffel Tower portion. Does this address your concern? —David Levy 15:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
That addresses my concern in the discussion, at least. Whether you reduced the level of detail too much or too little is a matter of discussion. It is unfortunate that we do not have a standard way of determining if an SVG file is too big or too small for WP:NFCC#3b. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I get the logic of changing the image size to 240px at 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. However, that doesn't change anything. I still want to change the default thumbsize to 100% preferred pixels, i.e. upright=1. I don't wanna edit war with you. I'm unsure how the reason is "good" per WP:IUP other than size, which isn't good enough for me. --George Ho (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You complained that an image was being displayed at a size too large (which it was). Then you reverted an edit that made it smaller. Now you're complaining about a size in line with that which is recommended for non-free images, which a vast majority of readers (those not logged in) would receive by default anyway. To be blunt, George, I don't know what would be good enough for you. —David Levy 15:36, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
We can't force 220px readers, including unsigned ones, to view it at 240px. Same for 300px. However, these size are meant for all content, including free content. Theo's Little Bit can do the job for us without problems. I can view a PNG's maximum size at bigger size preference (250px at 400px or 300px) Now I can confirm that you implicitly won't undo the closure. Would doing the DRV now be forum shopping? If not, I'm gonna do it soon. George Ho (talk) 18:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
We can't force 220px readers, including unsigned ones, to view it at 240px. Same for 300px. However, these size are meant for all content, including free content. Theo's Little Bit can do the job for us without problems. I can view a PNG's maximum size at bigger size preference (250px at 400px or 300px)
Again, 240px is the exact width at which the infobox renders the image for "220px readers, including unsigned ones", by default (with no size specified manually). In this instance, it also results in in image size close to (slightly above, in fact) that which is recommended (as a rule of thumb) for non-free images. In other words, a PNG would be capped at about that size.
And with the detail reduction, obvious deficiencies emerge at significantly greater sizes (which is the point).
Now I can confirm that you implicitly won't undo the closure.
In response to the relevant message, I asked whether the aforementioned detail reduction addressed your concern. You appear to have replied in the affirmative. On what basis do you still consider the FfD discussion necessary? —David Levy 18:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Details aren't important to me. The way infoboxes transclude files affect the content more than some "detail", like sharpness, for which I don't care. I'm more concerned about pixels more than anybody else does. If the infobox image size goes big, the alignment is affected. If the image size is forced and fixed, the principle of the WP:IUP would be violated. As for the FFD, it's just one image as a test for SVG vs PNG, but everybody still wanted to keep the SVG with less details, affecting the SVG's quality. --George Ho (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Details aren't important to me.
To my knowledge, we haven't gotten around to adding the criterion "important to George Ho" to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. We've been too busy with trivialities like copyright law.
If the infobox image size goes big, the alignment is affected.
This is among the reasons why your attempts "to let scale vary freely" are baffling.
If the image size is forced and fixed, the principle of the WP:IUP would be violated.
Your understanding of that policy is severely lacking.
To satisfy fair use requirements, We must restrict the display of non-free images. Your apparent belief that readers' freedom to choose their thumbnail sizes takes precedence is entirely incorrect.
As for the FFD, it's just one image as a test for SVG vs PNG, but everybody still wanted to keep the SVG with less details, affecting the SVG's quality.
You knew perfectly well that the matter had been discussed previously (and even participated in at least one of the discussions). This doesn't mean that it mustn't be raised again, but that isn't FfD's purpose. It's a forum in which Wikipedia's established practices are followed, not one in which they're proposed or applied experimentally after repeated rejections by the community. —David Levy 01:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I am aware of the consequences. We just don't want to game it to prove our point. --George Ho (talk) 18:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

What on Earth are talking about? I'm at a loss. —David Levy 18:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
One of my edits that you reverted at the COP21 page. George Ho (talk) 20:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Please elaborate. —David Levy 20:43, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
You shrank the image, but then I eliminated the "image_size" parameter to let scale vary freely, depending on preference. --George Ho (talk) 00:00, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the recap. Now can you please explain how your message with the timestamp "18:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)" (the meaning of which remains a mystery) relates to that series of events? —David Levy 01:13, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Sigh. I guess I wasn't very elaborate, so I'm striking that out. What about what you said, "I'm sure that you're acting in good faith, but you seem confused and/or unaware of your edit's full effects"? Do you mean letting the size go large or what? George Ho (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
My impression was that you were unaware of how large the image became for some users and/or that my removal of detail resulted in significant quality degradation at such a pixel size (which was the point). If neither was the case, your edit is all the more baffling. —David Levy 10:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
What is detail actually? Removing lines and changing computers codes or what? Reducing pixels? Is PNG format used to transclude SVG files? George Ho (talk) 02:02, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

