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Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at Zeeyanketu's talk page.
Message added 17:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

---zeeyanketu talk to me 17:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Adminship?

Hello Andrew! I noticed you are really dedicated to contribute here in Wikipedia, so I am wondering and interested to know if you want to be an admin? Because I'm willing to nominate you due to your great works such as for developing the anti-vandalism tool STiki. I think, it will be a lot easier and more efficient for you if you're going to be an admin. Please respond before I make the draft. Have a nice day! :) Mediran talk to me! 11:49, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Greetings, Mediran! While I am honored by your gesture, I'm don't think being an administrator is a role I am prepared or willing to fulfill. I have serious doubts such an RFA would even be approved, as my work here has proven extremely narrow in focus (developing and supporting technical tools for anti-damage work). I don't dabble broadly across the project and such breadth appears to be an important factor. I've also conducted some "ethically interesting" research, which I stand by, but would undoubtedly be the source of some controversy (for a second time). Lastly, much of my time has been elsewhere lately as I am finishing my PhD (again, regarding wiki security). I do have some cool projects in progress, though, and I've recently updated my user page to reflect that. I think I better serve the project in that capacity than anything admin-ship would give me -- it would be really just be a symbolic permission (and that's not the point). Thanks again, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:45, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
I duly respect your response and I hope that you will be a better editor. Again, thank you for that. Mediran talk to me! 09:32, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiTrust

Well, per WP:SPS, I went ahead and cited you at WikiTrust. I thought you might find that interesting. Thanks for your research interest and work! I'm active with WikiProject Medicine, so please let us know at WT:MED if you ever want to brainstorm about any project specific tools. Biosthmors (talk) 00:41, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Good to know! I tend to be interested in anti-damage work on wikis. Typically, this occurs broadly, without any particular emphasis on a topic domain or WikiProject. However, if you ever encounter a novel and challenging scenario -- I'd love to hear about it to see if there is anything I can do. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I did have this idea to hopefully efficiently manage/triage new edits, but others didn't seem too interested. Do you think the idea of a tool like this has promise? I still do. Biosthmors (talk) 01:19, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Point 86 on the page "A "smart" recent changes page for WP:MED articles" FYI. For some reason the link isn't going where I want it to. Biosthmors (talk) 01:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, coordinating the patrol articles and avoiding duplicate inspection work was one of the motivations behind WP:STiki -- which works over ALL recent changes in the main namespace. A separate version for "medicine" articles isn't difficult to imagine; what type of scale are we talking about in terms of articles and active members? West.andrew.g (talk) 01:31, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I need to learn about WP:STiki then. We have about 25,000 articles and I'm guessing we have around 15 active editors. Biosthmors (talk) 02:59, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Another pair of eyes

I found a typo here on your upenn bio page. 'gleamed' should be 'gleaned'. Thanks for the barnstar. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, "glean" vs. "gleam" was always one of those words that, despite knowing better, my brain could never be forced to interpret correctly. Since the article you point to is formally published, there is no real opportunity for a revision. Thankfully its a quite trivial error. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

On your user page?

I suggest putting User:West.andrew.g/Popular pages as a link on your user page. I've mentioned it at WT:FAC and WP:VPM. Thanks again! Biosthmors (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah now I see it. Make it more prominent, perhaps? Best. Biosthmors (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for User:West.andrew.g/Popular pages. Since you've already done this coding, I wonder if you could also apply it to File-space, and give us a list of popular images clicked? Thanks for your consideration. --99of9 (talk) 00:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I do have the code necessary to compute statistics for any project/language/namespace, and this is something I am willing to share with anyone who wants to run their own processing server and database (or on Toolserver, perhaps). However, I only aggregate statistics for the article namespace of English Wikipedia due to scalability concerns. It can take up to 3 hours of computation to sort/index/aggregate a single days worth of statistics (on an already busy machine). Moreover, I've now filled up more than 2TB of hard drive with this project. Expanding this scope is just not something I'm looking to do at this time. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:40, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

