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Thanks a lot, baie dankie, [[User:Hansmuller|Hansmuller]] ([[User talk:Hansmuller|talk]]) 13:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, baie dankie, [[User:Hansmuller|Hansmuller]] ([[User talk:Hansmuller|talk]]) 13:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

: Hi {{u|Hansmuller}}, I am not so sure what it was a picture of as I can not see it which makes it more challenging to give good feed back on this. Too bad it was taken down before I could see it. I am assuming it is an image of the Robbin Island Museum logo? If it is then I would upload it under a fair use argument on Wikipedia its self and not on commons. Such as I did with the tiger brands logo [[Tiger_Brands#/media/File:Tiger_Brands_Logo.png|here]]. It is far more technical (legally or disclaimer wise) than a normal upload on commons of an image that you own the copyright of but for logos of organisations it is the best approach generally. Downside is that it only will work for English langauge Wikipedia and you will need to repeat the process on each other language version of Wikipedia you want to use the logo in. If it is not a logo than it might be a very different problem and solution. Hope that helps? --[[User:Discott|Discott]] ([[User talk:Discott#top|talk]]) 15:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Revision as of 15:42, 13 January 2020

Archived talk pages can be viewed here.

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future for English Wikipedia and possibly other projects such as Commons and Spanish Wikipedia. If you would like to receive notifications on your talk page when drafts and finished products from this project are ready for review, then please sign up for the project newsletter.
Regards, --Pine 00:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2019 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • United States L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
  • Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
  • Denmark MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
  • United States Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
  • Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
  • Ohio Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

Orphaned non-free image File:Dodo Pizza logo.png

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Thanks for uploading File:Dodo Pizza logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:VBS Mutual Bank.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:VBS Mutual Bank.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 02:45, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Request for more election poster pictures

Greetings, Discott. How are you? I have noticed on the 2019 South African general election article that you have uploaded a few images of the election posters situated in Cape Town. Can you perhaps take more photos of the election posters? I reside in Paarl, more specifically the quite-predominant Afrikaans part of Paarl, so it is basically Freedom Front Plus or Democratic Alliance or nothing. I was in Cape Town yesterday, and I saw a lot of ACDP/DA/EFF/ANC posters that we don't have here in Paarl. I tried to take a few pictures, but, unfortunately, the pictures came out all blurry. You take the best, most high-quality pictures. Do you maybe see an opportunity to go out your way and go take some pictures? it would be of great help! Thanks in advance. Lefcentreright (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lefcentreright@: I have also been thinking about this especially given the disproportionate number of DA posters relative to other parties. Unfortunately there are not many EFF posters around Cape Town. I was in Johannesburg a few weeks ago where I saw many EFF and other party posters but I was there for such a short period of time that I was unable to get any pictures of them. However I have managed to take a generic EFF poster recently and a picture of a GOOD campaign bus.--Discott (talk) 20:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Discott: Thanks for the posters! I appreciate it a lot! Lefcentreright (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2019 May newsletter

The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:

  • Scotland Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
  • Wales Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
  • Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
  • Kingdom of Prussia Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.

Other notable performances were put in by Chicago Barkeep49 with six GAs, United States Ceranthor, England Lee Vilenski, and Saskatchewan Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and Denmark MPJ-DK with a seven item GT.

So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

Thanks, Discott! I really do appreciate the award. Lefcentreright (talk) 16:08, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Minor typo

Hey, in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ZAR-USD_exchange_rate_1974-2014.png, in the legend to the right, 'percentage' is spelled with an extra h. If you ever wanted to update it, it might be good to address that as well. Thanks for your time! LRataplan (talk) 12:34, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

meetup on Sunday

Hey Douglas

I'm keen on popping into the meetup on Sunday - this is my first time joining, other than my laptop, is there anything else I should bring with or know about?