By the way, even fixing a size wouldn't change how SVG images are transcluded in infoboxes. George Ho (talk) 04:42, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean? —David Levy 10:33, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
If I don't make sense to you, how do infoboxes works for images? I can't explain infobox images well, so what do you know about infobox images (in size terms)? George Ho (talk) 01:59, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
(watching) You would best get away from fixed image sizes, anyway. Good infoboxes have |image_upright= which takes a factor (such as 1.3 for large or 0.7 for small), thus taking a user's preferences into account. Example: Rakastava. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:26, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 14, 2015‎[edit]

Aren't readers going to be confused about something identified as a "battle" site when the TFA text says there was no bloodshed? - Dank (push to talk) 23:39, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I've modified the caption to note that the battle was bloodless. —David Levy 23:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2015 December 12#File:2015 Climate Conference.svg 2[edit]

Would you care to explain your closure? You wrote that "Infinite resolution is an intrinsic characteristic of vector graphics" but this is not true; SVG files always have a finite number of vectors, so the resolution is always finite. You also wrote that "A proposal to replace fair-use SVGs with non-scalable images should be made at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and advertised prominently" but no one has suggested that the file necessarily has to be replaced by a "non-scalable image". The request was that the file has to be replaced by a different file which satisfies WP:NFCC#3b, but that replacement file can use any file format, including SVG. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

@Stefan2:
You wrote that "Infinite resolution is an intrinsic characteristic of vector graphics" but this is not true; SVG files always have a finite number of vectors, so the resolution is always finite.
I should have been more precise in my wording. I was referring to pixel resolution, not spatial resolution. I'll try to remember to use the term "pixel count" instead.
You also wrote that "A proposal to replace fair-use SVGs with non-scalable images should be made at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and advertised prominently" but no one has suggested that the file necessarily has to be replaced by a "non-scalable image".
The nominator did, quite explicitly.

"I believe that the format is too superior to make the use 'fair'. Shall we use the PNG format instead?"

He then actually replaced the the SVG with a PNG in the article.
The request was that the file has to be replaced by a different file which satisfies WP:NFCC#3b, but that replace file can use any file format, including SVG.
That's why I reduced the SVG's level of detail, as noted in the section whose heading you duplicated. (I've appended "2".) —David Levy 17:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't notice that you reduced the SVG's level of detail, and I didn't see the other discussion on your talk page. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:02, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
No worries.  :) —David Levy 18:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Correction: I added the PNG as a second image and then removed it. I have left the SVG in there in hope of consensus, not knowing that you would close it. George Ho (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

My apologies for failing to realize that you actually did something patently ridiculous and flagrantly non-complaint with policy. —David Levy 18:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas from 50.179.194.186[edit]

Xmas Ornament.jpg

50.179.194.186 (talk) 22:53, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Saturday January 16: Wikipedia Day NYC Celebration and Mini-Conference[edit]

Saturday January 16: Wikipedia Day NYC 2016
Wikipedia15 Animated Mark - English.gif
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join us at New York University for Wikipedia Day NYC 2016, a Wikipedia celebration and mini-conference as part of Wikipedia 15, the project's global 15th birthday festivities. In addition to the party, the event will be a participatory unconference, with plenary panels, lightning talks, and of course open space sessions.

We also hope for the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

10:00am - 7:00 pm at NYU ITP Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway (between Waverly and Washington Place)

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 17:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and happy new year[edit]

Merry Christmas and happy new year. (:

--Pine

Carefull...[edit]

...not to leave hanging divs. The (div based) 2015 main page is very unforgiving about these (so a very good place to check formatting). Merry Christmas! -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 09:20, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Image size[edit]

You should know better then to use custom images sizes for one specific display type... I still believe non-HiDPI and desktop screens outnumber the HiDPI ones, which ususally have excellent upscaling anyway. So why shoud the rest look at a way too small image instead? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:57, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

On every applicable smartphone/tablet screen I've seen, the difference is significant; an image displayed at the dimensions specified in the wikicode sticks out like a sore thumb.
Nonetheless, I wouldn't prioritize such screens at the expense of others. I disagree that 78x104px is "way too small" (particularly when an image is of relatedly low quality, as this one is). Until recently, our standard dimensions for a 3:4 image on the main page were 75x100px. We switched to 100x133px to provide sufficient width for a caption, which this instance lacks. —David Levy 11:16, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
It is a problematic image, I agree. It's 90x120 now. But the old size stuck out as being way smaller then the other images. And on desktops, it is still scaled down. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 11:26, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Kent TFA[edit]

