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WikiProject news

News in brief

• The December 2011 Good Article Nomination Backlog Elimination Drive has begun. There are barnstars to be earned!
• WikiProject Wikify invites editors to participate in its December 2011 Wikify Drive. As always, barnstars are awaiting those who help reduce the backlog.
• WikiProject Images and Media is holding a drive in January to move free images to Commons. There are lots of prizes to earn. Sign up now!
• The Wiki Guides could use your help introducing new editors to Wikipedia.
• The Guild of Copy Editors will be accepting nominations for their third tranche of coordinators. The nomination period will run from December 5 to 15, and the election will be held from December 16 to 30. Self-nominations are accepted.
• 'Tis the season to revive the Christmas Task Force for its yearly flight around the world.

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Disambiguation, a very enthusiastic project started in July 2005. The project's 150 members help Wikipedia's readers find information by pointing the links in the body of articles to their correct destination and improving Wikipedia's collection of disambiguation pages. We interviewed PamD, BD2412, Woohookitty, R'n'B, France3470, Night of the Big Wind, and Doncram.

What motivated you to join WikiProject Disambiguation?

PamD: The satisfaction of tidying things up, making links, helping people to get at the information they need – it's probably the retired librarian in me! Wikipedia has the fascination of an infinite jigsaw puzzle, and disambiguation is a good part of that.

BD2412: I actually got into it through WP:WANTED. Several times, while creating new biographical articles for that project, I discovered multiple possible article subjects, for which a disambiguation page would need to be created along with the several articles. Because wanted articles are determined by incoming links, those links would then need to be disambiguated.

Woohookitty: I kind of stumbled upon it. I'm an administrator and for a very long time did lots of administrative-type stuff but I got tired of the constant arguing. I had actually done some disamming very early on in my time here but got onto other things. But it was always in the back of my mind. I started working full time on disamming in mid-2009 as a way to pass the time while doing other things. It sort of evolved from there. I like obscure stuff that helps other users out and this fits that bill.

R'n'B: I don't actually remember, it was so long ago. I think I came across a mention of Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links on Template:Active Wiki Fixup Projects, and I thought it looked like something I could contribute to pretty quickly. I like the idea that we can improve the encyclopedia through many small incremental changes as well as by the "big" splashy efforts of researching and writing major sections of articles. I've done the latter, too, but haven't devoted nearly as much time and effort to it as to disambiguation.

France3470: When I started editing Wikipedia back in 2007, disambiguation pages fascinated me, they still do. Wikipedia essentially coined the word disambiguation (before it was merely a obscure word of the English language) and with it came the creation of thousands and thousands of pages (it was pointed out recently that 1/17 of all pages on Wikipedia are dabs). I have always felt that these pages are crucial to facilitating the functionality of the wiki system. They may not be flashy or interesting to read but they are the cement that holds together the system. As a new editor, with little understanding of how to contribute to Wikipedia, disambiguation pages seemed relatively straight forward. Careful consulting of WP:MOSDAB gave me most of the information I needed to be able to cleanup problematic pages. Next thing I knew I was helping clear the backlog at Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup, at which point I really identified myself as part of the project. I have always felt that the project thrives from having very firm core policies and guidelines which most members tend to value and follow.

Night of the Big Wind: I started working on the Dutch version of this project I think in January 2010. So when I moved over to the English version I quite quickly found the project here and continued the work. That I started with it was partly a fascination with disambiguation pages and findability of articles. The other part was that I wanted to give back something for fun that I borrow from Wikipedia, but preferably behind the scenes.

Doncram: I joined years ago as I had become educated about disambiguation from working to develop disambiguation for U.S. National Register of Historic Places-listed places. There was a fun monthly competition running about clearing links to dab pages.

What are some common mistakes people make when creating or adding to disambiguation pages? What does a good disambiguation page look like? Should Wikipedia have quality ratings for disambiguation pages?

PamD: Mistakes: thinking that a dab page is a listing of all meanings of a term, rather than a guide to the Wikipedia articles which could be looked for at that term. Then adding umpteen blue links to each entry. And not bothering to add dates or descriptions to similarly-named people. And creating new articles which have titles with a disambiguation, but not then adding that title to the appropriate dab page. A good dab page: clear, laid out in a helpful order with sections if appropriate, compliant to WP:MOSDAB for consistency.

BD2412: WP:INCOMPDAB and WP:DABCONCEPT are two big problems. There is no need for a disambiguation page at, e.g., Cars of Spain to distinguish between Cars of Northern Spain and Cars of Southern Spain; that is just a list of types of Cars of Spain.

