User talk:Mu301/Archive 2018

Cold fusion
I have the following research project Plasmas/Plasma objects/Nucleosynthesis. It is not limited necessarily by temperature but does look especially at nuclear fusion. The Cold fusion resource could become a sub-page Plasmas/Plasma objects/Nucleosynthesis/Cold fusion with all of its 125 sub-pages so that I can review them hopefully undisturbed. It would be a slow-moving, multi-year project with any outside comments restricted to Discuss pages only. If this is okay, let me know and I'll move all. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Please submit a proposal at Community Review/Fringe research. --mikeu talk 19:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Parapsychology

 * I noticed Steigmann's pseudoscientific parapsychology project was restored for archiving purposes and then deleted again. It contained a lot of copyvio and attacks on Wikipedia. He has ported it to archive.org last week . I am in email communication with moderators from archive.org and they are likely to delete it as Steigmann has been abusing that website on several accounts. Abd says he is going to campaign to get the project undeleted on Wikiversity. If there is somehow an un-deletion request I will vote delete. 86.132.237.70 (discuss) 20:15, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I am not 86.132.237.70 and I will also vote to delete --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think that there is much that I can do to help with regard to archive.org or Wikipedia, but I can tell you that both Cold fusion and Parapsychology are subject to a topic ban at en-wv (please see} and any future projects on those topics will require pre-approval from our Review board/En before they can commence (or will be speedily deleted.) User:Abd and User:Ben_Steigmann are currently indef blocked, so they won't be able to contribute here any more. Abd can "campaign" all he wants, but the community has decided that these so-called "research projects" are simply too disruptive to allow on our site. Please let me know if there is anything else at en-wv that I be of assistance with. --mikeu talk 21:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Files Missing Information
Thanks for uploading files to Wikiversity. All files must have source and license information to stay at Wikiversity. The following files are missing and/or License tags, and will be deleted if the missing information is not added. See Uploading files for more information.


 * File:Google-WV.png

MaintenanceBot (discuss • contribs) 01:06, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ --mikeu talk 01:17, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Advise and Prod
I propose that any pages over 90 days may be speedy deleted, treating Advise as equivalent to. These can be cleaned up by bot, just checking the edit history for Advise pages older than 90 days. Any objections? -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:18, 12 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I completely concur. I would suggest a shorter 30 (or even 7) day speedy for "empty pages" that contain little more than a wiktionary definition. Perhaps we should add a note to Advise making that clear.


 * I don't consider the pages bulk tagged an urgent priority for speedy deletion, I just wanted to get them in the queue to see if anyone objects. Some of those are over a decade old with no development. After these pages get created I see numerous small edits by staff tweaking the categories or templates and other wikignome activity. I don't think this is a productive use of our time. No one page is a burden, but multiply that by × pages... we are wasting time and effort that does little to improve wikiversity.


 * We should take a look at some of our ancient templates as our attitudes have changed considerably over time, see my removal of this out of date message. We have which is rarely used alone, then there is   and  It makes it confusing that we have older pages tagged differently than newer ones and these abandoned pages get lost after they were tagged.


 * I'd like to see a simplification of which templates we use for which cases. Advise is good for encyclopedia content, perhaps we need another (or adapt an existing) for "short pages" that have little content and no history of improvement. --mikeu talk 16:26, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Restore
Hi. I need this restored: Template:FULLBOOKNAME. Thanks. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 01:12, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ --mikeu talk 01:18, 19 January 2018 (UTC) mikeu talk 07:15, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Abd doxing users
Hi, I know abd has been blocked from Wikiversity and Wikipedia but he is still active on meta-wiki. In regard to the "studies" he was hosting against anglopyramidologist and other users he does not like, the consensus was to delete them all, yet two of studies still remain , and were not removed. Can you remove both of those pages? Abd has now fully doxxed AngloPyramidologist on his website coldfusioncommunity and he goes after this persons parents. Is there anyway Abd can be globally blocked from meta-wiki? He is now posting Wikipedia users family members addresses on his website and writing defamatory statements about people. This is creepy and disturbing behaviour that is probably illegal. What is the correct method of action here, who do I report this to? Can you remove his meta-wiki studies that contain false information? Bodybuilder1991 (discuss • contribs) 06:06, 21 January 2018 (UTC)


