User talk:Nikkimaria - Wikipedia

Hi Nikkimaria, finally managed to get into T & F via support. They were truly excellent. I managed to download about 10 superb documents, that are going in now. But I noticed that I couldn't get other docs that were in a different category, which I thought would in the category we were allocated. There was no way to determine exactly what category a document was in. Its kind of hit and miss. Don't know if that is good feedback or not. I was wanting to ask you. Do we have any arrangement with the [US Archives]? I need about 60-100 documents from it. I can find them anywhere on the web. Thanks for your sterling work. scope_creep (talk) 11:16, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

You can use the title list to figure out which items you should or shouldn't have access to via T&F.

Fold3 has some of the NARA materials, but you really should check out WP:NARA - a lot of those docs are on Commons/WikiSource, and you can request others from their Wikipedian in Residence. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cheers! Nikkimaria (talk) 03:20, 28 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Congrats, Nikki. Well deserved. Thanks for all your help with image licensing! Regards, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:05, 30 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Dear Nikkimaria, I noticed that you pointed the shortcut WP:RPS to the Wikilibrary project WP:Royal Pharmaceutical Society. I wanted to use this same shortcut to refer to readable prose size, a notion which is widely used to discuss {{very long}} articles. Seeing that the shortcut was taken, I settled on WP:RPSIZE, however I also noticed that WP:RPS used to be associated to WP:WikiProject Record Production and that today it is mostly unused. So, long story short, would you mind if I hijacked the shortcut to point to the guideline on readable prose size, so that our fellow editors can easily discuss it in Talk pages? Many thanks for your consideration. (And yes, we have met on Wikilibrary, as you accepted some of my account applications.) — JFG ^talk 00:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi JFG, that's fine with me. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:52, 29 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Many thanks for your prompt response! I'll change it now. — JFG ^talk 01:53, 29 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hello Nikkimaria. I just realized that I don't know whether Miramar renewals are handled the same/differently than new requests. Do you know if I just follow the same procedure or not? Tks  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:10, 2 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Lingzhi: Just create a new column in the spreadsheet for renewal date, and fill that in if/when someone requests - no need for them to fill out the form again. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:01, 2 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Tks! Ummm... and then what do I do?  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Send over two lists instead of one - newbies and renewals. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Miramar says, and I quote, "The Wikipedia account access is one of a number to be reviewed in the New Year."  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 07:39, 6 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hm, okay. I'll look into that. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I wasn't sure whether you'd noticed the reply to your latest comment on the GAR you opened. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:58, 3 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

There's been another response. Thanks for taking this on. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria, I was wondering whether you could take a look and see whether the articles have indeed been expanded sufficiently based on your earlier calculations. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:43, 3 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I see that you are now punitively editing my contributions. Would you care to explain why? -- DanielPenfield (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Er, what? I reverted your change to an article I created because I saw the change on my watchlist and disagreed with it. That is not "punitive" or personal in any way - it's how things normally work around here. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:47, 5 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm writing to inform you that I've opened a new general Request for Comment concerning whether predecessors and successors should be included in the Infobox Officeholder template, further to my RfC concerning Michael Portillo specifically. The new RfC can be found here: Template_talk:Infobox_officeholder#RfC:_Should_predecessors_and_successors_be_included_in_officeholders.27_infoboxes.3F. Thanks, Specto73 (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hello, Nikki. Many thanks for your source review at Bradley Cooper's FAC. Would you be interested in doing the same at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jennifer Lawrence/archive1? Will appreciate the help. – FrB.TG (talk) 10:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

  Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you.

I have Antonie van Leeuwenhoek on my watchlist, and I see that you reverted a couple of recent edits. They're not my edits, but they look harmless and appropriate, and I was wondering why you did that. I see that they don't show up in the infobox, and "member" isn't an accepted parameter. But "image_size" is accepted, so why did you delete that? This isn't a challenge or anything like that; I just want to understand. --Thnidu (talk) 04:00, 12 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Thnidu, take a look at WP:IMGSIZE - basically |image_size= overrides a user's preferences with regards to image scaling, so should be avoided unless there's a good reason to use it. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I see. Thank you. --Thnidu (talk) 07:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