Woohookitty: I'd say mixing an article page with a disam page. Users will treat the primary topic with one or two paragraphs and then say "it can also mean" and list some disam links instead of making the primary topic its own page and leaving the rest as a disam page.

I don't think we should have quality ratings simply because the vast majority of disam pages serve their purpose well.

A common mistake people make as well is changing or moving pages related to a disam page without discussion because they don't realize the consequences. Or they will move a page multiple times and not for a lack of a better term, clean up after themselves.

R'n'B: A good disambiguation page should be clear and succinct, and help the reader find the relevant article without too much trouble. Some pages are too cluttered with dictionary definitions and remotely related terms that just aren't that useful to a reader; but on the other hand some are too obscure, with just a list of article titles and no information to allow the reader to figure out which one they should look at. On disambiguation pages, as on articles, we need to remember to consider all types of readers, not just experts.

France3470: As someone who frequents NPP I have noticed many disambiguation pages being created that are immediate candidates for speedy delete under G6. Unfortunately many editors create disambiguation pages when they are unnecessary. I often see disambiguation pages created as a means to try to challenge an article's status as the primary topic for a term. (For instance creating Foo (disambiguation) because Foo is the primary topic and the editor, having just created Foo (article), feels that their article has as much claim to the title Foo as the article currently occupying the title.) In these situations requesting a move is often the better course of action, as determining what the primary topic is can be a contentious area.

Doncram: Some editors err in over-zealously deleting redlinks from dab pages, when it has already been established, or could easily be established, that a topic is valid. The current requirement for a valid redlink entry is that a properly supporting bluelink must be included in the entry, per MOS:DABRL.

How frequently do you add or reformat hatnotes to articles? Are hatnotes leading to a disambiguation page preferred over hatnotes that point to specific articles? Do you feel the larger Wikipedia community generally understands the use of hatnotes?

PamD: I add hatnotes quite frequently. If there are only two or three items, then it's better to do it with hatnotes rather than create a very brief dab page. Not everyone understands hatnotes, in particular the rule (at WP:NAMB) not to link to a dab page from a disambiguated title: I've got some sympathy myself with the argument that an article on "Foo (xxx)" should have a link to the dab page at "Foo" or "Foo (disambiguation)", because someone may have done a search-engine search for "Foo" and found the wrong one first so that a link to the dab page would be helpful!

Woohookitty: Not all that often but it happens occasionally.

R'n'B: I don't add new hatnotes all that often, but I do reformat and clean them up fairly frequently. One common problem is that an article gets moved to a new title, but the editor doesn't correct hatnotes in other articles that linked to the old title (which is particularly a problem when the old title then gets re-purposed for something else).

France3470: I probably change hatnotes (after new pages are created or moved), more than create new ones. Hatnotes are always done on a case by case basis so there isn't really a preferable type. A large number of different templates also makes finding the most applicable one a pretty simple process. And as Pam has said, there is often confusion over when it is best to use a hatnote over creating a new disambiguation page, which may result in the creation of unneeded disambiguation pages.

Are disambiguation pages and hatnotes vulnerable to neutral point of view and notability issues? How does the project handle disagreements about the primary topic associated with a specific name or phrase?

PamD: I suppose there are POV issues in descriptions on dab pages, but these usually reflect the terms used in the articles listed. Notability: there are some grey areas around names or topics which are featured within articles but don't have an article. If the name or topic would have been a redirect to an article, without there being other meanings necessitating disambiguation, then it usually merits a place in the dab page. Discussions about a primary topic should be at the page for the topic, and also linked from other pages which would be affected by any proposed change of primary topic (e.g. if the dab page is currently at the base title, then any proposal to move "Foo (xxx)" to "Foo" needs to be linked from the talk page of the dab page and not just at "Talk:Foo (xxx)" which may not be on the watchlist of someone who has just spent ages tidying up the dab page at "Foo" which is now proposed to be moved to "Foo (disambiguation)").

Woohookitty: Yes it does have issues with notability at times. We will occasionally see dab pages with multiple red links. There are times when this is OK but the whole purpose of disam pages is to link to Wikipedia articles. So if a page isn't likely to ever be made as a full page, then it shouldn't be listed. Some users struggle with that idea. It's not a directory listing of every possible term.