 * At Wikiversity I've removed Abd's user pages including the "studies" but I can't do anything about pages at Meta as I'm not an administrator there. I supported the deletion of those pages but my suggestion was not consideed. You might want to take a look at Meta:Deletion policy and Global bans. Those are probably the only ways to address this. Personally, I would support both page deletion and a global ban. Hope this helps. --mikeu talk 07:06, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * (I’m guessing this was a single-purpose account to maintain anonymity), I’ve left a note at User_talk:Vituzzu (who deleted the first page you refer to) asking if those pages could be deleted under the same policy. Otherwise it would be necessary to create a new entry at Meta:Deletion requests. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 17:00, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
 * FYI, I tagged both pages as speedy delete a month ago and got this reply from Vituzzu. --mikeu talk 17:11, 21 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, yes I will remain anonymous here (no point in using my IP which Abd has attacked on his blog) but I have been in communication with the Wikimedia Foundation and they are aware about Abd as they have already received numerous complaints, unfortunately Vituzzu has not been logging in recently and no action has been taken to delete those pages. Abd has now ported those studies to his personal website. He is not a steward nor does he have technical evidence for half of his allegations but accuses a user of owning about 50 accounts he never created, including several other IPs including me. He has made a mess of confusing AP's socks with someone else's, including innocent IPs such as mine.


 * I will not link to Abd's website as it is blacklisted here but he had previously doxxed Wikipedia user ජපස, including his real name and where he works, he also sent this user harassing emails. He is now doing the same to AngloPyramidologist (AP) and other users he has a grudge against, but taking it two-stages further by posting peoples real life addresses (or addresses he thinks Wikipedia users live at, including their family members) on his website and then deliberately archiving these blog posts. Actions like this could well be illegal. In one of his blog posts he laughs and says he finds it funny if someone will turn up with a gun at this persons address. This is all to threaten, harass and intimidate a group of supposed skeptical users he has on-going feud with. Abd seems to be on the internet all day, so he has all day to do this kind of harassment. Because of his doxing there is no valid reason why he should still be aloud to stay on Wikimedia projects. This is a very serious matter, far more serious than his blocks for disruption on Wikiversity or Wikipedia.


 * On the global ban criteria it says "Harassing or threatening contributors to the projects, on- or off-wiki" and "Violations of the privacy policy or other official Wikimedia policies", he has clearly done both of these things, he is harassing users on his blog and posting peoples private information. He now has over 20 pages dedicated to stalking Wikipedia users on blog which is disturbing and violating Wikimedia privacy regulations. So far the Wikimedia Foundation has not stepped in and blocked this guy from Meta-Wiki where he is still active, he should be globally blocked. Abd is still commenting on this over there. Contrary to what he says I am not AP, I am an IP he has targeted and falsely put on his 'study'. He did the same with another IP a few weeks ago. My IP now appears on Abd's website on a map and he says he is trying to find out who I am. I do not know if he can get much from an IP but this "fishing" exercise for peoples personal information I am worried about. I am worried about peoples safety, including mine. Privacy has been violated by this guy. I want it stopped and I wish this guy would move on. Bodybuilder1991 (discuss • contribs) 22:35, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I am very sympathetic as Abd has caused much disruption here. I've done all that I can to block his activity at Wikiversity and remove his userpages. I believe that the Foundation is probably the best remedy for this as it spans cross-wiki and off-wiki. I would also suggest that it would be better to start a discussion of page deletion at meta:Meta:Requests for deletion and/or a ban at Requests for comment. (Rather than post to the talk page of a single overworked admin as this try is not likely to have a better chance for success than the request a month ago.) If you believe that there is illegal activity you should notify the appropriate authorities (police, court, etc.) as a wiki admin can do nothing about real world activity that crosses that line. If you do open a deletion or ban discussion at meta I would support it. Other than that, we can't really do much at Wikiversity beyond what we've already done. The activity that you are describing is no longer happening here. An admin at meta will need to address concerns about his contributions there. --mikeu talk 02:32, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
 * FYI, this account has been locked. Many more have possibly been locked as well. -Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:58, 24 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah... I had a gut feeling that there was something suspicious about this which is why I declined to be too helpful. Do you know which account this sock puppet is tied to? Don't waste your time looking into if you don't know. I'm just curious and it isn't important. --mikeu talk 04:04, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably all the accounts that aren't well established that attack Abd for literally nothing. This is different from users like JzG and ජපස, though. You are right though, better things to do than investigate something like this. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 12:10, 25 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Atcovi, I am not attacking Abd, where did I do that? I have now been blocked by a request from Marshallsumter. Firstly that style of writing, listing bullet points and using the phrase "duck test" is not Marshallsumter's writing style. This request came from Abd privately who obviously emailed him. That is Abd's technical writing style and layout. I have emailed the Wikimedia Foundation in the past, I am not AngloPyramidologist. My identity has been confused with that person, like several other IPs.  There is no technical evidence to link the accounts of Sci-fi- to the socks of AngloPyramidologist, none, zilch. We are separate people confused by Abd. I know who that individual is and broadly where he is from from his IP, he is about 70 miles from me. I have been blocked on accounts, but not for harassment. I am skeptic and I work for a skeptical organization. I have complained about pseudoscience being supported in the past on this website.