First, no offense, but it might be just about time to archive some threads on this page. :-) Second and far more important, can I use Fair Use to justify screen capturing a photo in a book (2007; recent) that I find on Amazon.com... the photo is originally from a <strikethrough>1945</strikethrough> 1943 newspaper ("The Statesman") article, but I cannot find those particular Statesman photos anywhere on the Internet... and I have really looked...  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Lingzhi, a few questions to answer yours. First, is the photo still under copyright, given its original publication? Second, under what circumstances do you propose using the photo - in what article, for what purpose? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:53, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

q1, I have no idea whether it is under copyright, but I kinda assume so.. it is (or seems to be/are purported to be, at least in the book, Hunger: A Modern History, Belknap Press) one of a FAMOUS, much-discussed in academic literature set of images that are absolutely nowhere on the Internet, which kinda shocks me. The word "iconic" well and truly applies in this case; I could very easily find at least a dozen WP:RS sources that discuss them prominently. I tend to assume they would be under copyright to the newspaper (The Statesman), since 1943 is not all that long ago. A fact that may or may not help: I think perhaps the newspaper shut down for many years. But alas, it is now alive and well... q2: In Bengal famine of 1943. I have looked online, and can find no images of human victims that do not seem, to my inexpert eye at least, to be under copyright. I almost thought I had some, but they were CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.. we discussed this once before. Most of the images online (including the ones currently in our article) are Time magazine stuff by a photographer whose name escapes me....OH oops "for what purpose"... well it could go anywhere in the latter half of the article; the very best place would be the User:Lingzhi/sandbox#A crisis in two waves section since that section is all about the details of the suffering, but if we hafta be super-sticklers I could very very very very reluctantly shove it down in News reports, literature, other media which actually discusses those photos.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 13:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Okay. Based on your description of the image {{non-free historic image}} would seem to fit best, but keep in mind that if you're using that for a press photo you have to actually be discussing the photo, not just what it shows (which should be possible given that academic lit you mention). Also happy to look into background to see if this or other photos might be out of copyright. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:48, 14 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• My sandbox rewrite has a full paragraph only about how important those particular photos are. Is it required that the photo be in the section that discusses them? Could we put the photo in a section about its subject (i.e. famine victims), but have the caption say these photos by The Statesman forever changed world opinion? And as for your offer of help, yes, I am desperate for viable photos. Thank you so much for all your help  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:51, 14 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Yes you could, if you have a citation to back that up. With regards to other photo options, have you checked that copyright on the Life images was renewed? There might be a possibility of a {{PD-US-not renewed}} image. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• yes plenty of citations. As for verifying copyright renewal, sorry, you may have told me once how to do that, but alas I have forgotten.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• It's a bit more complicated for periodicals than for books, but see wikisource:Help:Copyright renewals. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:06, 16 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Will do, thanks!  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Please forgive the intrusion. Can you check if licensing of these two: File:PeoplesWar Sept1944.jpeg and File:Statesman j.jpg is okey-doke? I appreciate your time and trouble.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• File:PeoplesWar_Sept1944.jpeg: you should explicitly identify in the description who the copyright holder is. I'd also suggest expanding the purpose of use slightly, to explain why it is helpful for a reader to see media coverage.
• File:Statesman_j.jpg should include the details of original publication. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:33, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Peer review/Jadunath Singh/archive1. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 13:27, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Template:Z48Reply

To: The Interior, Neelix, Niikkimaria, Amqui

I have some familiarity with our GLAM and Wikipedians in Residence initiatives, but I have not been closely involved with either project.

I am an OTRS agent and field in an email from an individual associated with the government of Nova Scotia. They are interested in working closely with Wikipedia particularly regarding cultural history issues.

I have already shared links to our COI policy, to the GLAM initiative Wikipedia:GLAM, and to the WiR page (https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence)

They have responded with interest in pursuing this and I promise to help put them in touch with someone. As you may know, I cannot share the contents of OTRS emails without permission but they have given me permission. If you happen to be an OTRS agent see: ticket:2016121310018191

If not, let me know and I will copy the email.

I see this as a potential exciting new initiative. While we have many examples of Wikipedians in Residence, I do not see any that are representatives of a provincial government, so this may be breaking exciting new ground.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:51, 15 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

FYI, see User_talk:Amqui#Nova_Scotia.2C_GLAM_and_WiR--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Nikki, if you have a chance it would be great if you could have a look at the older three or four SR requests at the top of WT:FAC... Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

My edit on the Trump Tower page seems to have been deleted by you twice according to the history on the site. Now I understand your reasoning for this was sourcing issues, however, reading through it I fail to see how posting the actual cover of the video game in question isn't a "reliable source" as stated in said rule.

