User talk:Tom Morris

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Tempodivalse [talk] 20:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Contents

Thanks[edit]

Thanks for doing that :-) wackywace 09:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Belief's Page[edit]

I just read your Belief's page. It's nice to see another person who knows who James Randi is:). Do you listen to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast? I like it. As for political beliefs, personally I'm closer to Centrist Libertarian than anything else, although I don't perfectly align with what they believe. Gopher65talk 01:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Gopher65. Thanks for the comment. I used to listen to SGU, but I listen to so many podcasts and it was just way too long for me to get through every week, so I had to drop it. I listen to Point of Inquiry, Rationally Speaking, Skeptics with a K and Pod Delusion (which I also occasionally contribute to). As for Centrist Libertarianism? Sounds like it's rubbed off quite a lot of the stuff I couldn't accept in libertarianism. I'm definitely still a civil libertarian, but I'm definitely no longer an economic libertarian (blame an exposure to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in political philosophy class a few years ago). —Tom Morris (talk) 01:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Reviewer Promotion[edit]

I have promoted you to the Wikinews:Reviewer class, entrusting you with the ability to mark revisions of articles as sighted (review). Please take a moment to read:

You are welcome to use {{User Wikinews reviewer}}.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask for help on my talk page, and thank you for contributing to Wikinews! Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Congrats.
Another link that could be useful (no official status, but the first place I look for stuff, as it gathers together items and links from all over): WN:Tips on reviewing articles#Checklist. --Pi zero (talk) 17:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to the Wikinews community, and especially Blood Red Sandman, Dendodge, Diego Grez and Pmlineditor! I've added the userbox and approved my first article: Libyan rebels retake town of Brega. I hope I can keep the backlog under control so news gets published in a timely fashion. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

ICANN approves .xxx domain for pornography[edit]

Fixed, I believe. Thanks! Mattisse (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

redirected article[edit]

How can I regain the edits I lost in the redirect? I saved the article additions, then noticed the redirect. Where is the article I saved? It was almost finished. Is there a way I can get the article back? Thanks, Mattisse (talk) 17:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure, I'm afraid. If they haven't been deleted, they'll still be in your user contributions. If they have been deleted, you'll have to ask an admin. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Dates[edit]

Just as a FYI, the Style Guide does not recommend use of st, nd, and so. -Brian McNeil / talk 09:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hyde Park/Miliband[edit]

Hi Tom Morris! Just about the article "Thousands gather in London to protest against government cuts". I've some doubts about the following sentence : "..The Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, addressed hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers from Hyde Park,...". Why do you write "..marchers from Hyde Park.."? I saw that in this case marchers were already rallied in Hyde Park and the Labour Party leader addressed them there. I would write "..hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers rallied in Hyde Park.." instead "..marchers from Hyde Park..". Thanks a lot in advance! 109.53.175.167 (talk) 10:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

They weren't marching from Hyde Park, they were marching, and he addressed them in Hyde Park. But, yes, the article is unclear. I've updated it. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Female boxer shot before fight by stepfather in Berlin[edit]

Hi. Noting mechanical stuff that this was published still needing fixed, I commend to your attention the rule of thumb about always looking for a copyedit, here. --Pi zero (talk) 12:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I bollocksed that one up. Sorry. Will be more careful in future. Thanks for telling me. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Barry Bonds guilty of obstruction[edit]

Hi. This was a serious error, and reflects badly on the project. Reminder: It should be quite rare that a reviewer publishes an article without making some improvement(s) to it. Taking the time to find some useful pre-publication improvement(s) helps the reviewer avoid getting careless, and seeing the pre-publication edit(s) is important for project morale all around (of the author, the reviewer, and third parties). See the rule of thumb at the top of this section. --Pi zero (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

"Yesterday" on the main page[edit]

Re this, just a reminder that WN:ML says "Please remember to not use time-sensitive phrasing in Main Page leads, such as "yesterday" or "today" – the leads are sometimes around for several days after publication, and the phrasing becomes out of date quickly." Regards, Bencherlite (talk) 05:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I'd never promoted something to the homepage before. Glad to know how it is done. I'll try and suck less at it in the future. —Tom Morris (talk) 06:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

One confirmed dead after tornado hits Auckland, New Zealand[edit]

Hi. Noting a couple of style failures you missed on this review. The article didn't have a proper lede; and the pull-quote was a quote that wasn't in the article. Neither of these was difficult to fix, but they're fairly basic, and the first (lede) especially is readily spotted and fairly important to fix before passing. --Pi zero (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations![edit]

It took a while to get enough !votes in, but I've just promoted UK Parliament to vote on tuition fee rise on Thursday to well-deserved featured status. Congratulations, and thanks for your hard work on it! the wub "?!" 12:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, the wub. Woohoo! —Tom Morris (talk) 13:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

reviewer, NARA Wikipedian in Residence interview[edit]

Hey Tom,

Thank you so much for supporting my reviewer nomination! I appreciate the vote of confidence. :) I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, but my interview, which you reviewed, had some issues with a quote possibly taken out of context. The conflict seems to have abated, especially since the quote was just removed entirely, but I just wanted to let you know in case you were interested. Cheers, Ragettho (talk) 02:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Aaron Swartz arrested and charged for downloading JSTOR articles[edit]

I noticed that someone who had not contributed to the above article added a review tag. Do you agree that the article is ready to be reviewed?--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No. But it's not far off. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Explosion in Oslo[edit]

No objections to merging, but I'm not familiar with Wikinews workflow and conventions, so I'm just adding Talk page comments so far. --Xover (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks[edit]