 * In regard to Abd's comments that Marshallsumter filed on the check-user request it said "deception: "he had previously doxxed Wikipedia user ජපස, including his real name" which is readily available", this is false. ජපස changed his legal name last year. His old name was indeed listed on an old account of his but Abd doxxed this user's real life new name and posted where he worked on his blog and on forums. Abd has since deleted those posts (legal fear) but harassed this user over email.


 * Atcovi (a close friend of abd) above claims Abd has done "literally nothing". No, this is not true. Abd confuses peoples Wikipedia or Wikiversity accounts and has posted the addresses of specific individuals on his blog and has been attacking peoples family members (illegal activity) just because they are skeptics. You would need to explain why you are tolerating this behaviour, and why he is not banned from meta-wiki still. The way to move forward here is for you to delete his "studies", because I have been confused with another person on it. I do not want 120 socks listed as my ones, when I did not create them. It is just a way Abd can write libel about me on his blog. If the page in question is deleted I would have no problem. Regards. Liftingthe (discuss • contribs) 19:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

What is the size of the earth?
--TahkaiGreen (discuss • contribs) 16:31, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikiversity and oercommons.org
In physics and astronomy the most successful OER effort seem to be the OpenStax textbooks, and they have an account with oercommons.org where I uploaded two resources. The links to Wikiversity are active, in the sense that any edit I make to Wikiversity is immediately transferred to the OER-hosted page. You can even edit from the OER page by opening "Edit source" in a new tab to the WV edit page (without the OER-commons header.) Another interesting fact is that it took OER over a week to "accept" these two submissions. I don't know if they took that long to properly review it, or it was some sort of administrative delay. For obvious reasons I am not going to test the quality of their review by submitting something of low-quality. All this raises two interesting questions:
 * https://www.oercommons.org/courses/openstax-university-physics-volume-1-equations/view
 * https://www.oercommons.org/courses/openstax-slide-presentatins-in-pdf-form/view
 * 1) Will this "back-door" entry into Wikiversity via OER confound Mikeu's efforts to study how Google treats Wikiversity?
 * 2) Should Wikiversity consider using OER to highlight our best resources creating an OER group that points Wikiversity pages?

Given that WV is implementing a "draft" space, the second question should be considered to be strictly hypothetical  (perhaps?) There are two ways to fix the problem of low-quality WV pages: One is to move them to draft space, and the other is to find a way to highlight the better articles. While these methods are not necessarily mutually exclusive, a simultaneous attempt to implement both reforms sounds like trouble, given the chaotic manner in which Wikimedia communities make decisions.

To see what an OER Commons user group looks like, see https://www.oercommons.org/groups/openstax-university-physics/1713/ --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:19, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't see any problem with this affecting my study of Google search. Quite the opposite, the more incoming links from popular sites like openstax will likely boost our Google search visibility, at least somewhat. I strongly encourage participants to link to wv from your institution web page and in other forums like this. I've recently been posting links to my wv projects using the Ladd Observatory twitter account for example. As Google crawls the web and discovers these links it can only help our popularity. The more links, the better for us. --mikeu talk 19:12, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Template:Reasoning
Hi Mu301!

