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Special:Export and Wikidata QID?

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Hello everyone, the Wikidata for Wikimedia projects team is investigating the benefit of adding a new <tag> for a Wikidata item QID into the XML file output from the Special:Export function.
Have you used this function before? If yes, we would like to hear from you.

  • Would adding a new <tag> for a linked Wikidata item (e.g. <wikidataid>) aid you?
  • What types of pages did you export? (article, template, talk etc.)
  • What did you do with the exported content?

Please leave your comments or questions as a reply to this message, thank you. -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What does this new tag do? Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2024 (UTC)tag.[reply]
@Blueboar The message is referring to tags in the XML file you get from exporting a page, not tags that are used in wikitext. The tag doesn't "do" anything, XML files use HTML like tags to mark up data fields. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can see this being useful to others, but the tag name (wikidataid) seems suboptimal. Could "wikidata-id", "wikidata-qid", or even just "wikidata" or "qid" be used? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Pigsonthewing, yes it can be different, although <wikibaseitem_id> was suggested to fit with an existing schema. However, we have put the task on hiatus due to the potential consequences this addition could have on the size and time required for the weekly Wikipedia database dumps. -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Desblock my account in Wikipedia spanish

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Hi wikis,please asked to the User:Taichi (hes blocked my account and e-mail indefinitely from this https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solicitudes_de_verificaci%C3%B3n_de_usuarios?markasread=58923216&markasreadwiki=eswiki) I'm not a sockpuppet of these users. AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:47, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But im a good faith so please asked this user Taichi AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:48, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AbchyZa22, as this is the English Wikipedia, we have no authority over the Spanish Wikipedia. Each language Wikipedia is a separate project. If you are blocked on Spanish Wikipedia, you will have to appeal your block there; you can find instructions here in regards to that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, AbchyZa22. This is the English Wikipedia. The Spanish Wikipedia is a separate autonomous project with its own policies, guidelines and administrators. We have no influence or power over them. We cannot help you here. You must use the block appeal processes on the Spanish Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 10:57, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thank you AbchyZa22 (talk) 10:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cullen328@Seraphimblade:Can't edit (https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:UsuariosBloqueados&wpTarget=%239201891) look AbchyZa22 (talk) 11:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to hear it, but there's really nothing we can do about it. You will have to follow whatever appeals process the Spanish Wikipedia has; we can neither do that for you nor do anything about it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:07, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
AbchyZa22, I hope that you understand that English Wikipedia editors and adminstrators have no power whatsoever over the Spanish Wikipedia. We are not their bosses in any way. Cullen328 (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding conflicts with WikiEd course work

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Two days ago I created an article on Ann Trevenen Jenkin, as part of WP:Women in Red's "Women who died in 2024". Yesterday there was a message on its talk page to say it is part of a WikiEd project, and I find that a student has been working on their draft article on this topic since 2 October. In the nature of student projects, they have been working step by step, week by week. Their draft is not yet fit for mainspace, and the course continues until 18 December. This must happen fairly often, when students pick notable topics which are missing from the encyclopedia but other editors spot the same gaps.

To avoid duplicated work like this, it would be very helpful if topics which are the subject of assignments in WikiEd courses could be flagged in some way, so that when an editor starts to create an article they are alerted, just as we are routinely alerted to the fact that an article on the topic has previously been deleted. Unless the editor feels that an article on the topic is needed with some urgency, they could then leave it aside (perhaps watchlisting it in case the student work needs some improvement), and choose a different topic. Could this be done? Where should I suggest it? PamD 09:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose that on a practical level the course tutor could create an article and then speedy-delete it G7 (requested by author) after adding the course banner to the talk page...? PamD 09:40, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't like to see that done. The expectation is that WikiEd should not be disruptive to the rest of the project, and should work within its normal operations. That includes that if you're drafting an article, someone else may "beat you to it"; that's a normal part of editing and something students who are learning to edit Wikipedia should be expected to deal with. They could always offer ideas for improving the newly-created article instead. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't see it as disruptive, it wouldn't be an instruction not to create an article, but a nudge that an article was under construction so that it might be a good idea to put ones efforts elsewhere. I'll be interested to see what happens at course end, and I hope the student won't expect to be able to upload their article regardless! I suppose a difference from a normal drafting is that students are forced to work over a matter of months, while normal editors can in most cases work faster. PamD 09:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Mary Washington/Writing and Literacy in the Digital Age (Fall 2024) has a useful scope table. AllyD (talk) 09:50, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's a standard course dashboard, but only useful if you know to look at it ... ah, just had a thought. Special:WhatLinksHere/Ann_Trevenen_Jenkin includes the Brigham Young course. So, if I remember, my process for starting an article will now include a "What links here" with particular care to look for WikiEd courses. PamD 09:53, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to mention "what links here"; I think that's a good idea anyway. Back in 2012 while creating Petite Suite (Debussy), I encountered a similar situation while checking links because there was an articles for creation submission at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Petite Suite (Debussy) (requires admin goggles to view). Nowadays draftspace exists (it was created a year later) and editors do get alerts when there's a draft page at the same title as an article. Graham87 (talk) 14:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It happens outside of WikiEd. Early last year I was working on an article on my user sub-page when I realized a new editor was drafting an article on the same topic. In that case, I merged what I had written into their draft. I'm not sure it is worth worrying about such collisions ahead of time. Donald Albury 15:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Population by tribes Guyana and Venezuela