Cheers for the review of the Israeli protests article, and for finding those pictures! the wub "?!" 16:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge[edit]

The article Train accident in China kills at least 35‎, which you started, was written about two hours after the article At least 35 reported dead after trains collide in China. A suggestion has been placed on the page for a merge.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I started Train accident in China kills at least 35 at 20:39, 23 July 2011. At least 35 reported dead after trains collide in China was created at 18:47, 24 July 2011. But, sure, merge away. Don't care what it's called or who wrote it: I do care very strongly that it is still not published. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
My apologies, I did not notice the different date.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I wrote the other article, didn't realize there were two. Sorry. My sentiments would echo the above: someone had better just pick one, publish the bloody thing, and redirect the other. The important thing is to publish something. C628 (talk) 20:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Scientists complain of death threats over chronic fatigue syndrome research[edit]

Did you forget to place the review tag on this article? --William S. Saturn (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't get around to finishing it. Without the OR, it's not very interesting. But the amount of OR possible doesn't quite make it interesting enough. It's probably stale now. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
It's not (as) stale if you add OR to it. A bit of OR can save the article from staleness. —Mikemoral♪♫ 04:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Review request[edit]

Could you please review BMW announces 7.6% sales rise as US, China demand grows for me? --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 18:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Done I didn't promote it to lead story though: no offence, but it isn't as significant as any of the current lead stories, all of which are pretty fresh stories. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to do that, Tom Morris. (P.S. I did. :) --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 19:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Review[edit]

Hi there, i was wondering if you could please review my article "Call for Inquiry into Murdoch pay-offs" please? jessicalynnoraUOW

Might be able to. The Wollogong students have rather overloaded us. I haven't been reviewing as much as I'd like as I've been busy with a new job, but will try and squeeze one or two reviews in before work. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

EU copyright extension article[edit]

I took the libery of pulling a bit out the 2008 interview article you referenced as related. I didn't have time to research what pressures there had been to harmonise with the US's 95-year term, but thought it appropriate to highlight this was being sought at one time, opposition has been active equally as long, and highlight content that nobody but Wikinews got.

Thoughts? --Brian McNeil / talk 22:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of OR... :-)[edit]

Just wondering, whatever became of the Southampton fluoridation thing? --Pi zero (talk) 13:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't have time to follow it up because of work and family and so on. Which is a shame. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Reminder[edit]

Importance of not creating an appearance of rubber-stamping. (I was worried about that other article the other day, too.) WN:Tips on reviewing articles, specifically the note at WN:Tips on reviewing articles#How much to do. --Pi zero (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

First case of euthanasia for severe dementia patient in Netherlands[edit]

Hi. A couple of things need clearing up; see review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Knight Foundation and Mozilla send geeks into newsrooms[edit]

I got most of it, there were a few specific points left over; I enumerated them. Should be straightforward, one way or another. --Pi zero (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That one sentence I tried really hard to verify off the audio, but still couldn't. Really hoping we can corroborate it and get it back in within the 24-hour window, but decided (after an IRC consult) not to further hold up publication over it. See my review comment. --Pi zero (talk) 19:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken record player[edit]

Appearances matter. All that can be seen on-wiki about the review of the Hungary homeless article is that it was published with no previous edits at all by the reviewer, with a couple of grammatical errors (one of them pretty serious). That sends a message to observers, including the author, that we don't want to send. This is, after all, exactly the sort of thing that is addressed explicitly by the "handy rule of thumb" at the top of WN:Tips on reviewing articles#How much to do.

Note that the first thing I do when reviewing an article is some basic copyediting, cleaning up {{source}}s, adding cats, fixing problems with the headline. Partly of ocurse that's to make sure I don't forget later, and partly to help me ease myself into immersion in the article — but it's also meant to provide visible on-wiki evidence sooner rather than later that I've started review, so that my review looks, if anything, like it took even longer than it did (should I have stepped out of the room during it, say), and never looks like it took less time than it did. Because for the project to work best, everyone involved (authors, reviewers, readers) should see that review has substance to it. --Pi zero (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Great job![edit]

Excellent work on the article, "Australian woman claims Church of Scientology imprisoned her for twelve years". Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Author and contrarian Christopher Hitchens dies at age 62[edit]

Couldn't find the Dawkins quote, and when it was the only remaining obstacle to publication I pulled it and published. A replacement sentence (or resolution of the verification question) oughtn't be difficult, if gotten to in time. --Pi zero (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I am sure it is in one of the sources, but can't remember which one. Am off to a Christmas party but will try to find source while on train. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Keeping track[edit]

Tom, you could always create Category:Tom Morris (Wikinewsie) and make it hidden. That's pretty much how I keep track, and it has the advantage you can use DPLs on your userpage. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Was going to respond the other day, but I've finally Done it! Much better. Plus there's an RSS feed, which is handy. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Userboxen[edit]

Personally, I use both reviewer box and admin box, since one doesn't imply t'other. (BarkingFish spent several months without reviewer, about a year ago, then requested re-reviewer at FR/RFP.) --Pi zero (talk) 15:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Image removal[edit]

I see you listed on the IRC channel. We were just discussing there the subject of not removing broken images from articles. (I started the discussion with: "B-R-S: What's our standard practice on broken images on articles? My understanding was we don't remove them." Because I'd noticed you removing one (didn't check further back to see if there were others); that's a Wikipedian thing. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Congrats![edit]

Congratulations on the successful RfA! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! —Tom Morris (talk) 17:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

neologism category[edit]