Lbeaumont and I use this template to go to resources. Since 22 November 2016, Lbeaumont has been its principal user. If still needed Lbeaumont can remove the prod. If the user is no longer using it, I can and will improve it, but you haven't removed your warning regarding voluntary removal of templates that allow it without discussion. So I am asking for you to remove the prod or the warning. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 14:19, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I began using this template a few years ago when I began developing courses in the clear thinking curriculum. In July 2017 user Dave Braunschweig notified me the template is no longer valid, It causes a "high priority lint error". I stopped using it and developed the clear thinking template instead. (You can see it at the bottom of the clear thinking courses.) I have no objection to removing, or extensively editing the Reasoning template. I have an idea that a useful template on reasoning could be build by including the clear thinking template as one layer in a larger structure. Let me also mention that I did some significant work in cooperation with the original author of the template to change the color scheme from the rather garish colors originally used to the more pastel colors. I hope this helps, please let me know. --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 11:41, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the template's history, apparently Dave Braunschweig modified the template on 7 January 2018‎ to prevent it from causing lint errors. I will add some improvements. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 14:36, 14 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Please Template talk:Reasoning to continue this discussion. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:51, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

UFO
What is your opinion on UFO? It suffers from similar issues as the other two cases that were recently nominated, but I also don't want to overburden all of the Wikiversity volunteers, so I'm hesitant to push my luck and overstay my welcome. To be honest, it isn't quite as terrible as the other two resources/lectures, but it is clearly suffering from creation of content by Wikipedia refugee (especially UFO/Sightings documentation). ජපස (discuss • contribs) 19:08, 1 January 2018 (UTC)


 * We might not be able to promptly address an RfD on that group of subpages at this time. The new discussion about "lectures" is where we are currently focusing our attention and resources. Some of the UFO subpages appear to have had little activity in 2 or more years. It may (or maybe not) be uncontroversial to tag those with fringe or even prod which would open a window for improvement followed by a review. If someone objects and removes the template you could then open an RfD at a later date. That might be a more efficient way for us to look into the UFOs. If there are any urgent concerns like copyvio or commercial advertising we would, of course, address that through a undefined process. --mikeu talk 19:58, 1 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I couldn't figure out how to use undefined. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 21:03, 1 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry, that is a shorthand that we use to mention a template in a discussion without including it in the talk page. Insert and/or  as I did in this edit. --mikeu talk 21:10, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I also made a wiki markup mistake which is now fixed above. --mikeu talk 21:13, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm confused because the "fringe" template looks to me like a userbox. Is it somehow a deletion proposal? ජපස (discuss • contribs) 21:19, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does resemble a user box. Think of it as a "resource box" that provides information about the resource. But that has nothing to do with deletion requests. Prod is the Proposed Deletion template. --mikeu talk 21:24, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I proposed deletion for the five pages I think are in violation of WV's scope, mission, policies, and guidelines. ජපස (discuss • contribs) 22:00, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The Category:Project_boxes were an attempt to more prominently inform readers about the type of resource, difficulty level, and completion status. They are not much used anymore but are found on a lot of older pages. You may also want to leave a note at Talk:UFO giving the proposed reasons. That is often helpful for someone unfamiliar with the topic who finds the page. --mikeu talk 22:08, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay. I did an explanation here. Hopefully this is as smooth a process as the last two. Thanks for your help! ජපස (discuss • contribs) 22:15, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if you have seen this one, but Ben Steigmann had another project, that he planned on doing. It seems he wanted to refute the material of UFO skeptics such as Joe Nickell. On the article is an extremely revealing link to a 72 page document he uploaded to Googledrive which consists in places of emails he has had with UFO proponents to counter-claim material found on Wikipedia. I think this project of his like the parapsychology one should be removed. 82.132.220.27 (discuss) 23:05, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
 * At this point that's pretty much just an empty page (with only section headers) and User:Studentscribe mentioned there has only 1 edit in two years. That also qualifies for a Prod. If it contained email addresses without permission we could speedy delete. --mikeu talk 00:04, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that the last one is in userspace. Given that it is nothing more than a neglected to-do list I don't see any problem at the moment. --mikeu talk 01:49, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

More UFO and alien sightings have been prod'ed. According to Google Analytics (as I've summarized at Google/Search and Wikiversity) "alien sightings" was one of the top ten search queries returning Wikiversity resources. The mind boggles. It brought no search traffic to our site, however. --mikeu talk 16:43, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

CC-templates
Hello. Thank you for updating the CC templates. Something occurred to me whilst I was about to use one of them. Could we change the text of these templates to say "This work is..." rather than "This file..." so they can be used on content pages generally? Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 21:28, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Sure, I can probably do that by bot. Because these are transcluded in so many files I should probably wait until the page cache finishes purging. I probably just thrashed the server... as I noticed the categories were very slow to update. Please check my work, esp. with regard to the subcat reorganization. I may have made some mistakes during the flurry of edits. I'll be looking at the GFDL org next.