"The piece of work itself (the article, book)"

Now if it's additional sources you would like to see included I could understand but even then in said situation I fail to see why it must be deleted, twice. The second bit I can understand partially and I'll look into finding a better citation but I ask you to revert your decision on the first section of my edit. Thank you. Archer Rafferty —Preceding undated comment added 00:25, 17 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Archer, per this discussion, your edit requires reliable secondary sourcing - the piece of work itself doesn't qualify. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:32, 17 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria, I was hoping you could take a quick look at this nomination. I found some close paraphrasing earlier, and the nominator has since done some work, but you're a better judge than I am where the boundaries lie, so better you take a fresh look. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

@BlueMoonset: It's passable in terms of paraphrasing, though IMO borderline in other ways as well - prose, sourcing, etc. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:04, 17 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. I'll try to decide what to do next, given your borderline assessment of the remainder. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Nikkimaria, would you be able to help reset my access details? Thanks! Peripatetic (talk) 00:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Peripatetic, those accounts only last a year so have likely expired. You can request access again at WP:OUP and WP:Highbeam, but there aren't currently any JSTOR accounts available. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:48, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cheers, Ealdgyth! Nikkimaria (talk) 01:51, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I want to make a "Featured article review " for Indonesia as this article does not even come close to an FA article anymore.....but when there is an old review page from 2008 at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Indonesia/archive1. In no way can this article be fixed fast....best we dont hold this out as our best of the best in this state. -- Moxy (talk) 02:36, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Moxy, I expect you're right that it can't be fixed quickly, but I'd encourage you to go ahead with an FAR anyways - this could potentially motivate someone to take it on. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:50, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Holy that process is hard ....no wonder we have so many bad FA articles....noone will take the time to findout how to list them .Need to fix these processes.--Moxy (talk) 06:17, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I give up cant get it right ...yet another FA junk article that will sit there forever. Cant tell you how many times this comes up at the help desk....never see a nomination go right from the help desk.....this mean hundred of FA articles dont get listed because of the process.--Moxy (talk) 06:25, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Moxy, you got it mostly right, I've just fixed the talk-page template. Do you have any suggestions about how to make it easier? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:14, 18 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Please undo the changes you have made to the page about my Father — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fraserg58 (talk • contribs) 13:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi Fraserg58. As I've mentioned to you before, Wikipedia has a policy of verifiability - that means we need reliable published sources to support facts in articles, not our personal knowledge of the subject. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:16, 19 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Frankly speaking this is nonsense, I am Dad's only son and the guardian of his legacy. You have no right to delete my family history. As this page does not refer to a living person the criteria are different to the hatchet job you did to my Mother's page (about which she was not at all happy!) Please revert your revisions or escalate this matter to someone who can arbitrate. Gordon Hamilton Mackie Fraser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fraserg58 (talk • contribs) 13:55, 19 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I understand you are upset. Perhaps if you want to record your family's history, you might start a personal website for that purpose? Because this is an encyclopedia project, we do want it to be based on reliable secondary sources, whether for articles on living people or for other types of articles. Your own website would of course not need to adhere to that standard, and you could control what it says in a way that simply isn't possible here. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:59, 20 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hi, thanks for approving my request for an Elsevier health and life sciences account. I received the email, filled out the form, and I'm waiting to hear back from Elsevier. The holidays are here, so things may be a little slow, but do you know the average time frame for these things? Thanks, Icebob99 (talk) 02:53, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hey Icebob99, it usually takes 2–3 weeks but may be longer because of the holidays, as you note. JustBerry will be coordinating that. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:56, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Alright, sounds good. Thanks!! Icebob99 (talk) 02:58, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hello, you recently source reviewed the featured article nomination of Cliff Clinkscales, pointing out a few concerns. I have made the necessary changes, so I would appreciate it if you could check it out again. TempleM (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria - I have responded to your latest reply on the nomination page. TempleM (talk) 17:52, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria - FYI, I have responded to your latest reply once again. TempleM (talk) 19:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria - I saw your latest reply, but I wasn't sure about something. Please check the nomination page again. TempleM (talk) 22:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Nikkimaria - Please check out the nomination again.