There aren't enough articles for a category. *Maybe* there will be another, but it's a poorish category anyway (we refer cats for places, people, and organizations, mostly, and this would always be awfully similar to the cat for Savage). I really hope you'll be willing to speedy-delete the category, as a nomination for deletion just might turn into a disruptive pain. --Pi zero (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There's been plenty of new coverage in mainstream media about new developments related to this. For example, this development involving Congressman Jared Polis. The category is also useful to show links to sister research such as on Wiktionary. Let's give it some time. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

New sources, post publish of recent article

Above listed are new sources, all post publish of most recent article. -- Cirt (talk) 00:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Those aren't Wikinews articles. I wish I'd been faster to object; this is the sort of hullabaloo I fervently hoped to avoid. But there's a reason we don't want categories with fewer than three articles (and the threshold used to be higher — five or six, I believe): otherwise we'd be hip-deep in unmaintainable categories. We have to have the moral authority to tell people "no, you can't create a category for the topic of the article you just wrote".
What makes for a maintainable category, and how to make our category hierarchy more maintainable, are questions I've been exploring now for more than a year of large-scale cat work; it seems to me one of the important factors is that singleton categories are hard to maintain, while complete sets of siblings can be far more useful. We have a cat for every country in the world, and therefore know to expect those cats to be there (even though I think there are one or two that have fewer than three articles). We have every state in the US. Every state in Australia. Every province in Canada. I've been thinking for a while now of investigating the merits of having every state in India. These things are far more likely to be populated if complete sets of siblings lead people to expect the categories to be there. But singleton categories aren't like that. How can we possibly expect Category:Targeted killing to be added to new articles when people don't know the cat is there (and it doesn't correspond to a nearly-inevitable wikilink, so {{w}} isn't much help)? And a while back we got a new category Category:Nuclear weapons largely, it seems, because people didn't realize we already had categories to cover that stuff — categories that had ceased to be added to new articles some time back, because people forgot they were there. (The nuclear part of our hierarchy is now high on my list of tangled messes that I wish I knew how to fix.) --Pi zero (talk) 01:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Those 2 categories you mentioned are great! Wikinews is not paper. :) And both those categories have a few good articles in them. And the links I posted above, are sources showing there is great potential for more Wikinews articles. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 03:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Category:Targeted killing is, given our current infrastructure, a dreadful category, because it's unmaintainable. A category is valuable when its content is a good reflection of what our archives actually have on the subject, therefore it's not valuable if people won't remember to add new articles to it when they should. The {{w}} much improved categorization by making it very likely categories would be remembered if they correspond to something almost certain to be mentioned and wikilinked when the article is related to it. But abstract topic categories that might not correspond to a wikilink are still not supported by any technical aid to remembering. That's why I dislike Category:Targeted killing. At some point in the future I hope to build a gadget that's a sort of categorization wizard to help think of categories to add to an article, but I'm not sure yet how it'll work, and depending how it does work there will probably still be some kinds of categories that won't be easy to remember.
BTW, I do appreciate that the neologism category once created cannot readily be removed, exactly because Wikipedians with an anit-Wikinews bias will find it far harder to form plausible justifications for not linking to the category than they would for not linking to any particular article on the subject. --Pi zero (talk) 06:22, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, I can certainly agree with you that such a gadget would be a very valuable addition to this project! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 06:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Anti-ACTA activists protest across Europe[edit]

Troubles with fact-checking of the process for ACTA in various countries. reviewer comments. --Pi zero (talk) 06:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

FYI[edit]

FYI, please see Category talk:Campaign for "santorum" neologism. -- Cirt (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews imaginary barnstar[edit]

Insert one here for making my first Wikinews experience a great one! SarahStierch (talk) 21:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

EzPR flakiness[edit]

Did the review gadget do something strange for you? If so, I'd really like to hear your description of what it did. It's done some strange things for me since the software upgrade, but I'm having trouble pinning down the circumstances. Once we have a clear enough notion of what's going wrong, perhaps we can try to get it fixed. --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

When I was reviewing the football story, it popped up a dialogue saying that the article had been modified and to press OK if I wanted to publish the review, or cancel if I didn't. I pressed cancel, it gave me the standard red API warning, then put the review on the talk page anyway, but didn't modify the article to mark it as reviewed. I reviewed the change and just re-reviewed and removed the first review from the talk page. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Interesting. I had two incidents, both not-ready reviews, in one of which the article got modified but the review comments disappeared rather than being added to the talk page, and in the other of which the first submission of the review appeared not to have taken at all, so after a few moments I tried again to click the button and ended up with one {{tasks}} template on the article but two identical review sections on the talk page (identical even to the article revision number). --Pi zero (talk) 13:16, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Review request[edit]

Can you take a stab at reviewing No surprises for sport in 2012/2013 Australian federal budget ? :) --LauraHale (talk) 21:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Mobile homepage formatting[edit]

Tom, would you be willing to look at the instructions for formatting a mobile homepage and give some feedback?

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/Mobile_Gateway/Mobile_homepage_formatting

Mainly, I am wondering if the instructions are clear enough. There are a number of Wikinews languages that have no content for the mobile view. Can you point me to an admin for: de, pl, es, it, ja or pt?

