User talk:Asilvering

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Question from AlexandraMt (08:09, 9 April 2024)

Hello Asilvering‬! I'm Alexandra, PR manager at architectural company REM PRO. I'd like to create a Wikipedia page for our company, but I know it may not be easy.

I am aware that my direct association with REM PRO presents a conflict of interest. My intention is to present verifiable facts about REM PRO, emphasizing its contributions without infringing on Wikipedia's policies. Let me share with you a glimpse of the work that underscores our commitment to preserving and enhancing cultural heritage, which we believe adds to the societal value of our operations.

REM PRO's role in the architectural and engineering domain has been marked by its involvement in pivotal Latvian national projects. A notable example is our work on the Daugavpils Fortress. This fortress stands out as a rare 19th-century bastion-type defensive structure that has been preserved in its entirety. Our team undertook extensive research in archives to uncover and restore elements of the fortress that were altered or destroyed during the Soviet era, ensuring the use of original materials to preserve its authentic historical and cultural essence. I've already added a photo of the fortress to its Wikipedia page after the last restoration, you can read more about it there.

I understand the importance of neutrality and the stringent guidelines Wikipedia maintains to ensure content integrity. Therefore, I seek your advice on how best to approach this endeavor. Would you be willing to evaluate the suitability of REM PRO for a Wikipedia article? Furthermore, if you have any suggestions or could offer your mentorship in navigating the article creation process while adhering to Wikipedia's standards, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for considering my request and all thee warm regards :) --AlexandraMt (talk) 08:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @AlexandraMt, thanks for releasing your photo of the fortress to wikipedia! You'll first want to read WP:COI. You should also read WP:BOSS, which does tell you not to create an article. Assuming you are undeterred, the relevant notability guideline for companies and organizations is WP:NCORP. Unfortunately for PR people everywhere, this is wikipedia's most strict notability guideline. I've struggled, myself, to find sources even for companies that are so well-known they seem "obviously" notable. What we're looking for is sources that independently discuss the company in depth and at length. That means that basically everything that came from your office - press releases, blurbs, etc - don't count. I did a quick google search and was not filled with optimism - but I do see some Latvian-language news results, which might help. It may be that you can't scrape together the right kind of sources to write about the company for its own article, but that you could add some information about, for example, the restoration of Daugavpils Fortress, to the relevant articles that already exist. If you do this, you'll need to use Template:Edit COI to place an edit request, rather than editing the articles directly. Otherwise, you might find your edits reverted, even if they were basically fine. Make sure to avoid words like "pivotal", "notable", "extensive", etc, to describe your company's work, or editors monitoring the edit requests might see your edits as promotional.

If English Wikipedia's notability criteria are too strict, you might try Latvian Wikipedia. The core "notability" guidelines are the same, but they don't have a specific, stricter guideline for corporations. Russian Wikipedia doesn't either (they had a separate guideline once, and abandoned it), and in general my experience as a reader (not editor) of ru-wiki is that they are not particularly strict about sources. But I'm not sure if there are optics problems involved in a Lithuanian company in cultural heritage having an ru-wiki article but not an lt-wiki or en-wiki one, so perhaps that's not a great suggestion. -- asilvering (talk) 15:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Asilvering, you're a marvel! The fact that you work on the Wikipedia community for free is truly valuable!

Thank you for the recommendations. I have a few more questions:

1. Will having an article in Latvian serve as significant grounds for permission to publish an article in english?
2. Will a section on restoration in fortress page (in eng) be significant grounds for permission to publish an article in english? What if it's a combination of points 1 and 2?
3. Do you know if the rules in the arabic-language Wikipedia are strict for publishing a company page?

AlexandraMt (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

1. No. The only way to have an article on a corporation/organization is for it to meet the WP:NCORP notability guidelines.
2. Also no, same reason.
3. No idea, sorry.

asilvering (talk) 17:08, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Got it! Thank you so much, you really helped me structure my understanding of what to do with the corporate page on Wikipedia. AlexandraMt (talk) 09:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Pouget review

Just wanted to say thanks so much for the review and helping me get the article up to GA status! And also thank you so so much for suggesting I nominate it in the first place!

