User talk:Microchip08

Perspective on moving images to Commons

I get the impression you're keen to move images to Commons whenever it appears to be permissible. Why? Seems to me in most such cases there's no advantage to it and, at best, some mild disadvantages. There is some non-zero chance such an image might get used on some other project once on Commons, but in most cases that's unlikely unless they found out about it from its use here, and in that case they could request the move or do it themselves. On the other hand, every time we do it we increase our exposure to risk of unreasonable behavior by Commons (we've been burned repeatedly by that); and since the local image is, to my understanding, still on wikimedia servers (must be, since it's possible to undelete it later), it's just using twice as much wikimedian server space by having two copies, one (deleted) here and one on Commons. --Pi zero (talk) 22:34, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm keen to copy files to c: whenever possible; files are used on other projects (one Wikinews related file that used to be locally hosted here is on de:Hauptseite, for example). Deleting on this end is less of an issue; I just think that it should be the norm as opposed to the exception, that is, only if there's a reason.

There's mild disadvantages (files deleted from under us, although presumably Commons users should and do know better than to do so) and mild advantages (single file description, better integration with other projects, better image categorization). Trying to work within (and interacting with) the Wikimedia ecosystem makes it more likely that those users will support our future endeavours, for example.

My thinking is that file photos should almost always use a Commons copy, because it doesn't really matter which picture of Barack Obama is used in an article; whereas photos that are the focus of an article could be uploaded on both ends – although that shouldn't be a review requirement.

I've been using {{now-commons}} to signify that there's a commons copy in addition to the local copy; the template assumes that we should therefore delete (it is a WN:CSD, so we probably should think about changing that policy to fit more in line with actual practice). I think my proposal near the end of the current thread on WN:WC/P Special:Permalink/2601106 is a good one in this regard. Microchip08 (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't follow what you're saying about categories, which seems like it may be significant... though significant in what way, toward what practice, I really can't tell yet, especially since I don't yet even know whether what you're trying to say is something I'd agree with, or not. You seem to be saying something about categorization on Commons versus on Wikinews, but I'm not sure what the distinction is nor under what circumstances it applies. Could you explain a bit more (and perhaps I'll catch on)?

On a side note, although I've no difficulty with the proposition that Commons users should know better, it's a fact that they don't, and therefore patently a mistake to presume that they do. --Pi zero (talk) 00:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not particularly significant or relevant; it merely lets us outsource categories to Commons (as we don't really have the framework for categorising images on Wikinews, as far as I can tell). Anyhow, we should copy files to Commons; not moving them isn't something I'm particularly bothered enough about to fight against. We do need to change our policies accordingly, though. Microchip08 (talk) 23:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I really don't know where you're coming from on this. And I want to.

You say the categories thing isn't relevant and then turn around and say you don't think we have... something, to do with categories. You're saying we don't have something, but what? Please be clear.

You're asserting we should chance our policies. Sigh. I'd say Commons should change their policies, but the problem isn't, bluntly, their policies but their failure over the long term to follow them. --Pi zero (talk) 00:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

(Okay, their policies aren't altogether flawless. But the bigger problem is following them.) --Pi zero (talk) 00:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

File:Anni 4.jpg

The page explicitly links to the image source, which explicitly releases the image under a non-commercial Creative Commons license. It doesn't need a fair-use rationale, despite the inapt phrasing of the template Amgine used in 2011. There's no question the image belongs here; if there's anything to be done, it's to improve on Amgine's choice of template. --Pi zero (talk) 03:14, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Please understand that I am using the {{missing fair use rationale}} template to identify problem images (i.e. ones that need fixing at an undefined point in the future), not to tag them for deletion (although technically it is a deletion category, but no admin is planning to go on a deletion spree). The image does belong on Wikinews, but it's a non-free image, so needs a non-free rationale ("fair-use rationale" is a misnomer), and therefore is a problem image that would benefit from being placed into the tracking category for someone to eventually get round to fixing. Please consider re-adding the template. Microchip08 (talk) 10:04, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