Thanks. --Pchang (talk) 18:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Tom, another issue has come up. Wikinews does not use CC-BY-SA and our default in the footer does not currently account for a different license. Please see this bug: bugzilla:38261. A simple text change by an administrator will fix this. ----Pchang (talk) 22:36, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get to this earlier. I'll have a look soon. Thanks. —Tom Morris (talk) 01:47, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Tom, we went ahead and made the change on all WIkinews sites that were not locked. --Pchang (talk) 20:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Olympics gymnastics finals conclude with wins for Netherlands, United States, China[edit]

I had a bunch of things I couldn't verify, plus a theory as to why. I had three choices:

  • Remove all unverified data and publish without it. (Would you prefer I'd done so?).
  • Not-ready the article. (But I suspect the problem isn't with the article here, but with where I am.)
  • List on the talk page exactly which data I couldn't verify, and remove the {{under review}} tag so any other reviewer could pick it up, plus notify you here so you may be able to address these problems from your side once you read this.

The list is here. I really would like to know whether you'd have preferred me to remove and publish. And I'm going to bed now. --Pi zero (talk) 03:03, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Workshop[edit]

Can you flag up the workshop again on the WM-UK list? Looks like the 26th is the only date that preference has been expressed for. And, we need to sort our date(s) so that Laura can request guest press passes.

For that, I think it'd be great to borrow the office's camcorder. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:00, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding. I am currently planning to go up to Manchester on Friday and Saturday, then coming back down to London on Sunday. I'd definitely prefer if it was on Sunday. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Workshop[edit]

Timing for tomorrow's workshop is set for 2pm (1300 UTC).

Sorry time announced so late, but our Australian visitors for the Paralympics have been incommunicado, and airborne. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:45, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah, okay. See you there! —Tom Morris (talk) 17:50, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Review request[edit]

Hi. Can you place a priority on reviewing 15 medals awarded on fourth night of track and field at London Paralympics? This is the Oscar Pitrious article, and that is hugely, hugely, hugely popular Paralympic news wise. --LauraHale (talk) 23:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Paralympic article backlog take two[edit]

We currently have seven unreviewed articles, many of them Paralympic articles. Any help in reviewing these today would be much appreciated. :) --LauraHale (talk) 05:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Shortened infobox on Paralympics articles[edit]

Seeing the fencing article you just reviewed was a little on the short side, I'd just been hacking the infobox to take a "short=yes" parameter.

Thanks for helping clear the backlog, are you able to post articles to Facebook, or do I need to get those? --Brian McNeil / talk 08:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I can, but I haven't been. I thought that was automated. Face-smile.svgTom Morris (talk) 16:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Once upon a time it was automated. Then Faceboak built walls to prevent bots, wrote a byzantine API, and expect everyone to create fecking apps and have people log into their sites with Faceboak so they can harvest extra preferences and profiling information.
If you do post anything: paste in the link, wait until FB scans it and pulls images & text, then remove the link from the status box; next, trim the "- Wikinews, ...." off the end of the title and tweak the rest to look decent. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:44, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Almost there... more requests...[edit]

We have four days of the Paralympics left. :) Almost done. (I'm getting as close to tired of writing as I am you're probably getting of writing. Sleep would be nice.) We're backlogged again with 6 unreviewed articles. Help with that would be fantastic. --LauraHale (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

You might be interested[edit]

You might be interested in this one, care to review? Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:28, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Would love to hear your thoughts on this one, and/or review? Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Out and about and away[edit]

My flight leaves tonight local London time around 9pm. I will be checking out of the hotel around 8am local time. I likely won't be available for 48+ hours (36 hours to get back to Canberra once airborne I thin. Track QF2 tonight!) so not sure what to do about articles submitted and potential problems. Need transcription assistance on those ones with the Pacific Island nations listed on Brian's talk page. --LauraHale (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews speaks with Claire Harvey[edit]

Setting aside the issue of transcription accuracy (there'd been some corrections necessary to each one I'd reviewed), you muffed up on the first word (which, in fact, the transcriber got wrong as well since at the time of transcription it'd actually been two days since the interview, as demonstrated by the date on the upload to JWS and corroborated on the official Olympics site by the schedule of the match in question). --Pi zero (talk) 08:34, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Whoops. I'll try to suck less in the future. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Pennsylvania courts to decide on controversial voter ID law[edit]

I've submitted for review an additional paragraph, immediately following publication. I'm leaving this note here and also on brianmc's user talk; it'd be easy to lose track of an edit like that and I'd be sorry if it languished unreviewed. --Pi zero (talk) 15:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

United States re-elects Barack Obama[edit]

As I don't pass things that often, can you help make United States re-elects Barack Obama a lead? I know it is your own article so possible COI but I would likely screw it up. --LauraHale (talk) 06:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

India flooding article............[edit]

I wonder if we could slide some sort of India/flooding file photo into that article.....I'll have a lookie! --Bddpaux (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It's been more than 24 hours since publication. --Pi zero (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmmm...........beating article comment[edit]

I'm not throwing accusations here, so please don't view it as such....just a little brotherly "thinking aloud": I sure hope the person who took this photo/posted it got the victim's consent before doing so. This person is in the hospital after being assaulted (quite obviously) in a horrible way. Then, posting that photo in a VERY public way is touchy. Furthermore, it skirts the line of journalistic ethics if we don't have pretty good assurance that the victim is OK with having her beaten face viewed by a gazillion people! I just don't know how I feel about this one, in terms of just basic human dignity.Bddpaux (talk) 16:22, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

It's on a Facebook profile approved by the family and is already being used by a lot of other news sources. We had extensive discussions about the ethics of using the image on IRC before publication. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:33, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Ok, well, there ya go. I've really gotta stumble into IRC sometime soon. It's mostly empty everytime I stop in. --Bddpaux (talk) 21:34, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it's fun on there :-) -- CalF (talk) 21:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
We've gone through long periods with nothing but silence on the #wikinews channel. Lately, though, it's been fairly brisk. --Pi zero (talk) 21:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Well thanks to me perhaps :P DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
You never know what is going to be discussed on there. You could be discussing wikinews, Syria, Scottish independence. I even talked with a Reuters photographer just back from Afghanistan on there once. -- CalF (talk) 21:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Not all that relevant to that discussion, but...[edit]

I am fairly certain none of the thousands of users in these lists (3208 or so) opted-in to the lists to which they were added. To compare, there are less than 150 users getting Signpost, which is otherwise the largest of the other two-thirds of the distribution lists.