Cheers MBW. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:03, 24 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

Cheers Atmse. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:13, 24 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

JustBerry (talk) 21:16, 24 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC)  Reply

Time is running out to voting for the Military Historian and Newcomer of the year! If you have not yet cast a vote, please consider doing so soon. The voting will end on 31 December at 23:59 UTC, with the presentation of the awards to the winners and runners up to occur on 1 January 2017. For the Military history WikiProject Coordinators, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

This message was sent as a courtesy reminder to all active members of the Military History WikiProject.

Thank you so much for your assistance with the Cholmondley and Montagu images on the Operation Mincemeat article. Following some silliness in Commons (I was inappropriately blocked by an involved admin, but that has since been lifted), I have now re-nominated the two images for deletion (at Commons:Deletion requests/File:Cholmondeley.jpg and Commons:Deletion requests/File:EwenMontagu.jpg), and I shall see what happens this time (I just hope not to be blocked for challenging that particular admin again! All the best, The Bounder (talk) 21:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC) P.s. A very happy new year for you too! All the best, The Bounder (talk) 21:55, 30 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

• Just to let you know that as no-one provided any proof of origin, these two images have now been deleted from Commons. Thanks once again for your help. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi, User:BlueMoonset mentioned to me a bit ago that you were knowledgeable in the area of copyright violations. I'm editing the article Hilary Hahn, and I brought up an almost-certain copyvio on its talk page. Could you have a look and give some advice? A rewrite is certainly in order, but I'm not sure how much of the article is originally written and how much I should rewrite. Thanks, Icebob99 (talk) 00:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Icebob99: I actually think they might have copied from us. The site you're concerned about was created in July 2010, at which point the article looked like this. Now, it's possible that another version of the site existed previously at a different URL, or that both copied from a third source, but I'm not seeing any red flags in the article's history that would suggest that to be likely. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's a neat tool to have! Thanks for the insight. Icebob99 (talk) 03:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm still trying to learn how Wikipedia works, apologies if my question here is a nuisance.

The article had this text:

Hollerith is buried at [[Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)|Oak Hill Cemetery]] in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=14503488|title=Herman Hollerith (1860 - 1929) - Find A Grave Memorial|publisher=}}</ref> as is his son, Herman Hollerith Jr.

Which your non-RS edit reduced to

Hollerith is buried at [[Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)|Oak Hill Cemetery]] in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Your non-RS edit, deleting an apparently exact source, leaves only the now unsourced text. I'd expected non-RS text to be deleted, not an apparently reliable source reference. (I've assumed non-RS is shorthand for "not reliable source"). I' appreciate a clue as to the purpose of this edit.

Thanks, 73.71.159.231 (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi IP. You're correct on what the shorthand means. Technically the now-unsourced material could be removed as well, but I opted to leave it be per WP:PRESERVE, as it's not particularly controversial and of course the article is not a biography of a living person. If you feel it should be removed or tagged, by all means go ahead. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Cheers! Nikkimaria (talk) 11:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi Nikkimaria, I disagree with your approach to the removal of full names where a person doesn't have any middle names. A full name really isn't something to get start an edit war over so I've come to share my thoughts here. I appreciate that an infobox is a summary (which I assume is the section of MOS/Infobox you were referring to as I could find nothing on redundancy) but, and I refer specifically to the football infobox, if you keep removing the full name section in instances where there are no middle names you have a case where half of football infoboxes have 'full name' and the other half do not. There is no consistency in that. If you have a look you will find that the large majority of football pages are done the way I have done it on Michel Vlap's page. Liam E. Bekker (talk) 13:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi Liam, most of our biographies don't include a "full" name where it is the same as the person's usual name; I dont see a strong reason to do otherwise for football biographies specifically. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Cheers! Nikkimaria (talk) 04:51, 7 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello. Thanks for all your awesome help on images. You are, in fact, the archangel of images. Maybe if I get some free time I'll make a snazzy barnstar along those lines... but alas, I have two questions:

• Does this link, which includes an author's name and says "All Rights Reserved except for Fair Dealing exceptions otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.", mean that File:Police use tear gas during a communal riot in Calcutta in 1948.jpg is unusable? The creator was a soldier but I see no indication that his work was done in an official capacity.
• I have to email you about the second question, sorry.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Lingzhi: Not that simple, see discussion here, here, and here. I'd suggest you see if there's any evidence that the image might be PD, and only if there's not assume it's non-free. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

