That Coptic Guy

Twenty years IS a long time

A couple of months ago, you asked about changes on Wikipedia over the last couple of decades. I bet you thought I'd forgotten about it, and you were RIGHT! But today while pulling some weeds outside, I remembered. These are a few things that stand out: (WARNING: Much rambling here. Feel free to collapse the comments if it's taking up too big a chunk of your page.)

• So many fewer frequent editors. I felt like I knew them all. My RfA in November of 2004 had an astounding 21 participants.
• The rate of incoming edits was a lot slower. Twenty years ago, three people working RC patrol at the same time could put eyeballs on EVERY new edit in the recent change list without really breaking a sweat. And this was mostly before the automated helpers like Twinkle or Huggle, so we had to either copy/paste or hand-type the warnings for vandals.
• There was much less stress on sourcing, and more on just writing articles to get them in here to build up a critical mass of information. It wasn't hard to think of an article that would be pretty easy to research, that just wasn't here. I wrote the original version of masking tape, for example, with (I'm embarrassed to report) not a single source cited. It just wasn't the huge deal it is now.
• ANYONE could start an article. No oversight, no AFC. Any anonymous IP could create one, which meant a HUGE part of RC patrol was clearing out new "articles" that were 10 steps below nonsense.
• Today, the "burden of proof" is on an editor who wants to add something to an article. Then, the burden was much more on the editor who believed something was baloney and needed to be removed. Today's focus is SO MUCH better for eliminating gossip and rumors and just general BS. "Just find a source...."
• A lot of edits that are performed by bots now, were done by hand then. For example, there was someone who ran reports of common typos, like "the the," and there would be this huge list of articles with that error, and you'd have to go to the article, use CtrlF to find the mistake, and correct it. It was very satisfying to watch the list get smaller and smaller...and then he'd re-run the report and flag a zillion new ones.

Thanks for making me think about this. I've enjoyed glancing over my ancient talk page messages to refresh my memory. Joyous! Noise! 22:42, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

Graham Beards

• Deskana
• Mets501
• Staxringold

Bureaucrat changes

• Deskana
• Warofdreams

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

• Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.

Technical news

• The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
• The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous

• WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace {{citation needed}} tags with references! Sign up here to participate!

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup 2024 July newsletter

The third round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 June. As with Round 2, this round was competitive: each of the 16 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 256 points.

The following editors all scored more than 400 points in Round 3:

• Generalissima (submissions) with 1,059 points, mostly from 1 featured article on DeLancey W. Gill, 11 good articles, 18 did you know nominations, and dozens of reviews;
• Skyshifter (submissions) with 673 points, mostly from 2 featured articles on Worlds (Porter Robinson album) and I'm God, 5 good articles, and 2 did you know nominations;
• Sammi Brie (submissions) with 557 points, mostly from 1 featured article on KNXV-TV, 5 good articles, and 8 did you know nominations; and
• AryKun (submissions) with 415 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Great cuckoo-dove, with a high number of bonus points from that article.

The full scores for round 3 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 28 featured articles, 38 featured lists, 240 good articles, 92 in the news credits, and at least 285 did you know credits. They have conducted 279 featured article reviews, as well as 492 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 22 articles to featured topics and good topics.

Remember that any content promoted after 28 June but before the start of Round 4 can be claimed during Round 4, which starts on 1 July at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please see this page. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

• Elli
• HouseBlaster
• Pickersgill-Cunliffe

• Brianga
• De728631
• Georgewilliamherbert
• Hyacinth (deceased)
• ProveIt
• The Night Watch

Technical news

• Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)

Miscellaneous

• The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Gabriel George

Hello, That Coptic Guy,

If you had looked at the page history of this article, you would have seen that it's been around for years and was the subject of article hijacking. Please do a little research into articles to make sure that deletion tagging is appropriate. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:02, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, noted - thanks. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 03:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Withdrawal_of_Joe_Biden_from_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election#Requested_move_23_July_2024

I reverted your NAC at Talk:Withdrawal_of_Joe_Biden_from_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election#Requested_move_23_July_2024. Please read Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Closing_instructions#Closing_the_requested_move 142.113.140.146 (talk) 18:25, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@142.113.140.146: - I'm a bit confused as to what exactly your objection is. I've since re-closed the discussion with the "normal" template. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 18:36, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You are supposed to remove the {{Requested move/dated|Foo}} line. If you don't, the bot might readd the ambox or something. This is why I reverted you, but I might as well remove the /dated template myself. 142.113.140.146 (talk) 18:37, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

AH, OK! That makes sense. Yes, please, I'd appreciate you doing that so I can see what to do for future closings. Still learning here! Thank you. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 18:38, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

You also forgot the {{subst:RM bottom}}, which I fixed.