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Is there any statistics Population by tribes for Guyana and Venezuela? Kaiyr (talk) 16:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Indigenous peoples in Guyana, which has links to articles about tribes, and Indigenous peoples in Venezuela, which has population figures. Donald Albury 17:43, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

LTAs

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What research, if any, has been done into the motivations of LTAs? Polygnotus (talk) 20:08, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia specifically, or more like the kind of person who would do this in general? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: Wikipedia specifically. The reason I ask is because of User_talk:Polygnotus#808s_&_Heartbreak and then I discovered that someone had tried to have a conversation (at User_talk:MariaJaydHicky2). There are various creative ways to deal with such things, like that conversation or shadowbanning or forcing people to do a boring game for 30 seconds when their edit triggers an editfilter (which would be not too bad for someone who makes one such change a month but terrible for genrewarriors who want to change the genre of an entire catalogue of an artist).
Or perhaps we could just be less specific when talking about musical genres. I don't even know the difference between synthpop and electropop for example, and very little information would be lost if we simply used x toplevel genres (these are the options in ID3v1, perhaps better to use Eric Kemp's original list of 80 genres).
I wonder if someone (perhaps but not necessarily the WMF) had ever done any research to discover motivations and commonalities. How does an LTA become an LTA? How does an LTA stay an LTA (what dopamine reward do they get). How can we minimize the chances that they become an LTA and make being an LTA as unrewarding as possible? What can we learn from them (e.g. via an interview or analyzing data)?
I do, somewhat, understand the motivation of people who just write "poop" or blank a page, just to see if they can. But with LTAs the motivations and origin stories are quite a bit deeper. Polygnotus (talk) 00:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of any research on LTAs specifically for Wikipedia.
I believe that there is research on Trolling (e.g., low empathy, anti-social attitudes, Online disinhibition effect, emotional sensation seeking) and on some "one-off" overreactions ("They rejected me, so I will fight them to the death", or at least until something more fun or interesting comes along), but not specific to Wikipedia.
On Wikipedia, they may not even agree that what they're doing is harmful. We had one LTA many years ago whose main "motivation" was a developmental disability. There was a long string of easily detected socks, but the itch to make the article "right" was apparently irresistible for years. My best guesses about how it stopped are either that the LTA found something else to do all day, or the parents restricted internet access.
Even getting in touch with Wikipedia's LTAs is difficult, and getting an accurate answer might be impossible. Occasionally we will have information about the person's identity, but even then, you hardly want to call someone and say "Hello, this is Wikipedia. You've got a student/employee/user with this e-mail address. Could you please block them from Wikipedia on your network, and maybe send a note home to their parents or guardians? Thanks." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: Thank you. Interesting. Do you think it would be a good area for someone to research? Perhaps someone at the WMF? It looks like the current approach of dealing with LTAs is not very effective, considering they can keep going for years and this one person created hundreds of accounts. I just mentioned a couple ways one could theoretically discourage LTA behaviour, and there are surely many other creative approaches (these were just the first ones that came to mind, and this was the first LTA that showed up on my talkpage). One could use a proof of work approach like Hashcash but with time instead of computational power. To me, it looks like the community could use some help dealing with this problem, and perhaps the WMF is willing to help. Polygnotus (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is a strong sentiment in the community that paying attention to serial vandals, trolls, and LTAs after they have been blocked/banned is counterproductive. See the essay at Wikipedia:Deny recognition. Donald Albury 16:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Donald Albury: The idea is obviously to reduce their impact and give them less recognition and less dopamine rewards. Spending hours reporting and tagging and blocking hundreds of socks is time that could've been spent writing an encyclopedia. And it would be counterproductive to not try to understand the problem, and to not use that knowledge to deal with them better. Polygnotus (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How do you choose which articles to work on ?