You know, WM rakes in shootloads of cash. Don't try to deny it. Then they hire shootloads of techie people to make shootloads of techie five-year plans that always and everywhere amount to precisely zero-point-zero nothing, and genuinely and beyond a doubt were never ever needed anyhow, but were always just plans that had been made in order to spend the money dedicated to making plans. . I say, fire whoever is making those hiring and money-spending decisions, and hire someone who has the commonsense to hire a fulltime copyrights lawyer. End transmission.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

They have copyright lawyers, but there are also a lot of copyright cases (like this one) for them to spend time on. Copyright is not straightforward and people love to argue it. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

They don't have the kind of lawyer or consultant who would/could help a grunt like me. What would happen to WP if you were forced to retire, or simply became burned out & wanted to spend time on the beach? yes I know we had others who were designated img people before, and probably others would also try to fill the role after, but this shouldn't be the case. Volunteers should write (like me) or do admin work, or make graphics... but not pore through legal stuff. That's paid-employee work. Sorry if my rant bothers you. I have a tendency to rant.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 23:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

It's –30C here today, not much chance of a beach run. But I do take your point. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

• Last word then: For whatever reason, and several uncomplimentary reasons can be entertained, WM spends all their time with their heads in the clouds, and produces... I haven't seen anything worthwhile. They do not spend time thinking about what the little people actually need; only about how they can hire more people and spend more money on things that no one needs or ever will need. Just for the sake of. You know. Spending money. Keeping their jobs... I assume that you probably think my mini-rant is not only impolite but also came out of nowhere. From my perspective: I have about 200 sources for User:Lingzhi/sandbox. I have over 3,000 edits on that page, and if you add edits to User:Lingzhi/misc and to the actual mainspace article, I wouldn't be surprised if the total goes up to 4,000. I've been working on it off and on for a year almost. I wrote a little Python (programming language) script that searches through text versions of most of those 200 sources and generates text files filled with quotes in {{quote}} format. God knows how many hours I have spent reading and re-reading and re-re-reading those 200 sources. God knows how many hours I have spent writing and copy editing. I have a wife and child, and a job that requires research. I'm a little tired. And now I have to become a copyrights expert? I recall that you gave me a link to various lists of copyright renewal requests. I searched for some photo creators, and did not find them. I spent a couple hours doing so. But, did I do it correctly? How do I know I did? What if I missed something? And even if I did it correctly, does that verify that copyright status is acceptable? Just look at he links you posted today (above). How... do I track down all the relvant issues? More importantly, why should I? WM should 1) fire a handful of techie people at random (and I used to be a computer programmer, so I am not ant-geek), and 2) hire a staff of at least 3 people to do this. I hope you can appreciate my position. Sorry. I'm tired. I have to finish this famine article, then I have a thing about AppliedLinguistics, then what. I don't enjoy this anymore. Meaningless head-in-the-clouds projects get massive support, but real gruntwork does not.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 01:31, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Greetings - if you have time over the next few days, is it possible you could re-visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Siege of Arrah? I have answered your concerns (and removed a template that automatically transcluded an image) and I'd appreciate your feedback. If you spot anything that would be an immediate fail at FAC (which is where I'll be heading next with this article) then please let me know. Regards Exemplo347 (talk) 12:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I was wondering can this image File:Joseph Nawahi.jpg be used in a FA article. It is essentially an unpublished image with no known photographer. I also have some private family photos with the same problem (they are unpublished and they don't have known authors) of other individual figures that I like to use in future FA articles. Will they be allowed? If so, what tags should be appropriate used? Thanks.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 08:51, 10 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@KAVEBEAR: PD-US-unpublished, assuming the criteria listed there are met. Again, though, you'd want to do due diligence that a photo held by an archive was never published. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:01, 10 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm Having a issue with a user on here

I came to add a reference article but apparently the page was already updated after I read thru it

I then went to update the links because sometimes other editors forget to do it...

This is a newer page but I was told by other editors that its perfectly fine to provide links to other reference pages for words or terms especially if the reader does not understand what they are reading so they can click on the link for further explanation...