Any particular reason you swapped the image at the last second for the Kent, Ohio TFA? The reason I ask is because I had recently replaced that image since it was both 6 years old and because there has been some renovation on the area in the photo since that photo was taken. Further, the summary currently on the Main Page says "depot pictured" in italics and the photo doesn't show the depot at all. --JonRidinger (talk) 03:37, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Jon: My apologies for overlooking the "depot pictured" notation. In substituting a wider shot, my intent was to convey a larger sampling of the city's atmosphere (which is much easier in the actual article, given the multitude of images contained therein). I was unaware that the photograph was partially outdated (and I apologize for that as well). I've reverted to the previous selection and increased its size above that of the original transclusion. Thanks for taking the time to contact me, and sorry again for the trouble. —David Levy 04:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! Appreciate the reply too. Actually the whole TFA process was why I even thought to update the infobox photos since the photo you had chosen (File:Downtown Kent Ohio 2.jpg) was the infobox header for over five years. The biggest change was the complete restoration of the Franklin Hotel (Kent, Ohio) in 2012-13 (File:Franklin Hotel hill.JPG), which was still in a completely derelict and abandoned state in the background of the 2009 photo. Thanks again for your reply and action, and all your work on the TFA sections. Happy 2016! --JonRidinger (talk) 04:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

File:Imbox deletion.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox deletion.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:04, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

File:Ambox deletion.png[edit]

When you did administratice actions on this file, you unprotected the file. This looks like an error. Shouldn't it be protected again? --Stefan2 (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

This was intentional. The file is cascade-protected, so the manual protection was redundant. —David Levy 15:37, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Actually, I see that Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items contains advice against the page's use as a first-line measure, so I'll restore the protection to be on the safe side. Note, however, that the instructions were written in 2009. Nowadays, we routinely protect certain high-profile content via this method. But there's no harm in erring on the side of caution, I suppose. —David Levy 15:51, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Hm, I didn't notice that the file was cascade-protected. 'View source' changed into 'Edit' in the menu, so I assumed that the file was completely unprotected. I don't know if it would have been possible to edit the page, though. --Stefan2 (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
It wouldn't have been possible. (You'd have received a message indicating that the file was cascade-protected.)
When cascading protection was introduced, its application replaced "edit" with "view source". For some reason, this was short-lived. (I vaguely recall asking a MediaWiki developer and being told that adding such a feature would be too resource-draining, but I don't think that its initial inclusion was addressed explicitly.) —David Levy 19:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, cascade protection does not induce a "view source" tab because that would require a complicated query during every page view, generating performance issues. BTW, I've wondered if that local copy is needed considering that the Commons image it shadows is fully protected considering its very wide use among Wikimedia projects.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:09, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

File:Wikiversity-logo-41px.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Wikiversity-logo-41px.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

TFA Image[edit]

Per [3], please switch back the image, the one you have replaced it with is a horribly-conformed, ugly animal and the image was not what was approved for the TFA. Montanabw(talk) 18:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done per WP:BRD — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
This may have been switched because you could hardly make out the horses. I've increased the size by 50%. Does it look okay? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:15, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
(watching:) much better, showing them in their typical environment, and blue sky. Any sign of fresh air and hope welcome, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
How silly of me to prioritize the ability to discern a horse. —David Levy 22:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
Done per WP:BRD
I understand this action and appreciate your subsequent size adjustment. For the record, had I read the request before you honored it, I'd have acted in kind.
This may have been switched because you could hardly make out the horses.
Indeed, that was my concern. This is why I searched the relevant category at Commons for an image that would work well as a thumbnail, educated myself on the definition of "Banker horse" and examined the original source's documentation to ensure that the photograph was labeled accurately, and losslessly cropped and mirrored the image to enhance its utility in this context.
Given its feral nature (i.e., the absence of deliberate breeding for a purpose, which typically underlies assessments of equine conformation), I was under the impression that factually being a Banker horse was a reasonable criterion in determining whether an animal was a valid example of a Banker horse. I didn't consider whether it was pretty. (My apologies if that'a an oversimplification of Montanabw's objection – and for any failure on my part to recognize the issue beforehand.) —David Levy 22:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
The image cropping of the photo of the herd was helpful, thanks! David, the main problem was that the horse was both scrawny AND heavily pregnant. The scrawny part is probably common enough (though I suppose it varies by season), and maybe 20% of the horses might be pregnant at any given time (though this one was pretty close to foaling, from the look of her) but the combo gave me an immediate "WTF?" In the horse articles, we try for a lead image that doesn't raise people saying "OMG! Call PETA!" (Unless the article is about something horrible, of course, like the image that led the TFA for Horse Protection Act of 1970. All is well now. Montanabw(talk) 23:17, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
To clarify, I didn't crop a photograph of a herd; I cropped one of a single horse (to increase its share of the frame) and mirrored it (to place the blurb in the subject's line of sight).
Thanks for providing the above background information. In turn, I'll elaborate on our usage of images on the main page.
Throughout Wikipedia, it's important that an image is properly licensed and depicts the subject (or an element thereof) accurately. In other respects, however, the criteria applied to the main page sometimes differ from those of the article or its lead.
In particular, the thumbnails displayed on the main page are relatively small, so an image that works well in an article might be very difficult to discern at that scale. For this reason, we often use one not contained in the article's lead (and sometimes the entire article). It might not be an ideal illustration, but it's better than one that's too small to be recognized.
Having said that, I want to reiterate that my response to your request would have been the same as MSGJ's. Until I'm able to amass a greater lead time for these image adjustments (thereby enabling advance discussion), WP:BRD is a valid approach. —David Levy 23:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:Talk archive notice listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