So. The page doesn't say quite the right words, therefore it ought to be tracked. But the template you're using to track it says the wrong thing. Where we're still differing, if I follow this rightly, is in whether it's more objectionable to not have it tracked or to have it incorrectly tagged for deletion. We seemingly agree that both courses are objectionable, just not on which objectionable course is worse. Lovely. The "obvious" way out would be to create a third way, a separate tracking category for this sort of situation, but the act of creating this third way is itself objectionable because the devices for keeping track are getting too complicated for an admin to keep track of (can't decide whether that's a pun, or just a profound truth).

The whose situation seems to beautifully illustrate what I've been saying about expertise management: The situation calls for applying expertise that the users maintaining it, even though in this case they'd have to be admins, absolutely shouldn't be required to hold in their heads. There should be cradle-to-grave semi-automated assistance for the situation, and there's loads of little such things all over a wiki so it's not practical to write javascript (or php or even lua) for every one of them. This sort of semi-automated assistance should be treated as an output of the wiki community in the same sense as the end-content produced, therefore should be coded using wiki markup. Leaving, of course, the triple threat of developing tools to allow it to be done in wiki markup, developing strategies to use the tools effectively, and using the strategies to develop the semi-automated assistance for any particular situation such as this. --Pi zero (talk) 11:35, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

missing image

What was your reasoning on this? I'm unclear on how you see Category:Pages with broken file links playing into it. --Pi zero (talk) 22:22, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:Pages with broken file links is automatically populated by the Mediawiki software from, as far as I can see, any page with a red link to an image, regardless of whether it's an image ([[File:Foo.png]]) or a link to an image ([[:File:Foo.png]]); but what we(?) want to use that tracking category for is for articles with missing images that don't have a {{missing image}} replacement. At the moment, 'Last Ottoman' dies at age 97 is in there, even though the problem is "fixed" — linking directly to Commons removes the redlink, and hopefully will take it out of the category, which will solely be populated by "unfixed" articles, like Partizan Belgrade kicked out of 2007/08 UEFA Cup (permalink).

Essentially, I want to remove the pages in Category:Pages with missing-image template calls from Category:Pages with broken file links, because they are (for Wikinews purposes) merely noise clouding the useful autogenerated backlog. Microchip08 (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

(Maybe we'd lose something by not linking directly to the file, but I'd wager that nobody would click the links anyway [especially considering the useful links adjacent].) Microchip08 (talk) 22:44, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh? Pages should not be removed from Category:Pages with broken file links just because they have a {{missing image}} template call on them. The template is not supposed to remove the page from that list, unless of course a template parameter is used to indicate that somebody has looked into it and there's really no chance of fixing the problem. The point of the template is to make the page look neater without removing it from Category:Pages with broken file links, and the point of Category:Pages with missing-image template calls is to facilitate listing all pages with broken file links that do not yet use the template, so that someone who wants to take care of some administrative backlog can add the template to pages in the difference. --Pi zero (talk) 00:24, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

{{Missing fair use rationale}}

Please stop 'abusing' this template!

Of a handful of File: pages I've looked at where you have applied this, there is all the required information to complete an appropriate rationale template. It is on that basis that I consider your use of the template abusive; you're the only person asserting work is 'urgently' required, and that the default should be to assume material should be deleted. As I have noted from reviewed File: pages, you could almost as-easily be resolving what you see as a problem.