R'n'B: The "primary topic" guideline is a subject of recurring debate. I think most users who are active in the disambiguation project have a consensus about the general purpose of the guideline, but its application in particular cases is often controversial. My own point of view is that designation of primary topics is sometimes affected by WP:RECENTISM and WP:BIAS issues; others think this is not so much of a concern.

Does WikiProject Disambiguation collaborate with any other projects? Have there been any drives or other initiatives to clean up disambiguation pages?

PamD: There is Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links, and ongoing requests for people to look at Category:Disambiguation pages in need of cleanup, Category:Articles with links needing disambiguation, and various others. There has in the past been Wikipedia:Suggestions for disambiguation repair where a small group of editors worked through files produced by User:Quadell to add missing entries and otherwise improve a set of dab pages for personal names.

BD2412: Some of our thorniest disambiguation situations require project expertise (earlier this month, for example, Battle of Jackson had many incoming links. I dropped a note explaining the situation at WP:MILITARY, and they cleaned it up very quickly).

Woohookitty: Generally, the other projects are pretty good about helping us out if its a thorny issue that we can't make heads or tails of. Let's face it. Because of what we do, we touch many, many articles where we don't know the subject matter all that well. I've never really never run into an issue with other projects.

Yes there have been some drives but we are always in need of others.

Night of the Big Wind: I am running my own drive with help of "Templates with disambiguation links". A nice little niche in the market that I found after coming frustrated about links to disambiguation pages stemming from templates. I try to keep the number as low as possible and double the effort as soon as the number of templates grows to bigger then ten, but my desire is to keep it under three. Off course: I am not the only one working on that!

Doncram: I've provided a bridge to/from WikiProject NRHP, which sometimes has been a magnet for surprisingly strong conflicts. I ran a huge drive to create most of what is now 3,299 disambiguation pages for non-unique placenames corresponding to NRHP places, and continue to maintain them.

What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?

PamD: More people are needed to work on the cleanup projects above, but more importantly we need more editors to be generally aware of disambiguation problems and fix what needs to be fixed. If you're patrolling new pages or sorting stubs and you find an article "Foo (xyz)", check whether it's linked from "Foo": you might need to (a) move it to "Foo" because there's no need for disambiguation, or (b) make a hatnote on the "Foo" page to link to it, or (c) add it to the existing dab page at "Foo" or "Foo (disambiguation)". It needs to be made clearer, somewhere, that if you create the article "Foo (xyz)" you need to provide an access route from "Foo".

BD2412: Editors just need to more cognizant of the possibility that when they link to something, the target of that link might have more than one meaning. Every single day I clean up newly added links to pages like EP, MA, bass, bill, and orange. We have javascript tools available to highlight disambig links, but for the most part, editors need to think about the possibilities and check links that are potentially ambiguous.

Woohookitty: I agree with bd2412. Nationality articles are notorious for this. In fact, the first page I ever disammed was "America", which is a very common disam issue. America, American, British, German and French are among our most frequent targets. I think people being aware of what disamming is would be helpful. I still have to explain the term quite often. Some way of explaining the term in a nice concise way would help us.

A new contributor can help by touching one of the pages I mentioned. They tend to be easy fixes (for example, American almost always means United States) and its a good way of getting someone involved in the project.

R'n'B: Almost any editor can help out the project by looking for links to disambiguation pages in articles they are editing or reading, and fixing them. WP:POPUPS is great for this; you can check your links while still in the preview window, and see whether any of them is actually a disambiguation page. It even has an optional setting you can enable that allows you to fix the link with a single click. There are a number of other tools listed on WP:DPL for users who want to get more involved.

France3470: Everyone above has pretty much covered it but I will say that new contributors shouldn't feel intimidated to ask if they have a disambiguation issue – I start discussions on disambiguation talk pages all the time even if I'm pretty convinced that I'm doing the right thing. Disambiguation can be complex and confusing, often times more complicated than people initially realize. It is often best to discuss potentially controversial actions instead of just going for it, turning a page into a dab for instance could result in the creation of hundreds of disambiguation links. The WikiProject talk pages is a great page to ask questions and get feedback, people also tend to respond rather quickly.

Night of the Big Wind: It would be very helpful as contributors start checking their own links before publishing the article. Not only for the links to disambiguation pages but to all pages. Sometimes articles need a severe clean up before you can even start solving the disambiguation links.

Next week, we'll trek across the frigid expanses between Karelia, Irkutsk, and Kamchatka. Before we set out, be sure to chart a path across the largest country in the world by consulting our archive.