 * Also, I seem to have solved a long standing mystery about Category:Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Dual License. It seems many files from Florida engineering are multi-licensed as CC-BY-SA-3.0‎ and CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0. We'll probably need to import that template and then have a bot update the file uploads. It was previously unclear (at least to me) how/if the NC files could be reused.--mikeu talk 21:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Cheers. From what I have seen, the re-organization makes sense but I will have another closer look tomorrow. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 22:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ I think I'm all set editing the entire suite of CC templates and categories. I believe all of the existing templates use "work" instead of "file" now. --mikeu talk 00:20, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The only thing I might do later is rename and related categories as it doesn't really follow the naming convention given that it includes NC. Looks good to me for now, though. --00:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)


 * FYI: while importing to update our suite of licenses I noticed that this templates contains the wikicode:   which specifically excludes anything outside of File space such as learning resource pages from appearing in a license category. It didn't occur to me to check for that in any of our existing license templates. Mostly I'm just writing this down here as a note to myself. But, something you should be aware of if you want to use these templates for anything other than files. --mikeu talk 06:25, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Cheers for changing the wording. I am going to look at all the templates soon but I’ve updated the documentation for a couple of them and added cc-by-4.0 to the list at WV:L (new shortcut) but I’ve held off adding the two multi-licenses until they’re ready for use. As far as the file-only element of that template, I think we need these licenses to be usable for any non-image content that the author doesn’t want to use the standard cc-by-sa-3.0 seen at the foot of many pages. On a sidenote, I have been wondering (as a long-term matter) whether we could/should/would update the terms to cc-by-sa-4.0 International as a way of covering as many jurisdictions as possible. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 13:49, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Thinking.... This opens up a series of questions for me. I'll elaborate tomorrow. Found a few more errors too. The 3.0 "this work" link breaks for nonfiles but categories work fine. Also some inconsistency with language across templates.. More later. --```` mikeu talk 04:31, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I noticed that Wikipedia, Commons, Meta, etc. are still using 3.0 boilerplate (for text content) at the bottom of every page. I have a slight preference for waiting until Wikimedia makes a cross-wiki change in licensing policy. I'm not even sure what the ramifications are for using Special:Import to grab some 3.0 from WP and "converting" it to 4.0 here. Having said that, we could do something subtle like put CC-BY-SA-4.0 (and earlier) as the top choice in Special:Upload. Chances are that many new files would get uploaded with whatever license is seen first. This would give us a head start on 4.0 for new files, at least.
 * Honestly, I can't understand why we have so many licenses listed in Special:Upload. If someone really cares about using an idiosyncratic license like they'll likely know how to search for it and tag the upload. Do we really need to degrade the usability of our upload pulldown menu for 8 file uploads? IMHO, we shouldn't be making it easier for non-standard licenses, esp. where the differences are so minor that only a lawyer would care about it.
 * I don't mind if we have some text here that is other than 3.0 but I'm not so sure I want to advertise and encourage that... Imagine someone generating a pdf of a bunch of pages where each page has a different license. What's the status of that pdf and how can it be reused? I think we should strongly encourage contributors to use the "standard" Wikimedia license as much as possible for text, making exceptions where needed. Otherwise we're going to be Crazy quilting our site with multiple license content that could make share-alike more complicated and difficult. These are just my initial thoughts; I could be convinced otherwise if there are compelling arguments. I'll muse some more when I've had some time to think these issues through.
 * BTW, that has horrifically complex dependencies. I can't even find the basic text of the license in the import that I did. I'm likely going to delete it and just clone one of our other templates. The alternative would be to blow away all our license templates and re-import them using Commons' differing way of building these. But, that's too much work for me to take on right now. I get why they do it that way, but it makes it difficult for mere template mortals to decode and understand.
 * As an aside, I'm noticing a lot of fair use content that stretches our EDP beyond the breaking point. I consider that a more urgent problem to address than license upgrades. --mikeu talk 01:59, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, probably best to put it on the Upload page. With 4.0 being international (most jurisdictions), it doesn’t make sense to let new uploads go just for older licenses. The BSD/GFDL problem is that it has been very difficult to wean Wikimedia off them. They are very unsuited to text and images but some people keep using them because they’re available. There was supposed to be a license update, whereby GFDL-only files were relicensed with GFDL and CC BY-SA 3.0. I’m not sure if it reached WV though. On the question of fair use content, there are two problems I can see: the one you’ve noted above and that many files lack a fair use rationale. The same occurs with quite a few CC-license files in that the uploader often doesn’t add anything except a license. I think it’s quite strange that people seem to be able to bypass important information. I agree also that they should be a priority. Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 22:34, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I cloned to  (blowing away the botched import.) I also made a slight change to the wording of 3.0 and prior template. I believe the 4.0 and prior is ready to go. Have a look. Which template do we prefer new uploads to use? Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0 or Cc-by-sa-4.0? I think the first is more flexible for reuse, unless we want to try to propagate the 4.0 through share-alike. I don't have a strong preference. I believe that the link in these templates that "This work" clicks to is to distinguish the text on the page from the file (which could have a different license.) --mikeu talk 23:38, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm going to be Bold and try to "wean" contributors off the old licenses by removing the options from the Upload pulldown menu. --mikeu talk 23:53, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
 * You might label it a rant but it makes sense to me. Boldness is sometimes necessary to keep things going. I do wonder if anyone will notice or if they just pick the first license. I agree the Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0 is the most flexible (and if it was up to me it would be the default BY-SA). I was also wondering if it is worth having a redirect to it at cc-by-sa-all but then realised you’d only just deleted it? Green Giant (discuss • contribs) 00:51, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I just renamed that odd dual BY-SA & BY-NC-SA template to which seems (to me) to be the original intent of those who created it. My bot is changing the files that linked to the old template. There's a huge number of files so it may take a while. I wanted to get rid of that one because the name is very confusing.
 * There was nothing linked to cc-by-sa-all so I didn't see any need to keep it. I see that commons has a redirect so it may be worth having here. Maybe that is the default we should have on our upload page... Then we can just change the redirect when 5.0 comes out.) I'm part way through finishing up the reorg. Still a couple of things to do with ALL.
 * I just removed the 4.0 alone from the Upload menu leaving only 4.0 and prior. I'm tempted to purge WV:L of old licenses for the same reasons. The proliferation is just causing excess work for our staff (ie. me) and really doesn't add much to our site. I'd be tempted to remove any 3.0 and earlier from WV:L and just put a Footenote: other Creative Commons licenses are available but we prefer that you use 4.0 and prior for file uploads unless there is a compelling reason... or some such language to discourage use. --mikeu talk 01:18, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