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An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Talk archive notice. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Talk archive notice redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Hypothetical fifth giant planet[edit]

The Hypothetical fifth giant planet and Planet Nine may or may not exist, and may or may not relate to one another. But they are two different hypotheses with different rationales, and merging the articles about the two hypotheses would be original research on our part, so we shouldn't do it. -- The Anome (talk) 11:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Did you read all the sources? Your argument is superficial. If you look at the sources you will see that the Planet Nine research directly follows from the earlier planet five. It's the same theory, just rebranded. Jehochman Talk 12:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
The Anome: Thanks for the note. To be clear, this edit was technical in nature (the elimination of a double redirect) and not intended to imply endorsement of the merger that led to the redirect's creation (a matter on which I currently hold no position). —David Levy 12:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Saturday February 6 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon[edit]

Saturday February 6 in NYC: Black Life Matters Editathon
Statue-of-liberty tysto.jpg
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You are invited to join us and the AfroCROWD initiative at New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for our upcoming editathon, a part of the Black WikiHistory Month campaign.

12:00pm - 5:00 pm at NYPL Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue), by W 135th St

The Wikipedia training and editathon will take place in the Aaron Douglas Reading Room of the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, with a reception following in the Langston Hughes lobby on the first floor of the building at 5:00pm.

We hope to see you there!--Pharos (talk) 19:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

(Bonus upcoming event: WikiWednesday Salon @ Babycastles - Wednesday, February 17)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Feb 16: Art+Feminism Training / Photo-Poetics @ Guggenheim
Feb 17: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
[edit]

Tuesday February 16, 5:30pm: Art+Feminism Training / Photo-Poetics @ Guggenheim
NYC - Guggenheim Museum.jpg

You are invited to join us for an evening of social Wikipedia training and editing at the Guggenheim, with a workshop given by the Art+Feminism project to prepare for next month's major campaign, and a tour and edit-a-thon of Photo-Poetics: An Anthology.

5:30pm - 8:30pm at Sackler Center Media Lab, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue; enter through 89th Street staff entrance
Wednesday February 17, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our evening "WikiWednesday" salon and knowledge-sharing workshop by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

This month, we will also host a Newcomer's Wiki Workshop for those getting started on the encyclopedia project!

We will also include a look at our annual plan and budget ideas, and welcome input from community members on the sorts of projects the chapter should support through both volunteer and budgetary efforts.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming editathons, and other outreach activities.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! (One talk this month will be on use of Wikipedia press passes for photographers.) Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 00:28, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/February_25,_2016[edit]

Seems to be bugged. - Dank (push to talk) 16:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Dank: In what respect (and is the issue affecting Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow)? No obvious problem is visible on my end. —David Levy 16:16, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
When I posted this, the image wasn't displaying. It is now, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 16:27, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Altare dei Magi, con copia del reliquiario cropped.JPG[edit]

A tag has been placed on File:Altare dei Magi, con copia del reliquiario cropped.JPG requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the image is an unused redundant copy (all pixels the same or scaled down) of an image in the same file format, which is on Wikipedia (not on Commons), and all inward links have been updated.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. IagoQnsi (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't want to spam your talk page, so I'll turn off Twinkle notifications, but I'm CSD tagging a bunch of old temporary main page images that never actually got deleted. You can check my contributions if you really wanna see what all I'm deleting. Cheers, IagoQnsi (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
IagoQnsi: Despite the template's wording, it's become common practice to retain such images indefinitely. This usually causes no harm and occasionally comes in handy (recent example).
Are you requesting these deletions for a particular reason (apart from adherence to procedure)? —David Levy 23:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Just adherence to procedure; no need to keep redundant files that aren't being used anywhere. Before I tagged each one, I did verify that the original un-cropped version still existed, and that the cropped version wasn't being used anywhere (besides the archived version of the main page).
Anyway, I assumed the images were just being forgotten -- if it's now considered standard to not delete them, perhaps the wording of {{m-cropped}} should be revised? Maybe instead of "Please delete file...", it could say "You may delete this file..." -IagoQnsi (talk) 23:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
IagoQnsi: As in the example cited above, such files sometimes become useful again, so preserving them can eliminate redundant effort.
I wouldn't say that "it's now considered standard to not delete them". I don't recall any formal discussion on the matter. It's simply become common, largely because people see no harm in retaining the files, no point in bothering to delete them, and occasional benefits to keeping them.
Incidentally, CSD F1 doesn't apply to local copies of images stored at Commons, and neither CSD F1 nor CSD F8 applies to images to which substantial modifications (such as significant cropping) have been made. These criteria pertain to purely duplicative files (same image, same format, same or lower quality, same or lower resolution). —David Levy 00:08, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, poor choice of wording; I didn't mean an official standard, just commonplace like you said. And apologies for the misused templates. -IagoQnsi (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Some users might have taken the extra step of undoing the template's mass insertion (as opposed to apologizing for its misuse and leaving it for someone else to clean up).
No matter. I've rolled back the edits. —David Levy 08:52, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Saturday, March 5: Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon @ MoMA[edit]