As you can see at w:sw:Wikipedia:Jumuia, 10 of the 20 sections are auto-generated edwardsbot spam; I very much doubt the many communities in the Global message delivery lists opted-in to get this kind of spam, almost always in English with no translation, and on several of them it has clearly become an impediment to communication. I haven't done more than a slight sample of the projects being spammed this way: this was the first I hit and seemed right in the middle of the active wikipedias I checked.

Spam is spam, and there should always be a way to opt out. This is almost genetic in the wikis, but not, apparently, in edwardsbot. - Amgine | t 00:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I won't defend those. The Foundation should probably be more careful about what they deliver to users. Those are things being delivered to Wikipedia rather than sister projects. If you look at EdwardsBot's contributions on English Wikiversity, that seems far more like the sort of pattern of what would be delivered on English Wikinews. A few innocuous messages regarding MediaWiki software upgrades, fundraising and the like, plus a few deliveries of This Month In GLAM for any Wikinewsies who choose to sign up for it. I just don't see the big deal here. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:54, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
It's kind of amusing that you lament the lack of an opt-out feature, when the English Wikinews has had absolutely no problem opting out of the use of the bot. Assuming the worst, that some terrible person compiles a list of active Wikinews editors to spam here, it'd be like, what, twenty edits? Yes, this might flood the recent changes feed given the depressingly low amount of activity here. This could be mitigated by flagging the bot as a bot, but oh wait, it can't have a bot flag, because the English Wikinews has brain-dead policies. It's probably just as well that the bot doesn't post here. As I said in previous discussions, though it bears repeating, the English Wikinews is cutting itself off, only further ensuring its continued, slow demise. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Police arrest east London 'Muslim patrol'[edit]

Er. Would need a bit of an update. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: User talk:Chrisc97#Thanks[edit]

Re:Editprotected[edit]

First off thank you for responding to my edit request. But when you did it you missed part of my post. You updated the Wikinewsies but not the Twitter link. --J36miles (talk) 04:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Holiday[edit]

Ponte delle Eremite, Venezia
Image: Nino Barbieri.

I thought I ought to do this now rather than later.

On Friday, I'm going on holiday to the beautiful city of Venice until the 25th of February. I'm planning to see the city, take photos, catch up on some on my Kindle backlog and spend as little time as possible thinking about the Wikimedia projects.

Nuvola apps cookie.svg

Also, tomorrow is my birthday. I'm feeling old.


Tom Morris (talk) 19:39, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for reviewing and other assistance[edit]

Hi. Next week is the start of the IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships and two Wikinewies will be attending to cover the para-alpine skiing ahead of the 2014 Winter Paralympics . This is part of an effort outlined at Wikinews:IPC Alpine Ski World Championships. Immediately following this event, there will be a Meetup in Barcelona where Wikinews, the Paralympics and efforts to similar sport coverage will be discussed. At the moment, there are only two active reviewers on a daily basis. Demonstrating an ability to get reviews for these types of events done quickly is important for Wikinews credibility and gaining access to these types of events. I would really appreciate it if you could sign up on the IPC World Championship page to review, promote articles published during this period, assist in translating these articles into another language or attend the meetup in Barcelona. Thanks. --LauraHale (talk) 09:33, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

See above. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:52, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Same-sex marriage in the UK passes second reading in Commons[edit]

Nominated. --Pi zero (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for nominating it, Pi zero. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Promoted.
Feel free to vote on either or both of the two open FACs. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikinews Writing contest 2013 is here. :) Please sign up to participate?[edit]

We've created the Wikinews:Writing contest 2013, which will start on April 1 and end on June 1. It is modeled on the successful 2010 contest. It would be a really great time for you, as a Wikinews accredited reporter, to do some original reporting and conduct interviews. People should be around to interview to prevent a backlog, and several reviewers have access to scoop to make it easier to review any original reporting you do. If you are interested in signing up, please do so on Wikinews:Writing contest 2013/entrants. There is at least one prize on offer for the winner along with the opportunity to earn some barn stars as a way of thanking you for your participation. :D --LauraHale (talk) 10:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

George Zimmerman found not guilty in Trayvon Martin case‎[edit]

Fwiw, I had specifically sent that link to Wiktionary instead of Wikipedia because I felt a link to a simple definition would be more useful to readers than a big rambling article on the subject. Recalling BRS's remark that he felt many links to Wikipedia should really be to Wiktionary instead. Certainly one could reason either way in this case; just saying, a link to Wiktionary isn't necessarily an inferior choice. --Pi zero (talk) 12:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Top of our game?[edit]

We really need to be at the top of our game when reviewing student articles, I think; we don't want stuff slipping through the cracks, both because they won't learn and because (come to think) review always has to be especially tight when the reporter doesn't know what they're doing yet, with a lower probability of things getting through to compensate for the higher probability of things being there in danger of getting through. Just saying.