re: Rocketrod1960

TL;DR: User:OBloodyHell complains about a revert by User:Rocketrod1960

Hello, I'm Rocketrod1960. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Deteriorata because it didn't appear constructive. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Rocketrod1960 08:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 "Rocketrod1960" appears to be someone who reverts anything he thinks he can get away with based on specious criteria. He reverted my contribution based on the above ridiculous claim. I happened to have not bothered to log in at the time, so it was showing as an IP address.
His "observation" about its constructiveness is blatantly and self-evidently flawed.
A -- the section is called "REFERENCES" -- it's about things the piece in question REFERENCES. I rather clearly ADDED a REFERENCE. Deteriorata has a REFERENCE in one line of it to "your dog finally getting enough cheese" -- if you weren't OLD enough, you would not have ANY clue about the advertisements the reference dealt with unless someone -- namely me -- who WAS old enough to remember it, provided it.
B -- I linked to another Wiki Entry which was what the reference was about.
C -- The article I linked to SPECIFICALLY HAS AN "ORPHAN" complaint in it, because it doesn't have many, if any, links to it. So I was assisting with THAT issue -- Now it has a link from the Deteriorata page, which is a VERY LIKELY reason to bump from one to the other... Probably the BEST reason these days why someone might actually look up "Gaines Burgers".
The addition seems rather blatantly both constructive AND on topic, and anyone actually reading the entry would have KNOWN this. I respectfully request you admonish rocketrod to actually LOOK at what an entry refers to and what it does, rather than just brainlessly reversing something just because it's an IP ADDRESS and CLEARLY "only registered users" can make valid entries... >:-/
It seems rather clear he's the kind of person who happily vandalizes things (read as removing valid, useful content) which he thinks he can get away with because the people in question probably won't notice or complain, presumably because he "scores points" doing that... That, by the way, is one downside to your "leaderboard" concept. It encourages this type of ill behavior. If you aren't the person to do this, please forward this to someone who is. And by all means, consider posting this kind of bad behavior as such somewhere that the leaderboard-caring types will notice.
--OBloodyHell (talk) 11:08, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Greetings OBloodyHell. First off, it appears your edit was constructive. However, I can also see why at first glance one might consider a good-faith revert of your contributions due to its somewhat surreal/humorous content (dogs + cheese). Indeed, you also caused User:ClueBot_NG to trigger a false-positive over your edit. In the future, I encourage you to use your registered user-name and provide an edit summary. Regardless, rather than writing lengthy rants I would have encouraged you to politely contact RocketRod1960 about the matter. He has a history of operating in good faith and likely simply made a mistake in this case. This issue is one between you two and should not be discussed any further here. I provide tools that expedite human actions; not substitute for human judgement. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 12:32, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

STIki Questions!

Thanks for your assistance in WT:Stiki page. I do not use STiki. Can you help this guy here if he needs it). Feel free to add your questions or comments there! --Tito Dutta (talk) 19:17, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Welcome. Encourage your student/mentoree to post on the talk page if he/she needs any help. We have an excellent community of users who will be happy to help with any issue encountered. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you so much for enabling my account to use STiki, I am big fan of STiki Thank you very much Greatuser (talk) 15:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Andrew. Concerns have been raised about this and my subsequent according of access to rollback. Please see User talk:Greatuser#Reverts. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:24, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
This is being dealt with. See WT:STiki and I've also posted on his user page. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:33, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

mwuhaha

TheStrikeΣagle 05:15, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes yes, you won (I tried to beat you to the "done" label as well, but got an edit conflict in that race). Take my barnstar as your prize. West.andrew.g (talk) 05:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
hehe thanks for the star! DBX seems to be quite busy in real life.I'm not sure when he would get time again! TheStrikeΣagle 05:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi West.andrew.g.

Your Popular pages are very interesting. Would it be a big effort for you to create such pages also for other language versions, e. g. German Wikipedia?

Kind regards. --Holder (talk) 15:33, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Holder, see the associated talk page. Unfortunately, I don't collect statistics outside of namespace zero for English Wikipedia. That's already become a multi-terrabyte project with scalability issues, so expanding its scope is not something likely. However, I am willing to share my processing code for anyone who wants to run their own SQL database for this purpose. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Signpost column and office hours focused on wiki tools

Hey Andrew! I've been been getting a lot of work done on that new socialization tool I talked to you about at WikiSym: Snuggle. I've even managed to build a simple model based off of STiki's scores. I just have to get it integrated to the server component and I'll be able to show you the cool things I've done with your API. :)

Hi Aaron! I just skimmed over the documentation and screen-shots over on the Snuggle page and I was quite impressed! Let me know when a release becomes available (I also signed up on the Snuggle page). I am glad to see that STiki's API is getting used a bit, and knowing that someone is using it, I'll try to be considerate in notifying you if there is any system downtime.

I recently realized that it is time for me to get serious about user feedback. At first, I planned to post on the Village pump and hold an IRC session to demo the tool as a sort of one-off event. But after talking to a few other editors, we came up with the idea to start a column for wiki-tool authors in the Signpost to help them promote their tools and get feedback. So far, I've got myself and Nettrom, SuggestBot's developer, in line to write a short description of our tools to inclusion. Would you be interested in promoting STiki or anything else you've been working on? --EpochFail(talk|work) 22:23, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd certainly be interested in describing my tools for Signpost exposure or in IRC. STiki (and its anti-spam subcomponent) are probably the most visible and well-known of my tools. However, as my user page details I've also got some exciting developments in progress, both for (1) anti-copyright and (2) category suggestions. Thus, if we want to concentrate on emerging tools and preliminary feedback, either of those would be excellent candidates. Let me know when/where I am needed. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Excellent. I figured you'd have some new projects going. I'm currently working with The ed17 and Jarry1250 get my draft in an appropriate structure for the Signpost. I should have more information soon. --EpochFail(talk|work) 21:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The article about WP:Snuggle is currently up in the Wikipedia:Signpost. It looks like they could run an article on one of your projects as early as next week, but given the holidays, I can understand if you'd like to have it go live later. I'll go ping Jarry1250 to bring him to this discussion so that you guys can figure out the details. --EpochFail(talk|work) 14:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi, and thanks for the encouragement fighting vandalism. Wikipedia is to good a thing to have idiots ruining it for everyone else. I have copped a bit of abuse and made a couple of mistakes but it is good to get messages like yours. I asked for rollback a while back and wasn't given it at the time but I guess i should try again now...... Rocketrod1960 (talk) 06:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Cheers! Happy holidays. Mistakes happen, try to minimize them, apologize appropriately, and assume good-faith. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:16, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Decision