Saturday March 5, 10am-5pm: Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon @ MoMA
AF Mark 2.svg
Moma-1-logo.jpg
2015 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.JPG

You are invited to join us for the MoMA Art+Feminism edit-a-thon on Saturday, to support the expansion of Wikipedia's coverage of women in the arts.

We encourage both people new to Wikipedia, and people who have experience editing online, or have joined us for past edit-a-thon events.

This is by far our biggest event of the year (over 200 participants in the last edition), and every extra hand counts, so please join and volunteer to help us engage new communities!

10:00am - 5:00pm (drop-in anytime!) at The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Education and Research Building at the Museum of Modern Art, 4 West 54 Street - between 5th/6th, New York, NY 10019
Please note that this entrance is one block north of the main 53rd Street entrance, closer to 5th Avenue.

And bring your interested friends and colleagues!

For those outside of the city, or unable to join on Saturday, check out Art+Feminism regional and global events as well. --Pharos (talk) 21:48, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

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Image question[edit]

Hi David,

I'm here with jehochman at a wiki edit-a-thon and he recommended asking you about how to upload an image on Sandy Skoglund's page without running into copyright issues. I'm trying to upload a notable work to the artist's profile on the right. There are many versions of the photo on google images, but I am not sure which ones are OK to upload. Could you help me with this? Thanks!--Alxing8 (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

To what work are you referring? —David Levy 17:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Possibly unfree files[edit]

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Tsai ITN.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you object to the listing for any reason. Thank you. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:45, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Ma-Xi handshake (7 November 2015) cropped.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you object to the listing for any reason. Thank you. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:06, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus: I've deleted both. In the future, if you notice any {{m-cropped}} images derived from files deleted at Commons for copyright-related reasons, feel free to request their speedy deletion on my talk page. —David Levy 18:39, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

March 16: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday March 16, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
ArtPlusFeminism19.jpg
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants.

We will also follow up on plans for recent (Art+Feminism!) and upcoming edit-a-thons, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

We will also vote on nominations for the global Wikimedia Foundation board.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! (One likely talk this month will be on the Wikidata project.) Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 18:07, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

TFA picture replacement[edit]

Why on earth would you insert a non-vetted image file into the TFA blurb (one that's not even in the article itself) without first consulting the article author? Please replace the image with one that occurs in the article. Sasata (talk) 16:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Sasata: Why on Earth was it necessary to take that tone? Do you think that I acted maliciously?
What do you mean by "non-vetted"? I went out of my way to find this image on the Mushroom Observer website, where an experienced contributor verified its quality. I did so because a close-up shot is more easily discernible at the small dimensions used for thumbnails appearing on the main page (an issue not relevant to the article).
With no disrespect intended, I'll note that you're mistaken in your belief that an article's author possesses special authority to control its content or related materials. In the spirit of WP:BOLD, your reversion request was appropriate (and I'd have carried it out if another administrator hadn't beaten me to it) on the basis that you're a Wikipedia user in good standing. —David Levy 22:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
David, I think you've misjudged this. Sasata's tone is not disrespectful (he may be a little exasperated/frustrated, but I think that's understandable), and at no point has he tried to assert any ownership over the article or the main page. (On the other hand, whether done maliciously or not, you have taken advantage of your special authority to make a change on the main page.) Josh Milburn (talk) 22:53, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
David, I think you've misjudged this. Sasata's tone is not disrespectful (he may be a little exasperated/frustrated, but I think that's understandable), and at no point has he tried to assert any ownership over the article or the main page.
My interpretation of Sasata's message, wherein I was asked "why on earth" I would insert "a non-vetted image" "without first consulting the article author" differs from yours.
On the other hand, whether done maliciously or not, you have taken advantage of your special authority to make a change on the main page.
As noted at Talk:Main Page, I performed the edit almost two days before the blurb appeared on the main page. —David Levy 23:42, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox protection.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox protection.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 15:04, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox notice.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox notice.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:33, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox content.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox content.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:33, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox style.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox style.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox protection.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox protection.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:35, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