Is it possible WN:Tips on reviewing articles#Checklist could come in handy? I created it because I was finding it hard to keep track of things; ironically, the act of writing the list seriously drilled most of it into me so I didn't have to consult it much thereafter, and of course I've gotten way too much practice. But, well, it's there. --Pi zero (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I just had a slight brain fart this morning while reviewing. I'll read and absorb the checklist again. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:20, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, a handy list. Gryllida 11:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Looking at this edit, it occurs to me to suggest breaking such edits down into much smaller units, with clear edit summaries of just what each edit does. Both you and the author (well, and third parties of course) can then see exactly what you're doing and why. It's a practice I tried out at some point and found so effective I've stuck with and refined my technique at; the author can see exactly what I'm doing and learn from it, and I can see exactly what I'm doing and can't help thinking about it and learning from it. (Come to think, it's probably worth working in at WN:Tips on reviewing articles; I'd best add it to my list of planned upgrades there...) --Pi zero (talk) 05:01, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikinewsie email[edit]

Tom,

Can you confirm you are not using a "common-garden mail aggregator" for your account? (i.e. not gmail, any of Microsoft's or others that probably have buddies in the NSA.) --Brian McNeil / talk 08:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I use Gmail. I've been meaning to switch to Fastmail but effort. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:36, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
You might find this section useful for importing Gmail into Fastmail over POP? Gryllida 09:09, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Yeah, and when you are ported, dig up one of the "drop me in the memory hole" requests for all your Gmail data. I've just locked any other @wikinewsie.org email addresses that looked to be using an aggregator (yours excluded as your clearly active when you can manage). --Brian McNeil / talk 11:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Assistance with understanding how much original reporting costs[edit]

Hello and I apologize for writing in English. As all language Wikinews improves, The Wikinewsie Group wants to be able better support original reporting done by contributors like you. One of our newsletters at The Wikinewsie Group/Newsletter said you have recently published an original report. This is why I am contacting you.

Members of the The Wikinewsie Group are trying to assess the costs associated with original reporting across all Wikinews projects. This way, we can determine how much original reporting currently costs, who is paying for it, what Wikinews and other projects get for these costs (especially when paid for by unpaid, volunteer contributor reporters). This information can then be used in applying for grants, measuring the success of Wikinews original reporting and seeing how reporters can be better supported. If you could complete this survey on that topic, we would very much appreciate it. We will try to anonymize the responses as best possible when writing up any report. Thank you very much for taking the time to fill it out (especially in English). Please do not hesitate to ask me or pi zero about any questions you may have about this research. We hope the results will enable us to better assist you in conducting more original reporting on Wikinews. --LauraHale (talk) 08:41, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

AbuseFilter[edit]

As you may have noticed, en.WN is suffering from overspammage which is wasting a lot of valuable admin time.

What I'd like to see is some filters similar to those on en.WP which target new accounts creating user pages with links. Here are some of the filters I think might be useful:

  • if they create their own user page, and it has a link, I think it should be prevented with a warning which they can override. This will stop almost all automated processes but allow a 'real human'.
  • if they create a different user's page with links, they should be prevented and blocked immediately.
  • if they erase their user talk page and replace it with a page with links, they should be prevented and blocked immediately.
  • if they erase their user talk page they should be warned but allowed to override.
  • anonymous users creating user pages with links should be prevented and blocked immediately.

Now, Billinghurst got some stuff added to the site to target user creation in AbuseFilter. I don't know anything about that, but of course if there are ways to disrupt bots creating user accounts that'd be even better. Anything I should have thought of but didn't mention here? - Amgine | t 16:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll have a look at AbuseFilter stuff in the next few days or possibly at the weekend. —Tom Morris (talk) 06:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

News International??[edit]

I presume that News UK is the modern iteration of News International?? Before I go much farther on reivewing that article, I just wanted to check. --Bddpaux (talk) 14:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Bddpaux: Yes. They changed the name for cosmetic reasons. I haven't mentally remapped it. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Very well, then....I'll move forward with the review. --Bddpaux (talk) 16:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Bddpaux. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:44, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I just couldn't quite make it work.....but it's almost there! --Bddpaux (talk) 22:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Comic Relief funds allegeldy invested in arms, alcohol and tobacco firms[edit]

One niggly little bauble..........look at the 3rd paragraph: I'm not sure how well the words "ethical fund manager" fit into neutrality. --Bddpaux (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't too bothered about the NPOV of it. Ethical fund management is a field, although it is also an evaluative term. But so are many other things: when we call someone an "artist" or a "philosopher" or so on, we sort of implicitly pass judgment on that person as being 'worthy' of the title. But if you can think of a better way of phrasing it that is more NPOV, feel free to suggest something. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:10, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikibreak[edit]

For the next two weeks, I am on holiday. I will have internet access but I intend to spend very little time on wiki-related matters. Don't do anything silly while I'm away. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:18, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Lord of spies?[edit]

Heyyy! You just hit the requisite 25 votes for enWN CheckUser.