I am now being attacked by a user on the page after I did my links and I only ever do them if it relates to the sentence... Except that this user is calling it overthinking and undoing the few words I linked Wifey93 (talk) 02:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi Wifey93, wikilinking is a bit of a balancing act - we don't want to link every possible word, but we do want to include valuable links. Have you seen the linking guideline? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you and yes

I told him basically that this must be his page as I noticed that he seems to have undone previous edits so it's not just mine

I told him that he doesn't have to reply back to me because I said to him obv my edits aren't appreciated and it's like he has to have the last word

Then he's on me for not signing with ---- and I told him that I'm doing this on a phone so the website is acting differently so the ---- couldn't be posted and that I'm aware of it all since I been on here for years

He's then trying to give me instructions on it and I'm like I already told you that I'm not replying cause obv this is your page and I saw how he's attacked others...

I told him I don't need his help but he's right in my face

If I knew how to block him I would as I have never had someone jump on me...I only found his page cause I was reading a newspaper article and then found the Wikipedia page thru that and I thought I would be a good person and add a reference article... I think this is what set him off — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wifey93 (talk • contribs) 05:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

[1] - in which article please? Did you try adding "| suppressfields=religion" to the call? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Mike Peel: In every article using the template where a value exists on Wikidata. There are over 400 articles using that template, and your change would significantly expand the number of parameters appearing in them. This includes cases where we explicitly don't want to do that, such as religion, ethnicity, and more. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:46, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

If religion etc. shouldn't be in the infobox, then why is it a parameter? I hadn't spotted that you'd removed the wikidata call for that parameter since my last edit to the infobox. If it's removed from this new version of the code, will you refrain from reverting me again? Note that I'm trying to enable opt-outs from the Wikidata call, merging in RexxS's version from Template:Infobox person/WD. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

You'll want to look over this archive for why religion shouldn't be in most infoboxes. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Mike Peel: If you look at the main {{Infobox person}} you'll see |religion= isn't included there any longer. And no, I will not. If you'd like to enable opt-outs for the current parameters there, great, go ahead. But there are other parameters that shouldn't be included at all (eg. ethnicity) and others that should only be included in certain cases (eg. children's names). In addition, your change would add a significant amount of data to over 400 articles, including 172 BLPs - that shouldn't be done without verifying that there is appropriate sourcing present. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:11, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

How about with these changes made? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Mike Peel: I appreciate that you're trying to address the issues, but that just doesn't go far enough. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:02, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

OK. The new version, just posted, does not enable any new parameters for the existing articles unless they set "fetchwikidata=ALL" in the infobox call. They can opt out of individual parameters as they want too, either by name or by the availability of references for those pieces of information. Note that these are all articles that have been opted in to using Wikidata - if there are any that specifically have problems with certain parameters, please point them out and we can adapt the template to handle them, rather than doing a blanket revert. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:39, 16 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

• Just another reason why certain infobxes are so problematic. Cassianto^Talk 19:42, 15 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Just saw on my watchlist an industrious editor is importuning me to reduce the size of two images I uploaded as "historic fair use" and "fair use" (newspaper front page). I have a long history of ranting, which may be unfortunate, but nowadays my only feeling is one of exhaustion at searching for support yet finding only thin winds, frail rails and empty pockets. To wit: I went to Wikimedia to ask for someone to put up some money for image researchers. Alas, I missed the wishlist by only a few weeks. I was told "Go to page so-and-so", but page so-and-so is just a question and answer page. I already knew there are question and answer pages. Question and answer pages are places where two thing happen: 1) People can ask, "Where is such-and-such information?" or 2) People can ask, "I have this information, does it fit our needs?" As such, although I appreciate those who offer their insights, these forums are not at all what I think Wikipedia (Wikimedia) needs. Wiki(ped)(med)ia needs actual researchers who are actually paid to do actual research to actually determine whether or not historic images are actually in the public domain.

So, knowing full well that whoever you mention in reply may not thank you for doing so, I ask,"Who is the one person whom I can ask for Wikimedia to spend money on image researchers (just fresh-faced, eager-beaver young recent grads I assume), plus one temporary-hire domain expert to train them?"

As always, I remain in your debt.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm not really sure who that one person would be - I'm aware of grant programs like this one meant to support the community doing stuff like this, but other than the wishlist, not WMF. Astinson, any ideas? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:56, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for pinging me Nikki.