Thanks Jennifer Nefiger (talk) 13:29, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nefiger, that's great! No need to bring anything else. Will be great to have you and see you there. Discott (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again - please accept my apologies, unfortunately I will no longer be able to make the meetup today. Will keep an eye out for any updates on future meetings. Hope to see you soon. 209.203.28.15 (talk) 08:38, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No worries Nefiger, see you next time on the 7th July then?--Discott (talk) 10:20, 2 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

About the "2007-2019 South African energy crisis" article

Hi, there - how are you? I propose that the name of the article be just "South African energy crisis" because there is no confirmation that the blackouts have completely stopped for good. There is still speculation that load-shedding will be implemented later in the year, because of the ongoing woes at Eskom. Have a great week. Lefcentreright (talk) 15:33, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good suggestion. I support that name change.--Discott (talk) 20:01, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2019 July newsletter

The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • Norfolk Island Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics
  • South Carolina Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
  • Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
  • United States Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics

Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:African Rainbow Minerals (logo).gif

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Thanks for uploading File:African Rainbow Minerals (logo).gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:26, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #1—July 2019

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Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.

Edit Cards

Toolbar with menu opened

This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.

Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.

Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.

Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:

Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?

If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.

Follow these instructions and share your experience:

📲 Try Edit Cards.

Recent releases

The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:

  1. Section editing
    • The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
    • The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
  2. Loading overlay
    • The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.

Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.

New and active projects

This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.

  • Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now. Go here to see how: 📲Try Edit Cards.
  • Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
  • Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
  • Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use.  The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.

Looking ahead

  • Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
  • Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.

Learning more

The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:Vida e Caffe logo.png

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Thanks for uploading File:Vida e Caffe logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

The file File:IPPR logo.png has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

unused, low-res, no obvious use

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:01, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2019 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Olivia Jackson for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Olivia Jackson is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Olivia Jackson until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. JDDJS (talk to mesee what I've done) 21:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions to fix South African Wikipedia

Hi, Discott. How are you? I recently discovered that you were the Chair of Wikimedia ZA, though it might be belated, but congratulations on obtaining such a senior role in South African Wikipedia. Your contributions are valued and appreciated. I have been contemplating for a while about notifying you and the others about this big, troublesome issue: The quality and standard of Wikipedia articles regarding South Africa is declining, and fast. Articles are littered with "outdated", "clean up", "orphan", "stub", "citation needed", "content explanation needed" and many more other templates regarding the condition.

One of the initial reasons why I started editing Wikipedia was to improve the quality and notability of these articles. I was frankly gatvol of opening an article and seeing that it is part of the infamous "one-liner and one source" (stub) articles. I was also tired of seeing vandalism and just plain nonsense on the articles, so I have attempted to improve the readability and content. We here in South Africa have so much to show and tell the world, but our Wikipedia articles do not reflect it. If we as a collective group of editors put our skills and knowledge together, we can fill the DYK, Good Article and Featured Article and List sections quite easily.

Now for the queries:

  • South African Politics (My editing-turf) is struggling a bit. I looked at the Executive Council (South Africa) article and see that it is filled with a sea of red links. All of the Western Cape MECs have Wikipedia articles. Why can't the rest have? Also, the provincial departments (Only Western Cape departments have three articles!) and national departments either have no articles at all or are just outdated and lacking newer information. We need to create more MEC profile articles (for instance, Limpopo MEC for Finance and many more MEC positions should have articles). The national ministerial articles are stubs. Those articles should be expanded more since the positions are vital and whoever holds them, have immense power. All the MPLs should have articles too. I want to nominate Alan Winde to obtain Good Article status. It is currently being peer-reviewed (no one has responded yet). Can you maybe just check the quality and be the "peer reviewer"? It would be appreciated. I also want to nominate List of members of the 6th KwaZulu-Natal Legislature (Currently in progress) for Featured List status. Can you maybe give advice on how the article should look for it to get the prestigious title?
  • Towns and cities. Almost all the same reasons as above. Many articles don't have many references and are consequently tagged with "additional sources needed" tags. It should not be like this. Plenty of the old Karoo towns have the potential of becoming a Good Articles or DYKs.
  • Personalities. Most articles in this section are outdated and lack references. Leon Schuster and many others' Wikipedia articles need some work.

Thank you for your time. Ping as many people as possible. Maybe make an announcement on WikiProject South Africa? Let's get as many people as possible involved in this project.

Thank you. Dankie. Enkosi.

LefcentrerightTalk 15:56, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lefcentreright, that's very nice of you. You are right about the quanitity and quality of South African articles which is why it is a focus of Wikimedia ZA to try and get more people working on them. You should join us for the Wikipedia meetup we are having on the 5th October in Cape Town. We talk about this sort of stuff there and it is a great place to make a plan for them.--Discott (talk) 16:02, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

AfroCine: Join the Months of African Cinema this October!