File:Imbox move.png listed for discussion[edit]

Information.svg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Imbox move.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 16:37, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for spamming you about all of these. Can you add {{ffd|log={{#time:Y F j|~~~~~}}}} to them? I can't do this myself since they are fully protected.
Done. —David Levy 17:06, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Wikipedia languages/test2[edit]

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice that the page you created was tagged as a test page under section G2 of the criteria for speedy deletion and has been or soon may be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. ~ RobTalk 17:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

A photo of Icelandic PM[edit]

Shall I ask the consensus to go for either the earlier image or the "less cheerful" image? We are not either a newspaper or an advertiser. Isn't switching to a "less cheerful" one the lowest of all lowly actions? --George Ho (talk) 20:10, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

George Ho No, it's probably more appropriate to use a sombre photograph rather than a jolly one, considering the news story. It's really odd that you would think otherwise and consider this to be "the lowest of all lowly actions". I suggest you stop doing this kind of thing, it's not benefiting Wikipedia, and it certainly isn't benefiting you. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Switching an image does not require a debate, and was a good idea here. Describing David's entirely appropriate change (to a more recent image, as it happens, but more importantly to one that doesn't make him appear to be happy in relation to this news) as "the lowest of all lowly actions" shows a complete lack of perspective. BencherliteTalk 20:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

April 13: WikiWednesday Salon NYC and Mini-Video Opportunity[edit]

Wednesday April 13, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon NYC and Mini-Video Opportunity
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
Statue of Liberty 7.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

Special this month, a Mini-Video opportunity for individuals to share their Wikipedia experiences (during pre-meeting, 6-7pm, and in side-office during regular meetup). A videographer will be present to record 1-3 minute Mini-Videos of folks informally speaking, sharing anything about their Wikipedia-related projects, whether an edit-a-thon they joined, an article they edited, or a class project they were a part of, etc.

We will also follow up on plans for recent (Art+Feminism!) and upcoming edit-a-thons, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

We will also place our chapter's votes for the global Wikimedia Foundation board.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

6:00pm - 7:00pm Mini-Video and social hour
7:00pm - 9:00pm Regular meeting: Introduction for new participants, Noshing, Chapter projects

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience!

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 14:20, 6 April 2016 (UTC)


(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Saturday April 30: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa @ Guggenheim[edit]

Saturday April 30, 1-6pm: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa @ Guggenheim
NYC - Guggenheim Museum.jpg
Monir Portrait-exh ph021.jpg

On Saturday April 30, 2016, in conjunction with a global campaign, the Guggenheim will host its fourth Wikipedia edit-a-thon — or, #guggathon — to enhance Wikipedia's coverage of modern and contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and to counter geocultural systemic bias on Wikipedia.

The Guggenheim aims to further the goals of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, and build on the model of campaigns like the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Guggenheim: Women in Architecture, Wikipedia Asian Month, and Art+Feminism.

New and experienced editors are welcome. The event will include a training session for participants who are new to Wikipedia and Wikipedia specialists will be on hand to provide basic instruction and editing support.

Can’t join us in New York? Visit our global MENA Artists Month partnership page to coordinate international and online events as well.

Time: Presentation: 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm, Edit-a-thon: 2:30pm - 6:00pm
Location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (88th Street), New York City, New York 10128
Guests should enter using the 88th Street entrance via the ramp at 88th Street and Fifth Avenue

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) ~~~~~

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Your call, but a thought[edit]

Saw the crop you did on the American Pharoah image at TFA. Saw the rollover ALT text was "|title=American Pharoah in May 2015" The image was actually of him in the winner's circle of the Preakness Stakes on May 16, 2015. Don't know if you want to expand, change or whatever the alt text with any of that ("American Pharoah at the Preakness Stakes, 2015" -- or whatever), but if you think it would be more helpful, go for it. Entirely your call. I appreciate the close attention paid to these articles at TFA. Between the inevitable kiddie edits to these horse articles where the vandal cannot resist references to a donkey, mule, or certain anatomical parts and a few trolls, watchers at TFA are always tops in my book! Thank you. Montanabw(talk) 00:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your kind words and the edit suggestion. I've expanded the image title to mention the Preakness Stakes. —David Levy 01:05, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

May 25: WikiWednesday Salon NYC / Enterprise MediaWiki Conference[edit]

Wednesday May 25, 6pm: WikiWednesday Salon NYC / Enterprise MediaWiki Conference
MediaWiki-smaller-logo.png
NYC - Washington Square Park - Arch.jpg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon.