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2011-12-05

This week's Signpost is for the birds!

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By Crisco 1492

This edition covers content promoted from 27 November to 3 December 2011.

A male and female Orange-bellied Parrot. Only 35 to 50 specimens of the species exist in the wild today. JJ Harrison, who took these new featured pictures, gives us a little background and a few hints below.

The Signpost welcomes back JJ Harrison, previously interviewed in August. Four of JJ's pictures were promoted this week, and he shares a little of what it takes to shoot featured pictures.

"Lighting, position, exposure and composition are a few things that are worth considering when out and about with a camera. Where the light at any given time is and how best to approach a subject are important considerations. Getting to your subject’s horizontal level usually looks better, and can also help to throw the background out of focus. As far as exposure goes, I recommend checking the exposure/histogram every few shots and adjusting the exposure compensation if needed. I use fill flash a lot, particularly in bright sunlight, and I adjust the flash exposure compensation as necessary. I often use aperture priority (Av) mode, except for birds in flight or when I use flashes and other techniques where manual exposure (M) is better."

Featured lists

Two featured lists were promoted this week:

• Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (W–Z) (nom), by Killervogel5. Another in a series of featured lists related to the Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster, the list covers the 129 Philadelphia Phillies whose surnames start with W, Y, or Z; no player in Major League Baseball history has had a surname starting with X. Of the members of this list, Cy Williams is the only one elected to the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame.
• Katy Perry discography (nom), nominated by (CK)Lakeshade. American singer-songwriter and musician Katy Perry has released three studio albums, one live album, two extended plays, ten singles as a solo artist, as well as some promotional material. After her first album flopped, Perry eventually moved to Capitol Records, where she had her first success with One of the Boys, which was promoted on the internet by the single "Ur So Gay".

Featured topics

A single featured topic was (re)promoted this week. The new topic (nom) consists of four good articles and four featured articles related to the Song Dynasty, which ruled China from 960 to 1279 AD. The topic, previously a featured topic (previous Signpost coverage), had been delisted in March 2010 (pictured on left).

Featured articles

No featured articles were promoted this week.

Featured pictures

Seven featured pictures were promoted this week:

• Commodore 64 (nom; related article), by Evan-Amos. An 8-bit computer introduced by Commodore International in 1982, the Commodore 64 sold up to 17 million units, becoming the best selling personal computer of all time.
• Orange-bellied Parrot male (nom; related article). Photographer JJ Harrison travelled to Melaleuca, Tasmania mainly to photograph this species. The Orange-bellied Parrot is one of only two parrot species that migrate and is one of the rarest wild birds on Earth, with only 35 to 50 individuals estimated to be surviving in the wild. This image is of a male. Regarding how he took these fantastic shots, JJ told The Signpost, "during the summer the Orange-bellied Parrots all breed in Melaleuca. As such, I flew down there by light plane to photograph them. While researchers placed feed out each day to count them, I was there to get a few shots. This presented its own complications – I had to shoot through glass (which I volunteered to clean a few times!)." (above)
• Orange-bellied Parrot female (nom; related article), by JJ Harrison. A female to complement the male. (above)
• Beautiful Firetail female (nom; related article), by JJ Harrison. Also taken in Malaleuca, the image depicts the Beautiful Firetail, named for its deep red rump. It is classified as least concern, with an extent range of over 1,000,000 square kilometres (390,000 sq mi).
• Beautiful Firetail male (nom; related article), by JJ Harrison. A male to complement the female.
• Eleven-faced Goddess of Mercy (nom; related article), by unknown artist. Promoted after almost two months in limbo, this image from the 12th century Heian period depicts Guanyin, the bodhisattva associated with compassion in East Asian Buddhism. The original is a national treasure of Japan (below).
• Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (nom; related article), by MrPanyGoff. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences headquarters, depicted in the new featured picture, is located in Sofia next to the National Assembly of Bulgaria. Founded in 1869, the BAS is the National Academy of Bulgaria.

Featured pictures is proud to present this 12th-century illustration of Guanyin, promoted after nearly two months in limbo:

Reader comments

2011-12-05

Elections due to finish this week, little activity on Betacommand 3, Abortion case amended

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By Jorgenev and Skomorokh

The voting stage of the 2011 Arbitration Committee Elections is scheduled the finish on Saturday, 10 December at 23:59 UTC, with the announcement of the winners tentatively taking place approximately a week after the close of voting. It is recommended that votes be cast at least one hour before the close of the polls, to ensure that they are processed by the server before the cutoff time.