Greetings!

After a successful first iteration of the “Months of African Cinema” last year, we are happy to announce that it will be happening again this year, starting from October 1! In the 2018 edition of the contest, about 600 Wikipedia articles were created in at least 8 languages. There were also contributions to Wikidata and Wikimedia commons, which brought the total number of wikimedia pages created during the contest to over 1,000.

The AfroCine Project welcomes you to October, the first out of the two months which have been dedicated to creating and improving content that centre around the cinema of Africa, the Caribbean, and the diaspora. Join us in this global edit-a-thon, by helping to create or expand articles which are connected to this scope. Also remember to list your name under the participants section.

On English Wikipedia, we would be recognizing participants in the following manner:

  • Overall winner (1st, 2nd, 3rd places)
  • Diversity winner
  • Gender-gap fillers

For further information about the contest, the recognition categories and how to participate, please visit the contest page here. For further inquiries, please leave comments on the contest talkpage or on the main project talkpage. See you around :).--Jamie Tubers (talk) 00:50, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Thank you for today. I was very nice to finally be among fellow Wikipedians. If you still want to write the co-nomination for Greenman, you can do so here: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Greenman. Thanks again. LefcentrerightTalk (plz ping) 13:45, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lefcentreright, it was great to have you join us yesterday and I hope you can join us next time too. Thanks for the link to Greenman's nomination. I will look at it now.--Discott (talk) 14:24, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019

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Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help

What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!

Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

Talk Pages

The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.

The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.

Mobile visual editor

The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

What happens when you click on a link. The new Edit Card is bigger and has more options for editing links.
The editing toolbar is changing in the mobile visual editor. The old system had two different toolbars. Now, all the buttons are together. Tell the team what you think about the new toolbar.
  • In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
    • One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
    • New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
    • Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
  • Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.

Wikimania

The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead

  • Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
  • Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
  • Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2019 US Banknote Contest

US Banknote Contest
November-December 2019

There are an estimated 30,000 different varieties of United States banknotes, yet only a fraction of these are represented on Wikimedia Commons in the form of 2D scans. Additionally, Colonial America, the Confederate States, the Republic of Texas, multiple states and territories, communities, and private companies have issued banknotes that are in the public domain today but are absent from Commons.

In the months of November and December, WikiProject Numismatics will be running a cross-wiki upload-a-thon, the 2019 US Banknote Contest. The goal of the contest is to increase the number of US banknote images available to content creators on all Wikimedia projects. Participants will claim points for uploading and importing 2D scans of US banknotes, and at the end of the contest all will receive awards. Whether you want to claim the Gold Wiki or you just want to have fun, all are invited to participate.


If you do not want to receive invitations to future US Banknote Contests, follow the instructions here

Sent by ZLEA at 23:30, 19 October 2019 (UTC) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk)[reply]

WikiCup 2019 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:

  1. Better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly Adam Cuerden (submissions) with 964 points
  2. England Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 899 points
  3. Norfolk Island Casliber (submissions) with 817 points
  4. Wales Kosack (submissions) with 691 points
  5. Washington (state) SounderBruce (submissions) with 388 points
  6. Antarctica Enwebb (submissions) with 146 points
  7. United States Usernameunique (submissions) with 145 points
  8. Indonesia HaEr48 (submissions) with 74 points

All those who reached the final will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field. Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

We have opened a scoring discussion on whether the rules and scoring need adjustment. Please have your say. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2020 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth 14:18, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

Thank you for your edit in the big tent article

Friendlyhistorian (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Friendlyhistorian, that is very kind of you. :-)

Invitation to revise declined entry Draft:Anton Smit (sculptor) , South African

Hi User:Discott, Given your interest in South African culture, may I invite you to revise entry Draft:Anton Smit (sculptor) and perhaps join the ongoing debate? In my view, the artist´s work meets the requisite of being a "significant monument/part of a significant exhibition" as required by the submission´s decliner. Your help with this will be greatly appreciated.Neuralia (talk) 14:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority 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.