This month's WikiWednesday Salon, we'll meet and share with the MediaWiki software development community, through a community learning night at NYU on May 25.

6:00 pm: Introduction, pizza
7:00 pm: MediaWiki tutorial, community involvement and extension ideas, novel uses of wiki technology
8:00 pm: State of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia / Wikimedia community
9:00 pm: Monthly WikiSalon in San Francisco video-link, casual bicoastal chat

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2016 (UTC)


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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 23, 2016‎[edit]

Is there a reason that we can't give editors 3 or 4 days to find alternative images? Is it necessary to delete images on the very day an article will hit the Main Page? An editor may feel pressured to drop everything to hunt around for a suitable image and get it approved, and that may sour them on FAC and TFA. Of course, the fact that people rarely complain about the daily Main Page image work you do speaks for itself ... I'm not complaining about your image work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:06, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Simon is wondering if File:17th century Spanish routes to Petén flat.gif works. - Dank (push to talk) 19:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
160×195px
Unfortunately, maps with textual labels rarely make for useful thumbnails. Even at 160x195px (significantly larger than usual), the text is unreadable. —David Levy 03:51, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Is there a reason that we can't give editors 3 or 4 days to find alternative images?
Well, no (and I'll make it a point to identify problematic images further in advance), but it's important to keep in mind that not every TFA blurb (or even every TFA blurb for an article containing free images) should be accompanied by an image. (I always examine every image from the article before removing one without a replacement, and if I see none but believe that one is likely to exist, I check elsewhere (other Wikipedia articles, the Wikimedia Commons, and external sources).
Is it necessary to delete images on the very day an article will hit the Main Page? An editor may feel pressured to drop everything to hunt around for a suitable image and get it approved, and that may sour them on FAC and TFA.
I hope that it can be conveyed to such individuals that the absence of an image isn't necessarily a shortcoming. Conversely, including an image for the sake of including an image detracts from the presentation, sometimes to an alarming extent. (I like to cite this embarrassing incident as an example of where such an approach leads us.)
So in the occasional instances in which I've removed an image without a replacement, I haven't perceived the resultant blurb as deficient or in need of further attention.
But your point regarding other editors' perspectives is well taken. It certainly isn't my intention to dismiss their concerns or override them with my own. There's no question that a suitable image is better than no image, and there's no harm in seeking a suitable image. As noted above, I'll keep this in mind and aspire to provide as much notice as possible.
Of course, the fact that people rarely complain about the daily Main Page image work you do speaks for itself ... I'm not complaining about your image work.
Much appreciated. —David Levy 03:51, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, that's all I'm asking. - Dank (push to talk) 11:58, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Sunday June 5: Women in Jewish History Edit-a-thon[edit]

Sunday June 5, 12-5pm: Women in Jewish History Edit-a-thon
Women in Jewish History 2016 Wiki Logo.png
1 CJH Women in Jewish History Editathon May 4 2012.JPG

Join us for a full Sunday of social Wikipedia editing at the Center for Jewish History (drop-in any time!), during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to Women in Jewish History.

All are invited, with no specialized knowledge of the subject or Wikipedia editing experience required.

Expanding coverage of Jewish women on Wikipedia makes these women and their creations discoverable, addresses the gender bias on Wikipedia in a positive way, and works to correct imbalances archival collecting practice and institutional projects that have historically silenced women's narratives.

A training session on editing Wikipedia will be held at 12:30 pm. Experienced Wikipedians will be on-hand to assist throughout the day. Please bring your laptop and power cord; we will have library resources, WiFi, and a list of suggested topics on hand.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Make edits! Ask questions! Be bold!

Time: 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Location: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), New York City, New York 10011

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Stay tuned / sign up early for our June 15 WikiWednesday and other upcoming events.

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Disambiguation page[edit]

Hello, David. When you moved LCVP (disambiguation) to LCVP, over a redirect to an article, you may not have been aware of WP:FIXDABLINKS, which says:

When creating disambiguation pages, fix all resulting mis-directed links.
Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name, to move an existing disambiguation page to that name, or to redirect that name to a disambiguation page), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.

It would be a great help if you would check the other Wikipedia articles that contain links to "LCVP" and fix them to take readers to the correct article. Thanks. R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:57, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

My apologies. I was aware of the need, but it slipped my mind. I just retargeted all links to LCVP in the article namespace, including many that appeared relevant to articles other than the one to which the title previously redirected. —David Levy 18:18, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

June 15: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC[edit]

Wednesday June 15, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
Wikimedia NYC presentation - WikiPhotography at WikiWednesday July 2015 3 crop.jpg
Wikimedia New York City logo.svg

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan.