Sidenote, just for the sake of completion, I checked about the Ricard that Langlais mentions. Martin's Maitron article mentions a J. Ricard as part of the editorial committee of Ça ira. Then I found this article, and apparently the man's name was Jean-Baptiste Ricard and he was a prominent anarchist from Saint-Étienne during that time. However, his Maitron article basically says he was inactive after the Trial of the Thirty and it's unknown when he died even, additionally it doesn't even mention Ça ira. So with Martin already having a solid article on the French wiki and being a lot more prominent and researched, I was just logging on to type out a comment arguing we should keep him as a red link and including Ricard would probably lead to his link remaining red for a while. Aleksamil (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Berryforperpetuity (08:49, 13 April 2024)

Where do people find articles that need improving? I cant find any, other than the suggested edits on my homepage. --Berry (talk) 08:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Berryforperpetuity, welcome to Wikipedia! There are lots of different ways to find articles that need improving. When I started, I went looking for maintenance categories that had backlogs and seemed easy to deal with. I recommend Category:Wikipedia introduction cleanup as a satisfying task that anyone can do, even if they're super new to editing. Wikipedia:Task Center has more. You can also join a wikiproject and start going through their maintenance backlogs. This is how I find most of my maintenance tasks these days. Judging from your userpage, you might be interested in WP:LAW, WP:DEATH, and WP:DENMARK. You can find a master list of all of the wikiproject's tagged articles through this cleanup listings page. For example, here is Denmark's. Wikiprojects also have various editathons and so on, if you'd like to write some articles yourself.

If you can read Danish and are interested in translating or helping smooth out translations, there's also Category:Wikipedia articles needing cleanup after translation from Danish. This looks like a great backlog to "adopt" - nice and small and satisfying to clear out. If you know any languages other than English, those skills are always in demand across wikipedia. -- asilvering (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Supermarine Spiteful

Due to the excellent work of Amitchell125, I have completed the review of Supermarine Spiteful and have promoted it to be a Good Article. Thank you for your patience. simongraham (talk) 17:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

New page patrol May 2024 Backlog drive

New Page Patrol | May 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 May 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Question

Hello! Thanks for your answers to my other questions, I've since started to edit a bunch and plan on committing to editing for the foreseeable future. I had some other questions though.
When going on the edit history page of an article, it's not uncommon for me to see one editor making a string of edits consecutively (for example, one editor making 10-15 edits back-to-back.) Is this common practice when editing, or just something a few editors do? Is it just to increase someone's edit count?
Also, in the future, I would like to start doing good article reviews. Other than the time commitment, are there requirements to start doing them? Thanks again for the help. Berry (talk) 15:27, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@BerryForPerpetuity, making a lot of little edits in a row is pretty common, especially for people who are editing on mobile. In some cases, people will do this so that if any particular edit is contentious, someone can revert just that edit more easily, leaving the others. Multiple edits also gives you multiple opportunities for edit summaries, so when I'm editing a draft created by a new editor, I'll often make multiple edits so that I can explain each one. But there are dodgy reasons to do this, too. As you've observed, it can be a way to artificially inflate edit count - this isn't a huge concern, since there are lots of kinds of perfectly legitimate edits that drive up edit count. More concerning is when people make multiple edits in a row to bury a contentious edit in the middle. Someone just looking at the most recent edits, or just looking at their watchlist, won't notice. If you think you see that happening, that's worth investigating further.

For GA reviews, there aren't any requirements - you just need to be able to read closely, communicate clearly, and follow the GA reviewer instructions. It's helpful if you have access to a good library, so you can spot-check sources without needing the nominator to email them to you. You might find that some people are skeptical of your ability to do this. Here is a recent example. You'll note that the cantankerous voices are the minority; if you run into any trouble, you can always go to the GAN talk page for help. -- asilvering (talk) 16:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for the sanity check that there is not a rule against new users taking on GA review. I was worried I had missed something or that there was an unwritten rule I was unaware of so seeing it in writing was super helpful :) SyntaxZombie (talk) 00:06, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for helping out! By the way, there's a user script that helps do all the review-closing steps at the end: User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool. Saves time and helps you avoid typos. -- asilvering (talk) 00:37, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, April 2024

The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.

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Community Configuration

Growth features are currently configurable at Special:EditGrowthConfig. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.

An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.

In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.