FYI, for the {{NAC}}, you can use |nac=1 of {{subst:RM top|reason|nac=1}}. 142.113.140.146 (talk) 18:51, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very much appreciated. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 19:01, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of What can be, unburdened by what has been for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article What can be, unburdened by what has been is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

—Ganesha811 (talk) 12:26, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

TY

Thanks for your reasoned comment at the MfD. I do not expect favoritism and do not claim there are no problems with the draft. That's why it's a draft. I have asked for evidence for accusations of BLP violations in the draft. Maybe they are there, but the accuser refuses to provide even one example. I don't want to bludgeon the discussion at MfD or ANI, so I started a discussion on the talk page, where longer discussions belong. Feel free to provide any advice to me. I really WANT to find any BLP violations and fix them. We don't MfD or AfD drafts or articles because there is some violation in them. We fix the violation. His refusal to provide evidence is a behavioral issue that should be dealt with. Accusations without evidence are not allowed. See my request at Please provide evidence of BLP violations Now, instead of replying to my request, he has dragged me to ANI. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I understand. That’s the point of draft pages in one’s user space—to do whatever you please and write what you’d like before submitting it into the main space. It’s a bit of a waste of time to start a discussion over something frankly pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things on this project. There are much more pressing issues to consider. I also say this as someone who is not vehemently opposed to all things Trump; we must allow all values and viewpoints to be heard here on WP.

I’ll probably stay out of the ANI thread to be honest since I’ve been lurking there far too much recently, but it’s annoying that it has gotten to this point. I think they were concerned about your overreaction to the oppose votes, so perhaps the ANI thread will probably end in just a reprimand and a variety of comments from other experienced folks like yourself. So, a learning experience for everyone hopefully.

Also it’s pretty cool seeing people who have been here for over 20 years like you. I reached out to @Joyous! recently about that on his talk page (I promise I’ll reply above, Joyous!). Fun stuff. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 20:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, us oldtimers gather experience, but also POV enemies, who then wikilawyer the craziest stuff. The purpose of Wikipedia is to document the "sum of all human knowledge" as it is covered in RS. We document all kinds of stuff, including POV we may not agree with. We are supposed to write for the opponent and even help editors we don't agree with when they need help to include and refine content we may not like, but as long as it's backed by RS and is policy compliant, we should seek to include it. I do this all the time. Some people are deletionists and whitewashers. That's unwikipedian behavior. They are NOTHERE.

In this case, I just want to see examples of BLP violations in the draft so I can fix them (and also find out what the accuser even means by their vague accusations). That's all I'm asking for, and instead of providing it, I get dragged to ANI over a topic we don't cover, and that clearly passes GNG. The rumor has been the sole topic in two lawsuits, covered very thoroughly by the Senate Intelligence Committee, that was far more thorough than the Mueller report, and also covered by myriad high quality RS. Our goal should be to make this fully policy compliant and suitable as an article, but some POV warriors don't want the topic to see the light of day. So they attack me instead and provide no evidence. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:48, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Velma Abbott

Thanks for reverting edits here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deaths_in_January_1987&diff=1238294708&oldid=1238294643 However I don't think it was vandalism, merely an edit that didn't agree with the format of this page. Bryan Krippner (talk) 07:51, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @Bryan Krippner - Thanks for leaving a message. I agree with you. That’s why the notice that I left on that editor’s talk page was about the Manual of Style and not a warning about vandalism. Should’ve specified in the edit summary, but I don’t believe WP:AntiVandal includes the reason for the reversion in the edit summary. — That Coptic Guy^{ping me!} (talk) (contribs) 13:57, 3 August 2024 (UTC)