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Greetings! My question is the next. How do you choose the articles you want to work on ?

In my case, it's simple. I read articles on topics that interest me and I read the related articles (For example, internal links).

If I don't have time to work on it. I write a note on my user page to work on it later. Anatole-berthe (talk) 01:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that really depends on who you ask. Polygnotus (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Everybody's different. Some people are on a mission to document every professional cricket player, every TV station, every species of reptile, every politician in their home country, etc, etc. I like to explore the history of where I live and as often as not, my interest in a topic is sparked by going past some building or park and wondering if there's more there than meets the eye. And, just like Anatole-berthe, my user space is littered with stubs of future articles that never went anywhere. RoySmith (talk) 22:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aye, I figure that everyone will have different motives. I've ceased article writing because this list of articles I have worked on is also a list of articles I need to maintain, and it's gotten too long. Every year I do maintain that list. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to everybody for yours answers ! Anatole-berthe (talk) 13:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Change the license of logo Aeropostal (airline of Venezuela)

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Hi ,wikis ,please any admin or bibliotecary change the license of logo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aeropostal_logo.svg#mw-jump-to-license) ,the logo is not copyrighted peer article 325 LOTTT says in the template:PD-VenezuelaGov,the source:(https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Logo_Aeropostal_Alas_de_Venezuela_(Aerol%C3%ADnea).jpg ) ,Article 325 says any work (logos,coat of arms ,photos...) created by public sector considered to the public domain. AbchyZa22 (talk) 14:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can we please change the wording of protected {{ambox}}es?

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I previously left a message elsewhere, but got no response.

If you visit the page of many current events, you'll see:

This article documents a current event... Feel free to improve this article or discuss changes on the talk page, but please note that updates without valid and reliable references will be removed. [Emphasis added]

But many of these articles are semi- or extended-protected, so most readers can't actually edit the article, despite the kind (or teasing?) invitation. And for those experience editors who can edit them, they probably don't need to be reminded to add reliable sources.

So can we change {{current}}, and all the similar {{ambox}}es, to remove the invitation to edit from quasi-protected articles? ypn^2 18:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question about the meaning of political spectrum terms in the infobox of political parties.