What is the copyright of File:Wilbur S White0.jpg?

 * For likely solution see File:Ruthshaw.jpg. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:43, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

File:Wilbur S White0.jpg
Hey Mike. I was looking through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and I found this image in here. I was about to delete until I saw your small notice below the image. It has been about four months since you've posted that notice and no updates have been posted since the notice. Since it is not desirable for this category to have a backlog, what's the appropriate approach to this?

Hope to see your response, thanks. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 15:53, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry Mike, as it seems to be evident that you have gone on a huge inactive break from the site and that the image has remained in the category for at least a half a year (6 months), I decided to be bold and delete the image. Knowing that you are a sysop here, you could restore it back in order to fill in the missing "puzzle pieces" if you wish to do so---up to you. Sorry for the inconveniences. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:24, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Cross-wiki guidelines
Just wondering what you might think of taking part in what would be at this time a purely hypothetical discussion across the WMF entities to establish in at least some of the entities a group of common baseline policies and guidelines. I know that there has been recent earlier discussion over at wikipedia about problems with importing wikidata material, so there might be maybe some interest in such a discussion. John Carter (discuss • contribs) 00:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, I would be very interested. Please ping me. As you may have noticed I've been thinking about this recently and I have some concerns about inconsistent cross-links to our resources. We are about to embark on a discussion of our Naming conventions to see if we can standardize page titles and perhaps align them with a more global interpretation of wikidata item definitions. At least, that is my hope. --mikeu talk 01:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

What is this?
Radiation astronomy

I have never heard of "radiation astronomy" before in spite of my PhD in astronomy. What is this? ජපස (discuss • contribs) 03:50, 3 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I've been teaching astronomy for three decades and I've never heard of it either. That looks similar to what's being discussed at Requests_for_Deletion. --mikeu talk 05:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)