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Photos of politicians and my proposals

Hi, Discott. I see that you lot discussed the subject on how to get photos of politicians at the 22nd Meetup. This has been an issue that has been troubling me for some time now. I unsuccessfully tried to work with GCIS on getting photos of the South African premiers. They were not helpful and incredibly unenlightened to put it nicely.

Now, I had an incident on Natasha Mazzone's article where a user kept on changing the image on her infobox to a newer one. The problem was that the image had an inadequate license. We eventually had a discussion on my talk page (Now archived. See here User talk:Lefcentreright/Archive 4#Natasha Mazzone image). To my shock, it turned out to be her husband, Kevin Mileham. Mileham is also an MP. He gave his cellphone number (083 463 8858). This isn't the end of the story. Mazzone DM'ed me on Instagram and I ended up being invited to Parliament for a day. I met a lot of MPs. If you look on my user page, I even got a photo with the COPE President.

When I was there at Parliament, I realised that most MPs do, in fact, want articles and they want their articles to look nice with images, quotes, excerpts of their work, etc. Most MPs do not have articles and it has actually reached that point in which MPs create their own articles, e.g. Kevin Mileham and Dean Macpherson. I believe an edit-a-thon is needed. Also, I believe we could do what they did at the EU Parliament a few years ago and also hold an outreach to Parliament and also to the provincial legislatures. Kind regards. LefcentrerightTalk (plz ping) 15:23, 8 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image File:University of Stellenbosch crest-no background.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:University of Stellenbosch crest-no background.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:48, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category:People diagnosed with dyslexia has been nominated for discussion

Category:People diagnosed with dyslexia, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Vaporgaze (talk) 19:24, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the 2020 WikiCup!

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Discott,

  • Can you help me with a copyright question about an image from the Robben Island Museum (RIM)?

w:c:User:Vigneron said i might ask you about this discussion for undeletion.

I am a volunteer at the w:Afrika-Studiecentrum Leiden as a Wikipedian in Residence (w:nl:Wikipedia:GLAM/Afrika-Studiecentrum webpage in Dutch, resembles Afrikaans closely, so you might understand, otherwise Google translate got better). Aart Rietveld, an historian who taught in Nigeria, donated lots of photographs of Africa to the ASC, such as the w:c:Category:Robben_Island_2015_(Rietveld_Collection). There was a picture i liked, see

Google robben island museum canvas logo

https://www.google.com/search?q=robben+island+museum+canvas+logo&client=firefox-b-e&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=UPfqVqQxAckeWM%253A%252Cc6tL8mOIHftHKM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTOZsABBuV02BSL_riGtw1fitOe5A&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxv8LZ1oDnAhVML1AKHWzpDuYQ9QEwA3oECAcQDw#imgrc=UPfqVqQxAckeWM:

where it surprisingly is still visible in cache (? from nl.m.wikipedia.org) of a Dutch wikipedia page, although the image was deleted on Commons where the filename was (is?) ASC_Leiden_-_Rietveld_Collection_-_28_-_Yellow_canvas_with_four_silhouettes_and_text_%22Robben_Island%22_-_2015_(cropped).jpg,

w:c:User_talk:VIGNERON#Commons:Deletion_requests/File:ASC_Leiden_-_Rietveld_Collection_-_28_-_Yellow_canvas_with_four_silhouettes_and_text_"Robben_Island"_-_2015_(cropped).jpg

for the cropped image, there was also a larger image. Vigneron suggested PD-South-Africa-exempt as you can see from his discussion mentioned above.

  • What is your judgement? Can we undelete and show this image on Commons with the license "PD-South-Africa-exempt" (or something else)?

Thanks a lot, baie dankie, Hansmuller (talk) 13:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Hansmuller, I am not so sure what it was a picture of as I can not see it which makes it more challenging to give good feed back on this. Too bad it was taken down before I could see it. I am assuming it is an image of the Robbin Island Museum logo? If it is then I would upload it under a fair use argument on Wikipedia its self and not on commons. Such as I did with the tiger brands logo here. It is far more technical (legally or disclaimer wise) than a normal upload on commons of an image that you own the copyright of but for logos of organisations it is the best approach generally. Downside is that it only will work for English langauge Wikipedia and you will need to repeat the process on each other language version of Wikipedia you want to use the logo in. If it is not a logo than it might be a very different problem and solution. Hope that helps? --Discott (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]