Featuring special guest presentations on Wikipedia Asian Month and Wikipedia Club at Ohio State University.

We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants.

We will also follow up on plans for recent (Art+Feminism! AfroCrowd!) and upcoming edit-a-thons, and other outreach activities.

We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects.

After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery!

7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 137 West 14th Street

We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 01:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Stay tuned / sign up early for our AfroCrowd June calendar, June 29 Pride Edit-a-thon @ MoMA, and July 15 Wiknic @ Central Park, among other upcoming events.

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Wednesday June 29: Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon @ MoMA[edit]

Wednesday June 29, 6-8:30pm: Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon @ MoMA
Wiki Loves Pride 2015 WikiNYC.png

Join us for an evening of social Wikipedia editing at the Museum of Modern Art Library's second annual Wiki Loves Pride Edit-a-thon, during which we will create, update, and improve Wikipedia articles pertaining to LGBT art, culture and history.

All are invited, with no specialized knowledge of the subject or Wikipedia editing experience required.

Also featuring a lightning talk by CUNY students at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives on a project to document local 1980s HIV/AIDS activism on Wikipedia.

Experienced Wikipedians will be on-hand to assist throughout the day. Please bring your laptop and power cord; we will have library resources, WiFi, and a list of suggested topics on hand.

Time: 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Location: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Education and Research Building at MoMA, 4 West 54 Street - between 5th/6th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Please note that this entrance is one block north of the main 53rd Street entrance, closer to 5th Avenue.

Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Stay tuned / sign up early for our Sunday July 10 Wiknic in Central Park and other upcoming events.

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

File:Florence Arthaud dédicace cropped.JPG[edit]

Hi David Levy. From what I can see, File:Florence Arthaud dédicace cropped.JPG is no longer displayed on the main page. Would you consider unprotectecting the file so other editors can make changes to improve it? Thanks, FASTILY 09:52, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

@Fastily: I've unprotected the file. —David Levy 20:11, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! -FASTILY 22:06, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Sunday July 10: WikNYC Picnic @ Central Park[edit]

Sunday July 10, 3-8pm: WikNYC Picnic
Wiknic logo.svg
Group finale Wiknic NYC 2015 jeh.jpg

You are invited to join us the "picnic anyone can edit" in Manhattan's Central Park, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the USA. Remember it's a wiki-picnic, which means potluck.

3–8pm - come by any time! The picnicking area is the southwest section of the Great Lawn, north of the Delacorte Theater, just inside the park at Central Park West between 81st & 82nd. Enter the park at West 81st St.
Look for us by the Wikipedia / Wikimedia NYC banner!
Subway: 81st Street – Museum of Natural History, C Line NYCS-bull-trans-C.svg

We hope to see you there! --Pharos (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

CSSes to move[edit]

Given the move of MediaWiki:Gadget-NewMainPage.css, it probably makes sense to move MediaWiki:Gadget-NewMainPage.css/sandbox.css to MediaWiki:User:Main Page/NewMainPage.css/sandbox.css. Also, there's a stray js talk page that hasn't been deleted. — Andy W. (talk ·ctb) 00:49, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the note. —David Levy 01:21, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Possessive forms vs possessive words[edit]

Regarding this reversion, I thought the way it’s currently written was potentially ambiguous to less grammar-savvy readers, and may be interpreted as being an exception to the apostrophe-s form rather than a word in its own right. Whether you have a better solution or simply disagree with my concern, I would gladly hear it. Thanks. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:45, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand why such confusion would arise, I'm afraid. To me, your edit merely made the wording clunkier (no offense intended). —David Levy 03:56, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. Cheers! —67.14.236.50 (talk) 04:00, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

File:American Polyconic projection.jpg[edit]

Could you create File:American Polyconic projection.jpg with the following content:

{{Featured picture|Map Projections Set}}
{{Picture of the day|2016-07-08}}

Regards, Armbrust The Homunculus 04:06, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Done. Apologies for missing this step. (I renamed the image to remove it from an "/ad" subdirectory, which triggers false positives in some ad-blocking software.) —David Levy 04:22/04:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

16 July 2016 thank you[edit]

Reger, Zwei Gesänge, Op. 144.jpg
16 July 2016

Thank you for a great solution of the image problem! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:39, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

File:NTSB 2015 Philadelphia train derailment 4 cropped.jpg[edit]

Hi David, would you please unprotect File:NTSB 2015 Philadelphia train derailment 4 cropped.jpg, as it is no longer displayed on the main page? I'd like to make changes to improve it. Thanks, FASTILY 08:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

@Fastily: I've unprotected the file. —David Levy 08:05, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! -FASTILY 08:06, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
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