User talk:Barras/Archive 21

SE and science

You might like to glance at the discussions on Template talk:Infobox planet and Talk:Earth. Over the years we have been plagued by two extreme types of editors: those who want to keep all the details from En wiki and refuse to simplify anything, and (much rarer) those who want to change every technical term to simple English. I am thinking about the idea that we might have a page on Simple policy for science pages; however, that would be a considerable diversion from what I normally do, and might be endlessly debated without any clear result. Just thinking aloud... Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:30, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I can understand both sides. Changing a scientific word to something else, some "common" word often also changes the meaning or makes it less understandable. However, I understand that this is the simple English Wikipedia and with that in mind we should of course use simple language, so that everyone can understand it. Just taking one example from the infobox talk: I really can't think of an equal substitute for "surface temperature". "Outside heat" does make little sense to me. What is outside? Outside of the planet's atmosphere? Outside of its orbit? In physics, "heat" explains the spontaneous flow of energy from a warmer to a colder body, while temperature is a measurement scale for hot and cold. Outside heat can't replace surface temperature. In general, I agree with what you wrote on that template's talk page. Students will always learn the more technical terms in school. The simple terms aren't a real good and accurate way to describe those scientific words in a really simple way. I will comment there in a minute. The template should be reverted and we may should think about removing some of the parameter in there. I don't think that all of those are really needed here. -Barras talk 09:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank You for Your Work.

I looked at some of your past contributions, such as vandalism reverting and edits, and I see that you have done such an amazing job thanks! Right now my biggest things I do to help are creating articles and reverting vandalism, but I am waiting on my request for permission to be decided. Again, Nice Work! Pending^{(tell me I screwed up and where)}

Thanks and  Done - A very nice way of telling someone to take a look at the permission request. ;-) -Barras talk 15:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Hehe…I really did mean what I said though. Happy Editing! Pending^{(tell me I screwed up and where)}

P.S. Just seconding this opinion. Thank you for making simple English a great place to live. --Rvanarsdale (talk) 21:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:

Do you need a special permission to create a page that starts with Wikipedia:  ? --Pending^{Tell me I screwed up!}

I don't think so. -Barras talk 14:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Alright. Thank you. I see it that if I create a page that i shouldn't it will put me in risk of getting my patroller rights taken away. Pending^{Tell me I screwed up!}

The only risk out there is that an admin comes along and deletes the page. Rights aren't taken away for good faith edits. -Barras talk 15:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't need to make the page anymore. I'll just create a Wiki-project. Thanks for your help! I learned a few things in the process!Pending^{Tell me I screwed up!}

User:Cometstyles/Protected Titles

Somehow, a stub tag was added to this page and is causing this page to show up in the stubs category. Since User:Cometstyles hasn't edited since 2009, can you fix this? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 21:45, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Done! -Barras talk 13:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

LGBT cats

You've changed the Bisexual actors cats on many articles today to LGBT broadcasters. They should instead be in LGBT actors. Broadcasters does not include actors. 92.40.209.46 (talk) 12:50, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I've already fixed that, see here for example. Did that on all pages, no idea why I firstly did it the wrong way. -Barras talk 12:52, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Barras. You have a new email! Please check it at your convenience.
Message added 08:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC). You can take off this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{YGM}} template.

Auntof6 (talk) 08:57, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Replied. -Barras talk 10:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Renames

I know in general you like to tell people that if their only edits here are to request a rename that they should just request a new account. But this is problematic for two reasons, in a rename it frees up the old name for other people to use which I think is the biggest issue. And secondly in some cases it is to hide their real name so by renaming them, there account is no longer sitting there with their name. Obviously the second is not as common so not as big an issue, but really what I am getting at is that its better to rename them even if their have only edited here to request a rename. -DJSasso (talk) 19:20, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's not as if I like doing that, I just think that a rename in most cases is utterly useless. Most people come here and request renames ignoring that they are not on the correct wiki. In like most cases people actually want to be renamed on enwiki but end up here for whatever reason. They've edits over there but not here. Actually, I think the first problem is not really a problem. On meta for example, crats are normally advised to even recreate the old name and to block it so it can't be used again as this could lead to confusion and abuse by trolls (happened in the past) and I know that this at least used to be the praxis on other projects as well. Also a rename here alone does usually not free up the old account name. The SUL retains even after renaming not useable except a steward deletes the account. So the first point is actually not really a valid point in light of the current SUL system. As for the second point I totally agree with you. When someone requests renaming due to real name usage, then I will most likely do the rename, no matter how many edits the user has. When there is an indication for real name or something similar involved, the rename should usually be done. However, we always should keep in mind that renames are actually a curtsey, not much more. I also know that this praxis is used that way on other projects (meta, enwiki). Regards, -Barras talk 20:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying you were at fault or anything like that. I was just making a comment since I noticed the other day you had cleared up the page there. I was just making an argument in favour of doing the renames. :) Obviously its not a huge deal either way. -DJSasso (talk) 23:48, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Don't be worried. I just wanted to explain my intention behind my actions on the renames. It is actually the crat work I enjoy most all around, so I recently cleared the page. It was backlogged and many things were not handled or not archived, so I decided to to take care of that page a bit more now. I would not do the renames I recently declined when they only made an edit here to get renamed, however, I would also not complain when a fellow crat does the rename, as it surely won't hurt. I guess both ways of handling such requests are ok and don't actually hurt. :-) -Barras talk 00:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users

Dear Barras,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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Please adopt me

I wish to learn how to edit and write articles for the simple wiki, can you kindly train me?

--NerdMary (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm currently rather busy with stuff outside Wikipedia and rarely active. Please ask a different editor for help. -Barras talk 22:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Joseph Goebbels at proposed article demotion

Barras, a heads up that a good article that you contributed to, Joseph Goebbels, has been nominated for demotion. The discussion can be found here and your input would be welcomed. Thanks, Goblin 00:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC) I ♥ Pmlineditor!

Thanks for informing me, BG7. I'd have noticed it anyway. Although I'm not always much editing, I at least look once a day on my watch list and those important pages are all being watched by me. :-) I commented there, btw. -Barras talk 08:44, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

No worries, I thought you'd probably see it but I was just carrying out the required steps for a PAD which had been missed by the nominator. Cheers, Goblin 10:09, 16 October 2014 (UTC) I ♥ Chenzw!