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Hello. I am wondering something lately, and that is some ambiguity around political spectrum terms. We say, for instance, that the Democratic Party of the US, is Center-left on the page for that party. But where on the spectrum does this lie? Is it, for instance, between the center and far left? Or between the center and that aforementioned point. Really, I am curious and I think we need some consensus to clear this up. I am also confused by other parties, such as the Republican Party of the US. Is it the case where, as specified in the infobox, the party RANGES from center-right to right-wing? Or that its mostly in BETWEEN those points? I feel like it is not at all consistent. Thank you for reading this. Jayson (talk) 23:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Political Spectrum, Wikipedia
For the past few years, this is my in-mind concept of what it means to be on a certain portion of the political spectrum based on the descriptions in the Wikipedia Infobox, and I can't find any guidelines that standardise the meaning, and its not consistent. Jayson (talk) 00:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My personal choice would be something at least two-dimensional, such as the Nolan Chart or The Political Compass. Donald Albury 01:23, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I have done that. On the page for the Irish political party Aontu, I made such in the same section using information already cited. Unfortunately it was reverted Jayson (talk) 01:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're overthinking this.
This is not Discrete mathematics. This is not the sort of thing in which you can meaningfully ask whether "1 to 2" means "includes 2.0" or "asymptotically approaching 2, but never getting any closer than 1.999999999...". This is a fuzzy spectrum with approximate signposts stuck in it. "Center-right to right-wing" means stuff that's anywhere between or around those two points. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention the fact that parties given the same description can have many differences. A good descriptive section on their major policy positions would seem to be much more useful than these tags. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And… let’s not forget that the meaning of the terms “left wing” and “right wing” have shifted and changed over time. Stances that were considered “left wing” in 1900 might be considered “right wing” today and vise versa).
Also, these terms have different meanings when talking European politics vs American politics.
These nuances make such terms awkward to use as an infobox data point. They require context. Blueboar (talk) 13:19, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes they require context. But if you're just doing a quick look up ("Who's this TLABBQ in my news feed again? I keep mixing up the political parties in that little country"), then "Ah, they're the lefties" may be all you want or need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:56, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In theory, the right answer should be to follow the consensus of reliable sources. But that would require going through literally hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, political journals, reports, books, etc. etc., and then weighing them per date published, reliability, POV concerns, and then figuring out how exactly to count them, and then tabulating and summarizing them, and then repeat this process every few years for each party.
Since that's not going to happen, I would recommend going with the least common denominator - i.e., what everyone agrees to. Since everyone in 2024 calls US. Democrats some form of "left", and Republicans some form of "right", we should probably leave it at that, and not try to decide between "center-left" or "left" or "center-left to left" ad infinitum. ypn^2 19:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think of "center-left" and "center-right" merely as labels indicating parties that can govern without having to form coalitions, as both the Democrats and Republicans can. Within in those spectrums are shifts in sentiment (Ds voting for Rs and vice versa) as well as contradictions (people who declare themselves fiscally conservative but socially liberal, those who might be religious but are concerned more about fair distribution of wealth rather than efficient creation of it, etc.). So, spending much time focusing on subdividing such political categories might just be a waste of effort, especially in articles meant as mere summaries of political activity. Dhtwiki (talk) 06:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As Donald Albury has pointed out, a single axis is overly simplistic, if you know how authoritarian someone is you may not know how they stand on economics. I much prefer a two axis system, but that can work out very differently depending on whether you use your second axis to measure how egalitarian/redistributive a party is as opposed to how much they believe in central planning and state intervention in or control of business. Personally I also think it important to know where a party stands on the grey/green spectrum and on the issue of how big is your tribe. But here we are writing a General Interest Encyclopaedia, and doing so as a global community covering many different nations political setups, so there is a case for not over complicating things while accepting that this is much more complex for an encyclopaedia that covers both the current day and also the past, as well as our writing one article that has to cater both to the local audience for whom this is their political milieu as well as the curious foreigner who probably doesn't know how different the meaning is of the word "Republican" in a Belfast scenario as opposed to a Brooklyn one. At the heart of this issue is the question of our audience. US sources operating in a two party system and describing the US system for a US audience will of course default to a blue/red two party system. Just as anyone writing about Belgian politics has to be aware of the Flemish/Walloon divide. But if we are writing about politics for a global audience we need to explain the very different politics of different countries in ways that informboth a local audience and a global one. ϢereSpielChequers 09:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Introducing Let's Connect!

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Hello everyone,

I hope that you are in good spirits. My name is Serine Ben Brahim and I am a part of the Let’s Connect working group - a team of movement contributors/organizers and liaisons for 7 regions : MENA | South Asia | East, South East Asia, Pacific | Sub-Saharan Africa | Central & Eastern Europe | Northern & Western | Latina America.

Why are we outreaching to you?

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Wikimedia has 18 projects, and 17 that are solely run by the community, other than the Wikimedia Foundation. We want to hear from sister projects that some of us in the movement are not too familiar with and would like to know more about. We always want to hear from Wikipedia, but we also want to meet and hear from the community members in other sister projects too. We would like to hear your story and learn about the work you and your community do. You can review our past learning clinics here.

We want to invite community members who are:

  • Part of an organized group, official or not
  • A formally recognized affiliate or not
  • An individual who will bring their knowledge back to their community
  • An individual who wants to train others in their community on the learnings they received from the learning clinics.

To participate as a sharer and become a member of the Let’s Connect community you can sign up through this registration form.

Once you have registered, if you are interested, you can get to know the team via google meets or zoom to brainstorm an idea for a potential learning clinic about this project or just say hello and meet the team. Please email us at letsconnect@wikimedia.org . We look forward to hearing from you :)

Many thanks and warm regards,

Let’s Connect Working Group Member

Let's_Connect_logo Serine Ben Brahim (talk) 11:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]