I would prefer not to have to use AWB, or knock together a bot, to undo every edit you've made that adds this template; however, I will do so if you ignore this request. The matter is under discussion on the Water Cooler, and it would be more-appropriate to resolve and clarify relevant guidelines and policies before further 'tag-n-dash'. Such does absolutely nothing whatsoever to resolve what is a 'book-keeping' task of low priority in meeting the project goals. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I have ever asserted that it is an urgent issue; wikis don't have deadlines (mainspace aside). I think we have differing views as to what "required information" is. I randomly picked a few current edits from my contributions (whilst being somewhat surprised by the inability of most government websites to archive properly):

• File:Anni 4.jpg — generic image with no justification
• File:Waleed Almouallem, Foreign Minister of Syria, to H.E. Mr. Kofi Annan, UN Special Envoy to Syria A letter dated 12-8-2012 .pdf — zero context, orphaned
• File:ThaiImmigration20071011 W60.jpg — unjustified no rationale templating, okay.
• File:Stash Inside Mango Puree.jpg — needs rationale as to why we need the full image and not a resize
• File:Private Joel Vincent Wiebe.jpg — unjustified
• File:Mitch-benn-is-number-one-amazon-rock-download.pdf — essentially "it's fair use because I'm using it"
• File:193px-University of Wollongong.png — not eligible for fair use, but asserted

I think my additions of {{fair use orphan}} and {{image-source}} are more justified. Microchip08 (talk) 17:49, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary mainspace redirects

The word was chosen in allusion to Category:Discretionary mainspace redirects — mainspace redirects that may be kept or deleted at admins' discretion. We'd had some acrimony over when redirects could be deleted, given that (so I'm told) deleting a redirect is a relatively expensive operation on the database, so we established a clear set of criterion for when speedy deletion is allowed and enshrined it in the speedy criteria, then began on the current program of categorizing (and protecting) all the redirects in mainspace. (Of which there are roughly the same number as their are articles, I believe — approaching 20k.) Eventually, we should have every redirect in mainspace clearly labeled as to whether or not it could be speedy-deleted at an admin's discretion. --Pi zero (talk) 20:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Any ideas what to do with these? Microchip08 (talk) 05:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, a redirect created by moving an article out of mainspace is automatically eligible for speed deletion, though I think I've always had to write out that reason by hand because it wasn't on the menu. A redirect for a Wikinewsie's name, such as Cary Bass or U:BRS, should be fully protected and then put in both Category:Non-news mainspace redirects and Category:Protected mainspace redirects (and oughtn't be put in that last until both of the other things have been done, because the protected cat is how we keep track of whether a mainspace redirect has been fully dealt with). The list is only 93, I see; that's not too bad, especially in contrast to the total backlog of unprocessed mainspace redirects, which I think is about fifteen thousand atm (started around eighteen thousand, we've added some since then, and we've processed about three and a half thousand). --Pi zero (talk) 10:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I see there's a Category:Mainspace redirects to userspace subcat of Category:Non-news mainspace redirects. Okay, I stand corrected. --Pi zero (talk) 11:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Oppose?

Just noticing that you put up an oppose vote on the ArbComm election. Wikinews:Arbitration Committee/2014 election#How to vote says this is a support only election. You might want to move the relevent comments to the comment bit. --RockerballAustralia contribs 11:01, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I've moved it (being an admin, which the above-linked rules allow to strike oppose votes). --Pi zero (talk) 11:39, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews:Accreditation requests/Microchip08 (2)‎

I've closed as successful. --Pi zero (talk) 22:46, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

If you confirm you've an email address associated and verified against your account here, I'll use that to send you @wikinewsie.org credentials. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Special:Emailuser/Microchip08. 0x83D79CE73F41F985 if you feel paranoid. Microchip08 (talk) 10:30, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

PizzaGate

Dude, I was just adding the source. What's the hurry?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andre.levy.al (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your contributions to Wikinews. Unfortunately, we're unable to accept anything copy and pasted from other websites without the original content producer's permission. It's alright to reference outside sources, but verbatim copy-and-pastes are not allowed, so we had to delete it. You're welcome -- and encouraged -- to write an article as long as it is phrased in an original manner and otherwise obliges with our other rules. You'll find the links at the top of your talk page helpful. Microchip08 (talk) 05:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)