Experiment Results

Add a Image experiment analysis results

The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:

• The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
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Personalized praise experiment results

This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)

English donors encouraged to try editing

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18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Jamescarter01 on Matthew Tukaki (02:59, 26 April 2024)

How to add picture --Jamescarter01 (talk) 02:59, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Jamescarter01, see WP:UPIMAGE. -- asilvering (talk) 04:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Women in Red May 2024

Women in Red | May 2024, Volume 10, Issue 5, Numbers 293, 294, 305, 306, 307 Online events: New: Press women | Alphabet run U, V & W | Central and Eastern Europe Continuing: #1day1woman | Education (year-long initiative) Announcements from other communities Wikimedia CEE Spring 2024 - contest with certificates of participation and prizes The Wikipedia Library: #1Lib1Ref - May 15th to June 5th Tip of the month: Use open-access references wherever possible, but a paywalled reliable source is better than none, particularly for biographies of living people. Other ways to participate: Become a member. You can always opt-out of notifications. Join the conversations on our talkpage. Help us plan future events and add any general ideas on developing the project. Follow us on social media: Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter/X

--Lajmmoore (talk 06:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Question from Mohit atulkar on Timeline of Indian history (14:21, 4 May 2024)

Hello, I want to write something on Wikipedia but I am facing difficulty in adding a row to write here. --Mohit atulkar (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

@Mohit atulkar Oh dear. I thought your question was a simple one about editing in general, but this article in particular is really strangely formatted! I'm going to see if I can't get an experienced editor interested in fixing it up so it's easier to work on. H:TABLE explains how to edit wikitables, if you want to learn. -- asilvering (talk) 19:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

RFA2024 update: phase I concluded, phase II begins

Hi there! Phase I of the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review has concluded, with several impactful changes gaining community consensus and proceeding to various stages of implementation. Some proposals will be implemented in full outright; others will be discussed at phase II before being implemented; and still others will proceed on a trial basis before being brought to phase II. The following proposals have gained consensus:

• Proposals 2 and 9b (phase II discussion): Add a reminder of civility norms at RfA and Require links for claims of specific policy violations
• Proposal 3b (in trial): Make the first two days discussion-only
• Proposal 13 (in trial): Admin elections
• Proposal 14 (implemented): Suffrage requirements
• Proposals 16 and 16c (phase II discussion): Allow the community to initiate recall RfAs and Community recall process based on dewiki
• Proposal 17 (phase II discussion): Have named Admins/crats to monitor infractions
• Proposal 24 (phase II discussion): Provide better mentoring for becoming an admin and the RfA process
• Proposal 25 (implemented): Require nominees to be extended confirmed

See the project page for a full list of proposals and their outcomes. A huge thank-you to everyone who has participated so far :) looking forward to seeing lots of hard work become a reality in phase II. theleekycauldron (talk), via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kellycrak88 (21:04, 5 May 2024)

Hello - I noticed you're my mentor. Sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could help me with a troublesome editor that has hijacked Killone Abbey page. The entire dialogue is on the Talk page. My WP:COI is that I am a local that has known these lands my entire life and I have ancestors buried in the ancient burial grounds as do many locals. The contentious sentence added to the page states there is a public right of way. The sentence needs to be removed as there has never been a public right of way through Newhall Estate. I have provided this user ample evidence on the Talk page which he refuses to accept. The reference link he's using mentions a (private) right of way - not a public right of way. He has provided no evidence for a public right of way and refuses my evidence. This user sadly has a biased agenda. I gave tried everything to reason with him and reach consensus. I've provided him sources including the responsible government minister stating there is no public right and no pubic access without permission which he also refuses to correctly quote on the page. The sentence is false and needs removing from an encyclopaedia article. He has left a warning on my page not to edit the page again. If you could please advise on next steps I would be most grateful for your help. Thank you! --Kellycrak88 (talk) 21:04, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

This will take some time to look into, but I wanted to reply now to confirm that I've read it. You are in an edit war, that much is clear, so you should not edit that article any further until this is resolved one way or another. There are some dispute resolution processes on wikipedia that you might be interested in reading about (eg WP:3O, WP:DR, WP:RFC, WP:ANI), but I don't have any recommendations just yet, since I haven't had a full look at the discussion. I'm hoping this is something we can resolve without resorting to any of those processes. -- asilvering (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Alright, that took much less time than I expected, as it turns out it wasn't as complicated as all that - you're simply correct. I've made my own edits to the article, and hopefully that's the end of it, though it may not be, and we'll have to re-evaluate if anything further occurs. I hope you have already learned from this that wikipedians tend to operate on a hair trigger when it comes to sources that look dodgy - you are going to have a really uphill battle trying to convince anyone of anything if you start from evidence that looks weird or off, especially when there are already some neutrality concerns, as there was in this case.