Unfortunately, the WMF would not be in a position to support that kind of work, directly: you are proposing direct monies used for content development on the projects, and copyright clearance both of which I believe (and I am not the legal expert here) would violate longstanding policies at the foundation (the second would undermine our "user-generate copyright patrolling" protections in US law). I think the best tactic, would be to find another community that has these kinds of researchers, but can donate or be grant-funded to spend time supporting a workflow that is appropriate for our community (think something along the lines of the Translators without Borders project by WikiProject Medicine: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_task_force). The other option, would be improving the tools that patrollers have to compare the images with existing images via Google or whatever other search tools are available (think machine learning). Both of these kinds of tactics, could be the kind of projects our grants program would be interested in. The next Inspire campaign focuses on "How do we engage external knowledge communities?" Folks that work on copyright clearance, would be a good community for that: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire . There you could develop your ideas, and see if you have something that will work within the broader strategies used by our communities already, and see if you can find support from across Wikimedia Projects. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Bad ping @Lingzhi: Astinson (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Astinson (WMF): Thank you for your somewhat discouraging reply. "New tools" and "new training" would both be second-best then. As for tools forex, there is a website which records renewed copyrights. Searching it is troublesome. A way to make it easier and more effective would be good. But what we really need is expertise.............. but anyhow. Thanks.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Lingzhi: I am not sure what you mean by "new training": the Translation task force that partners with Translators without borders created an off-wiki workflow, for bringing content on-wiki in dozens of languages. I would suggest that you can use the Inspire Campaign to test and refine your ideas to make them better recieved by other parts of the community and/or find some more contributors who can help you realize a solution to the problem you are identifying. During the Harrassment campaign, several editors were able to move some ideas about how to change community policy from underformed idea, into practical engagement on enwiki and in other communities. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

This was the example I was thinking about: from the Harrasment Campaign, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @Astinson (WMF): Thanks again for taking the time to reply & offer options. I will look into these options when I return from vacation. Cheers.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:54, 26 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I see that you've been systematically removing Template:Infobox person/Wikidata from articles that have opted in to use it, including engaging in edit wars when your edits were undone. All of your edits were made covertly, without notifying the editor that added the infobox, or raising any concerns on the infobox talk page. If you were a new editor, then I'd be posting {{Uw-disruptive3}} to your talk page. As it is, please stop doing this, and instead please post your concerns and your edits to the infobox talk page. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Mike Peel: That is absolutely false. You have been systematically converting all of those templates to opt-in without due care and attention to the output (not to mention notifying anyone or discussing on the infobox talk page), and as a result have caused problems across multiple articles. I have been cleaning up after you, and in select cases have converted to a different template type or, where the template was blank, removing it. If you think discussion is needed, let's revert your changes to the template and bring those for wider discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

No. All of the articles had opted in to using Wikidata already. The changes I was making to the template were to add opt-in functionality, and all of the edits I made to these articles (all ~500 of them) were to ensure that they *continued* to have the same information from Wikidata that they already had. I spent a full day making sure that they did so appropriately - what this this about a lack of due care and attention, or cleaning up after me? Where did you report any problems that needed fixing? Mike Peel (talk) 00:54, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Insofar as "opting in" matters - and adding the template gives no special privilege and requires no notification of the adding editor before changing or removing - all of the articles "opted in" to the limited set of parameters provided by the previous version of the template, not to the additional parameters and functions your changes added. I fixed the problems that I saw, which is what I meant by "cleaning up" - that included removing displayed nonsense, unsourced content, and empty displayed templates. If you feel there are specific edits that were not appropriate, I'm happy to discuss those, but at this point I'm of the mind that your changes to the template were inappropriate and ought to be discussed more broadly before being reimplemented, for these reasons and those explained above. Pinging David Eppstein, who has elsewhere expressed concern at this template being used to import unsourced or poorly sourced information. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps I might add that one of the infoboxes I saw and removed today was still bad despite the new code to check that all imported data is marked with a source on Wikidata. It was a birthday, adding a day of the month and month to the information already in the article, but with a Wikidata-source that gave only the birth year. And of course the source was also not imported to Wikipedia from Wikidata. The new code does not prevent the need for human checking of the data quality. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I am also (independently) removing this infobox/wikidata from articles, as it had unwanted results (e.g. duplicating an image which was already in an article) and added unnecessary clutter, and since I usually could present more info in the local infobox. My edits were also "covertly", just as "covertly" as the one originally adding it, or the one converting it to the new version which showed more unsourced Wikidata entries. The disruptive editor here is not Nikkimaria. Fram (talk) 11:02, 24 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Nikki, I know this is a big ask, but I'm looking for someone to perform image/source reviews for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team at the 2012 Summer Paralympics/archive3. If you have the time, I would be most grateful. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:00, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi Nikkimaria, I saw you reverted the "age" calculator I added. With the Helen Mackay article, this is the behaviour I would expect. If no death date is specified then the correct thing to is assume the person is still alive. There isn't really any way around this. If you add the death date to Wikidata (as I've now done) the age is corrected. Also, if the death date is unsourced, the age is just not shown at all. Laurdecl ^talk 05:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well, no. Anyone looking at that article would see that a birth and death date are both clearly identified, but then the template claims that she is alive and setting age records - that's not a reasonable outcome. Also, how does your "calculator" handle year-level dates? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:46, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