Betacommand 3 proceeds slowly

No new evidence was presented in the case this week, but there was some activity in the workshop, mostly by arbitrators SirFozzie and Risker commenting on proposals. In response to a question asked in the talk page of the Proposed decision section, drafting arbitrators SirFozzie and Elen of the Roads both stated that the proposed decisions would be posted soon.

Two requests declined

ARBPIA 3, a request for a third case on the topic of Palestine and Israel, was unanimously declined this week. Arbitrator Roger Davies wrote "the normal processes should be given a chance to work here before ArbCom intervention. If, after that, the parties feel that a motion would be helpful, I suggest a fresh, more focused, request for amendment, preferably with some well considered draft language".

A request for arbitration surrounding user behavior on the scientific realism article was declined, with arbitrators suggesting an RFC as an alternative solution.

There are no requests outstanding.

BASC statistics update

The Ban Appeals Subcommittee have announced the release of statistics covering their activity in the April – October 2011 period. Of the 56 appeals by banned editors, 11 were successful, and a further 7 dealt with by the community.

Abortion case amended

The Abortion case, whose conclusion drew scrutiny from administrators questioning a remedy which appeared to call for mandatory semi-protection of over a thousand pages, was amended by motion to instead authorise administrators to semi-protect pages in the topic area at their discretion, provided that these actions are logged.

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2011-12-05

Incremental dumps help mirrors, full screen search helps mobile visitors, and two MediaWiki releases help external sites

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By Jarry1250

November engineering report published

The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for November was published last week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month. Many of the projects mentioned have been covered in The Signpost, including the India and Brighton hackathon, the end of the Coding Challenge, and progress on the Visual Editor project. Other activities mentioned in the report were the ongoing infrastructure work to improve performance and reliability, the Wikimedia Labs project, as well as very recent developments such as the final release of MediaWiki 1.18.0 and an update to the Feedback Dashboard (see In Brief for coverage).

Following the previous successful hackathons, the report also noted preparations for a possible San Francisco hackathon to be held in January and at which "experienced staff and volunteer developers will participate, teaching new developers about MediaWiki, the API and our framework for JavaScript feature development".

Among developments to have received less publicity, there was also news on work to improve database dump functionality, with the unveiling of "a new experimental service this month, daily adds/changes dumps for all projects. No information about deleted/undeleted/moved pages from previous dumps is included, but it does include all new content since the run of the previous day". The WMF is also "talking with another organization interested in mirroring them".

The Commons Upload Wizard also received "important improvements" during the month, including "multi-file selection for browsers which support it, custom wikitext licenses, an improved licensing workflow, basic support for location data extraction, and more", the report described. VIPS, a new scaler that handles large PNG files and TIFF files much more efficiently than the existing ImageMagick scaler was also tested during the month.

Scheduled for December are substantial code review work for 1.19 (which has already crept substantially behind that forecast) and the deployment of the WebFonts extension, which will fix character displays of scripts for which there is no native browser support.

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

• MediaWiki 1.18.0 released: The first version of MediaWiki 1.18 has been released to external sites (wikitech-l mailing list). A number of issues have since been discovered, prompting thoughts about a quick point release for the branch. However, it was later decided to hold until the issues could be more fully discovered and resolved (separate wikitech-l thread). In related news, MediaWiki 1.17.1 was released to resolve two security concerns (bugs #32616 and #32276) relating to private wikis (also wikitech-l).
• Mobile search goes fullscreen: The new mobile site interface has been updated to include fullscreen search. The change was made to reflect usability concerns that the existing search function, which mimicked the screen real estate ratio of the desktop site, was unsuitable for small, touch-based screens (Wikimedia blog).
• Resolved: LATER? There was a substantial discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list surrounding the "LATER" resolution that has been applied to 339 bugs filed on the MediaWiki-Wikimedia Bugzilla since it was established in 2004. 80 have since been moved off the designation and onto more suitable resolutions. In unrelated news, WMF Lead Architect Brion Vibber announced updates to his "BugTender" mobile Bugzilla interface.
• FeedbackDashboard and replies: As reported on the Wikimedia blog and mentioned in this week's Engineering Report, it is now possible for more experienced users to respond to MoodBar messages directly from the Feedback Dashboard. The dashboard is intended to "make it easier for experienced users to lend a helping hand to new users, guiding them through their initial experiences editing Wikipedia".
  
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