Do we want to wait for another token vote? Do you want someone else to prod a Steward? (I haz a 2.5Kv cattle prod...). --Brian McNeil / talk 22:13, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I am in no particular hurry, so the stewards can breathe easy and work at their own pace. Face-smile.svg (As can be seen by my non-existent content contributions in the last week before I got back from my break, I've been quite busy at work. I certainly won't have much time to do anything before the weekend so there's really no urgency.)
Thank you to the Wikinews and wider Wikimedia community who voted for the confidence they've expressed. I will be sure to re-familiarise myself with both local and Meta policies on appropriate and fair use of CheckUser before I start using them. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Congratulations (or should that be commiserations?) on being made-up to CheckUser. I'm sure you'll find the CU list as 'odd' as I did, but you're probably better-qualified than quite a few on the list to interpret results. Main problem we seem to face at the moment is the spambot farming. Half the trouble I found with interpreting results was the completely outdated nature of where (geographically) blocks are tied to. I also probably adopted a far-more aggressive policy than I suspect many do in-terms of running Nmap against what might-well be open proxies or compromised machines. Never had any issues with my ISP complaining about that, but you never can tell how they'll react these days. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:20, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Congrats. And as I already told you, feel free to ask questions if they come up. Furthermore good luck of course. ;-) Trijnstel (talk) 11:53, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

José Manuel Barroso: Scottish independence would make EU membership "difficult"[edit]

I see one major sticking point on this, which is failing to point out Barruso's COI. That, of course, being Catalonia. It's also an option to highlight that Finland negotiated entry to the EU in 12 months, which makes the SNP's timetable for continued membership after the abolition of the UK perfectly credible.

As a point you won't get from sources, there's a "deliberate" gap in the Lisbon Treaty. Efforts were made to write-in a mechanism which would serve Scotland following a Yes vote, but vetoed. That means the treaty says nothing on the agreed-breakup of a member state. A quick check on Article 48 shows there are options which, although delaying things significantly, would not need Spain's agreement. The alternative is negotiating membership via Article 49.

If you can work in something on Barruso's COI, I'm happy to publish. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:58, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

  • I've been keeping an eye out for anything that acts as any semblance of a counter to the London-centric mainstream's spin on Barroso's remarks. I'm not having much bloody luck!
This is about as-close as anything gets to knocking spots off the wall-to-wall spin on Barroso's comments.
Frustrating? Hell, yes! I'll be avoiding reviewing anything else that I think reflects the institutional bias that the mainstream press are pushing beyond reasonable bounds. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Eh. I wouldn't worry. Barroso's comments were on Saturday. It's stale now. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:44, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
The specific event, stale, but it's not like the Scottish Independence saga is likely to go away real soon. --Pi zero (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
The only 'concession', which is more-recent, was some other EU spokesdroid saying "Kosovo was a poor example". The Torygraph article is worth a look for a good indication of the sheer contempt London-based media are viewing the debate. Since the Conservatives have decided to hold their conference in Edinburgh it might, then, be a little-harder for them to ignore the view from Scotland; as-opposed to the "parachuted-in" views of Osborn and co. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:37, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
I'll run the risk of editorialising by saying this: though I am broadly neutral—with perhaps a very slight leaning towards the 'no' side—on the topic of Scottish independence, every speech from Cameron and Osborne give Scottish voters good reason for voting 'yes'. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:50, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
And that's saying nothing about the 'Minister of Manslaughter' ;) Who he? http://iainduncansmith.com. :P --Brian McNeil / talk 14:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations[edit]

Congratulations on the new tools! :) -- Cirt (talk) 11:09, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

London 420 Cannabis Rally[edit]

Yeah, this is a thing. Quite a big thing. Any chance you can attend and get some OR, even if it's just some photos? I'm very hopeful I can get to the twin event in Glasgow and it'd be neat to have reporters covering in multiple cities. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 15:45, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Being bothered by User:Pi zero[edit]

He is bothering me with rubbish each edit. He is never contributing. He deletes articles comments sites here, although the article is existing. Articles under development are clean up articles. I might not write about RB Leipzig. My started articles have interest and he says that other archived articles are which from amateur clubs, university clubs or something else. He wants to rename my name here and is not rename me. My articles are written after the style such as about other proven football match reports. He is psychic unable to name reasons. Please remove him from the board! He neither productive nor socially competent or educated, for a globally representative on public free sites. He gets 3 up to 8 Dollars for a block. That is one of the many reasons why they are wild to block others and counting them in info boxes. "Hä hä". --Nikebrand (talk) 21:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Pi zero is an extremely productive editor who contributes an enormous amount to the website. You have been told how to go about changing your username, and you seem unable to listen to the advice of experienced users regarding what counts as news and what counts as irrelevant for a news site. The fact that you think Pi zero gets paid to block users on here tells me all I need to know about your relationship with human rationality. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:54, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar[edit]

If for nothing more than general dedication, I think you're long overdue for one of these!! --Bddpaux (talk) 14:16, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Bddpaux! —Tom Morris (talk) 19:38, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Brownie points[edit]

if you help me to correct the review problems on my first article, I will reward you with some brownie points. I'm feeling slightly mellow (talk) 08:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


Tireless Contribution[edit]

With all due motivation and enthusiasm, I have been trying to develop Wikinews. I regret to say this but review's are discouraging me at any go. I require your guidance and experience but why do you seem to be so arrogant. After 3 days, having received no comment I have put two of my articles under publish Cricket World Cup: Bangladesh defeated Afghanistan by 105 runs, Demolition of Hindu temples in the US , wrote on the wall ' Get Out ' condemnation around. At least cite a reason for their shortfall, don't remain arrogant. --Abhinav619 (talk) 02:11, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about that Abhinav619. I haven't had time to do reviews recently because I've been busy with work and other commitments. I'll try and find time soon to help when I'm not otherwise busy. You might want to hop into #wikinews IRC and get assistance there. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:13, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Holiday[edit]