It works fine. If there is a death date on Wikidata, the infobox won't show the incorrect age. Even if the death date in unsourced (there is simply no date shown). Can you revert yourself and take a look at the article again? I think this is a corner case, I looked at ~20 other articles that worked fine... Laurdecl ^talk 05:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

No, it doesn't work fine if that's the result. How does the calculator handle imprecise dates? Nikkimaria (talk) 06:06, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I meant that imprecise dates work fine. If one article doesn't have a death date in the infobox, you should add the death date in, rather than removing functionality that is essential and works fine 90% of the time. I've fixed the article above and if you see any more that do that you can tell me and I'll fix them (or just add the date on Wikidata). This is an easily corrected mistake by the article author – they forgot to add the death date. Laurdecl ^talk 06:10, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean by "work fine" in that context, then? What would be the output? Nikkimaria (talk) 06:12, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, what context? The calculator works if a valid date is entered. Laurdecl ^talk 06:13, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

If the calculator were to be provided with an input of |birth_date=2000 and |death_date=2001, what will be the output? Nikkimaria (talk) 06:15, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Age 1. You can try it out. Laurdecl ^talk 06:17, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

It just subtracts the dates so 2001-2000=1. Laurdecl ^talk 06:19, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

So then it fails. A person who was born in 2000 and died in 2001 may have been age 1, but they also may have been only a few days old - if, say, they were born in late December 2000 and died early January 2001. A singular output is not reasonable in that case. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:20, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

You know that's what the normal template does ({age}). Laurdecl ^talk 06:23, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Which is why we don't use that template in that context. See the documentation for Template:Infobox person for recommendations. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:28, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

How about you let me keep a useful addition to this template, and I'll overlook your mass removal of it from pages that have opted-in–which you have been warned about before? Laurdecl ^talk 06:32, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

How about you work on actually making the addition useful - in the sandbox rather than the live template - and stop trying to blackmail people into letting you retain a faulty change? If you've seen the "warning", you should have also seen the associated discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 06:37, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm not blackmailing you, I'm saying that you should stop randomly removing this template from pages that are using it. Do you have a constructive suggestion for the template? Do you want me to code it to not work on dates that are bare years? Laurdecl ^talk 06:40, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

I've coded a version that doesn't place an "(age x)" after the birth/death date if the input is a bare year. Any objections to me adding this? Laurdecl ^talk 07:54, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Do you have a sandbox version to look at? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

No, I see it's live, and still not working correctly. For example, if imprecise dates are entered locally, it still returns a precise age. See for example Antonie Strassmann. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:12, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

And also Mark Ashton, which now displays duplicate ages. There needs to be a way to at least suppress the display where warranted. Reverting pending that development. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:17, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Alright, I'll make it disable itself if there's a local age entered, since it only works with Wikidata values. No hard feelings about the blackmail hey? ;) Laurdecl ^talk 20:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Oh my, another "Wikidata knows better" proponent who makes a lot of articles worse and doesn't accept criticism or removal of the infobox (I accused User:Mike Peel incorrectly of these changes, my apologies to him). Laurdecl, please don't intriduce untested or buggy software / infoboxes into the mainspace, and under no circumstances assume that Wikidata knows better than enwiki articles, as that isn't true in most cases. And certainly don't blackmail editors here, it will only backfire. Fram (talk) 21:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)Reply