What I hope you will learn from this is that it is not productive to assume someone else has a biased agenda. The editor you've been edit-warring with probably would never have questioned your edits in the first place, if they hadn't already been primed to be on the lookout for bad-faith actors, as on the talk page of this article. They refused your accurate evidence because they stopped assuming good faith, and you couldn't convince them otherwise. But then you did the same thing - you have concluded that This user sadly has a biased agenda. I don't think that's likely. They appear to simply want the article to represent what the truth is, as far as we can determine using reliable sources. They've become biased against you, because the interaction hasn't gone very well, but that's not the same as having some agenda they're trying to push. -- asilvering (talk) 01:18, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Understood, lessons certainly learnt here - thank you for intervening. As he added an edit war to my personal Talk page which I'm assuming blocks me from further edits to the page? In equal retaliation I've added the same warning to his page, I hope that was the right thing to do? However it appears he has already reverted your changes to adding back the non-encyclopaedic statements. Kellycrak88 (talk) 11:52, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

No, that was not the right thing to do. I restored reference content and engaged in the talk page with Asilvering, which is exactly the right thing to do, per WP:BRD. And here I find you again making personal attacks against me, despite previously being warned. If this editor wasn't a mentor who will hopefully give you some good advice, I would already have a WP:AN/I report raised. Asilvering, if you look at the page history, you'll see I already compromised, adding in referenced content from the County Council et al. Compare this version to the current one. In return, I've been attacked, been accused of having an agenda, being biased, told to leave the page, been told that screenshots on dodgy image hosting platforms are reliable sources I should trust, been told to perform WP:OR, and more. My patience has limits. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 12:16, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bastun surely you should know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You added the edit war block to my talk page first. I haven’t escalated and reported you yet, I have attempted to be as civil as possible and reach consensus with you. Stepping aside, as I have, letting neutral editors to take over is a sensible way forward. Kellycrak88 (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I am a neutral editor. You're the one with the WP:COI, finally admitted. You got an edit-warring template because you were about to break the three-revert rule. You have not attempted to be civil, you have repeatedly engaged in personal attacks, despite being warned, and you did it yet again, above. You can open an AN/I thread whenever you'd like. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:08, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

I apologise, my comments were not meant to offend you Kellycrak88 (talk) 13:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bastunbaston if you really did want the truth, as @Asilvering believes so, you should have correctly quoted the government minister and removed non-encyclopaedic contentious statements a right of way (without context or full explanation) confuses readers and is unnecessary for an encyclopaedic article, hence the confusion in the first place with someone calling it a public right of way and Talk discussion Kellycrak88 (talk) 13:08, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from AnuSushumna (00:31, 6 May 2024)

I suggested edits on logo for ANU, as I work there in Digital Team, Australia. I also had been notified of the changes the same day. Not sure, I am not able to see any changes nor past notifications. --AnuSushumna (talk) 00:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@AnuSushumna, it looks to me like this post on my talk page is the first edit you have ever made to wikipedia. Are you sure you used this account to suggest the edits? Were you perhaps logged in to a different one earlier? -- asilvering (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@ AnuSushumna (talk) 00:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

You have to click the blue "publish" button to publish your edits. -- asilvering (talk) 00:59, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Wezza1610 on Wikipedia:Contents/People and self (02:13, 6 May 2024)

hello can i search my family name and ancestors? --Wezza1610 (talk) 02:13, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Wezza1610, it sounds like you might be looking for ancestry.com? -- asilvering (talk) 06:29, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Add a link at English Wikipedia

Hello Asilvering

As you participated in a previous discussion regarding Growth Add a link feature, I'm sharing with you the recent post we wrote about it.

In short, this feature allows newcomers to discover that they can edit Wikipedia, by adding missing suggested links to existing articles in a guided way. It is also an excellent way to get more easy tasks newcomers can work on, as only a handful of easy tasks are available for them at the moment.

Let me know if you have any question or thoughts about this feature.

Best, Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Reviewer Barnstar
		Thank you for participating in the March 2024 GA backlog drive. Your noteworthy contribution (12.5 points total) helped reduce the backlog by more than 250 articles! Here's a token of our appreciation. —Ganesha811 (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2024 (UTC)