For just over two weeks, I shall be on holiday, visiting Paris, San Francisco and Los Angeles. During this time, I am intending to try and spend as little time as possible hunched over a laptop dealing with wiki-related matters. I will periodically check email but anything non-urgent will not happen until I am back in London. Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:55, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Cycling review[edit]

Hi Tom :) i saw the newest article on the Category:Cycling was made by you. This week when there was the Vuelta here around either the Mountain Bike World Championship i wrote some articles (Wikinews:Newsroom). Hard work on sources but weaknesses in english. An administrator said there will be no one to review my articles anymore cause things went wrong in: Vuelta a España: Mikel Landa wins demanding mountain stage. But i think that was not right. So i ask you for a review or another. Thanks for reading.--Lib2know (talk) 14:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I'm quite busy in real life at the moment and won't be able to help. Sorry. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
mh, i remember some people put priority on it, those thing called "real life" ;-) I can't remember what it was, but whatever: good luck! And thanks for answering that fast.--Lib2know (talk) 14:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Please sign new Wikimedia confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information by 15 December[edit]

This is a message from the Wikimedia Foundation. Translations are available.

Wikimedia Foundation logo - vertical (2012-2016).svg

As you may know, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees approved a new "Access to nonpublic information policy" on 25 April 2014 after a community consultation. The former policy has remained in place until the new policy could be implemented. That implementation work is now being done, and we are beginning the transition to the new policy.

An important part of that transition is helping volunteers like you sign the required confidentiality agreement. All Wikimedia volunteers with access to nonpublic information are required to sign this new agreement, and we have prepared some documentation to help you do so.

The Wikimedia Foundation is requiring that anyone with access to nonpublic information sign the new confidentiality agreement by 15 December 2015 (OTRS users have until 22 December 2015) to retain their access. You are receiving this email because you have access to nonpublic information and are required to sign the confidentiality agreement under the new policy.

Signing the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information is conducted and tracked using Legalpad on Phabricator. The general confidentiality agreement is now ready, and the OTRS agreement will be ready after 22 September 2015. We have prepared a guide on Meta-Wiki to help you create your Phabricator account and sign the new agreement: Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information/How to sign

If you have any questions or experience any problems while signing the new agreement, please visit this talk page or email me (gvarnum@wikimedia.org). Again, please sign this confidentiality agreement by 15 December 2015 (OTRS users have until 22 December 2015) to retain your access to nonpublic information. If you do not wish to retain this access, please let me know and we will forward your request to the appropriate individuals.

Thank you,
Gregory Varnum (User:GVarnum-WMF), Wikimedia Foundation

Posted by the MediaWiki message delivery 23:33, 15 September 2015 (UTC) • TranslateGet help

US conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly dies at 92[edit]

Problem with this; was a source left out? --Pi zero (talk) 04:35, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Knock. knock.[edit]

A team barnstar for you! A total of seven news articles were published on January 18, 2017, including yous! Cheers.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 10:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata[edit]

'lo. Note, our Category:Harvey Milk gets liked from Wikidata item Q17141 rather than Q17420462; Wikinews topic cats correspond to Wikipedia articles rather than Wikipedia categories, and are linked on Wikidata accordingly. (I would have remarked on your Wikidata user talk page, if there were one.) --Pi zero (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that. (I should have a Wikidata user page...) —Tom Morris (talk)
There's a user page. Where the talk page should be, there's a flow thing, which isn't a wiki page at all, and I consider unusable and essentially an attack on the viability of the projects by a clueless Foundation. (Why yes, I do feel strongly; how did you guess? :-P )  --Pi zero (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
I actually don't hate Flow too much. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
I figured that was likely the case, since your user talk on Wikidata is flow-ified. My primary objections to Flow are actually systemic, although I did have specific technical objections when last I was unable to avoid touching it. I see deep systemic problems, more-or-less related to Conway's Law. The Foundation is a centralized organization, and like any centralized organization it must favor actions that increase its centrality. The most visceral motive of the sisterhood is to distribute power over information providing to The People. Software that supports maximizing the Foundation's central position is diametrically opposed to distributing power as widely as possible to ordinary people. It's specifically clear that the way to distribute the power is to have everything cast in the form of wiki markup, which is made to be simple and powerful; the Foundation pours effort into eviscerating wiki markup in favor of specialized forms that minimize control access by ordinary users while requiring experts to cope with inherent complexity of the software (complexity either overt or beneath the surface). In the big picture, that's an inherent problem with Flow, with Scribuntu, and with VE. --Pi zero (talk) 13:20, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the cat, btw. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 23:49, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Checkuser?[edit]

There's a big checkuser request over at WN:CU, btw. If we don't get a local CU on it in another five days or so, a steward says they'll address it. --Pi zero (talk) 11:38, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Done Thanks Pi zero. I've had a quick look and responded. I'm okay with a steward taking a second look. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:03, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Moors murderer Ian Brady dies aged 79[edit]

Hi. Good to see you around. There was a bit of difficulty with sourcing on the article; review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 18:05, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom[edit]

I would like to nominate you for ArbCom this year. Are you willing to accept nomination?
acagastya 07:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm flattered, but no thanks. Not for me. —Tom Morris (talk) 14:24, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Notice of removal of CheckUser rights[edit]

Dear Tom,

I am sorry to say that, but just wanted to let you know that I have removed the CheckUser right from your account based on this request, as per m:CheckUser policy#Removal of access, considering that the other local CheckUser has been inactive on this wiki for a full year. Therefore, since the number of local CheckUsers must be at least two, your CU permissions have been suspended. Thanks for your service.

Warm regards, RadiX 18:22, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
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