So what have you decided regarding me to use STiki Greatuser (talk) 05:51, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain why I should approve your continued use of the STiki tool? You've shown bad judgement in the past, and you've done nothing to improve that judgement. Simply saying that you'll do better is a step in the right direction, but it does nothing to correct those errors in judgement. I am curious why you are not inclined to participate in some type of adopt-a-user or CVUA training? Also, this rapidly vacillating "I quit", "no I don't" business on your talk page is not encouraging. Any path to approval will necessitate evidence of improved judgement prior to STiki use. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I promise i will not use STiki until I'm not graduated from CVU, and will use it properly, Thank You Greatuser (talk) 05:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at Vacation9's talk page.
Message added 13:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Vacationnine 13:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

STiki not working

For the last couple of weeks I was getting vandalism-candidates that were quite old, and mostly NOT vandalism. Today, I got nothing but titles of articles with no content. I then upgraded to the latest release (I previously used the July release), and now I not only do not get content, but I don't get titles either. It's not working. Any ideas? Guðsþegn (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Broken for me, too. It appears somebody changed something (not me; at WP). I'm investigating it now. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 20:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Urgent:_API_returning_.22textmissing.22_breaking_tools. Per that link (and its response), this is a recently known bug introduced with a new version deployment. STiki itself is not broken and there is nothing I can do until that bug is resolved. Everything will be fine again once fixed. Now, as to why you weren't seeing much vandalism in the last few weeks... "The holiday season". When students aren't in school vandalism rates plummet (it also happens to a lesser extent over the entirety of summer in the Northern Hemisphere). All of the my metrics support this fact. It's a bit of a cache 22 isn't it? The project is certainly better off as a whole, but it can lead to some unsatisfied users of my tool. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 21:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response, and the explanations. I look forward to the bug fix. Guðsþegn (talk) 23:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Now fixed! Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at Wiki4Blog's talk page.
Message added 12:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I replied back. Thanks! Wiki4Blog (talk) 12:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! I did reply and you can find it in my talk page. I also applied for permission, if you could kindly grant me permission for it. Regards, Wiki4Blog (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't know why, but I can't e-mail you. I guess I've to confirm with my account right? (I can't post it here, cause it has a link to my FB). Wiki4Blog (talk) 11:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
My academic homepage: It should not be hard to determine my email address from this. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

L'll clarification

hi! I was going through the leaderboard when I noticed fraggle with 52k uses.Interested, I went to his edit count and was awestruck to see he has an overall edits, just 13.5k.How is that possible? Does he use any other language wiki? Thanks TheStrikeΣagle 15:38, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The leaderboard counts classification actions. Fraggle's revert rate (vandalism + AGF) is around 11%. Thus, approximately 52,000*0.11 = 5720 actual edits to the encyclopedia using the STiki tool. The leaderboard rewards participation. It would be a very bad idea if we ranked people based on revert percentages or raw revert actions, and could cause people to demonstrate bad judgement. Every classification (but not "pass") helps by improving our machine learning models. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:23, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh! Gotcha...so the classifications include Innocent as well?.That's cool.I agree with you.I never knew that so far. Cheers TheStrikeΣagle 16:35, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I was wondering...

Do you have ways to prioritize featured articles for vandalism patrol? This one slipped me by and was in a featured medical article for about 45 minutes just now. Best. Biosthmors (talk) 02:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

This is in progress, and will also be a point of discussion in the upcoming Signpost article. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Great. Thank you. Biosthmors (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Progress on WP:Snuggle and work log

I've been making some progress on Snuggle development recently and I could use your feedback. Specifically, I've created a work log that I plan to update every time I get a chance to work on Snuggle. My intention is that you'll be able to watch that page to track my progress so I can get your feedback on features when they are early in development. The most recent entry (also the only entry) discusses new functionality for interacting with newcomers via Snuggle. I posted some mockups in the work log that show how I imagine the new features to work and I could use some feedback before I start writing the code. Thanks! --EpochFail(talk • work) 20:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Your table at User:West.andrew.g/Popular pages has got some real odd redlinked entries. Do you have an explanation for them? Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Search functionality, scripts, and whatever else gets called on the server. Developer's could probably answer the question more appropriately. If the server "serves" the file, it gets recorded in the raw statistics. To quote the raw data page: "Each request of a page, whether for editing or reading, whether a "special page" such as a log of actions generated on the fly, or an article from Wikipedia or one of the other projects, reaches one of our squid caching hosts and the request is sent via UDP to a filter which tosses requests from our internal hosts, as well as requests for wikis that aren't among our general projects. This filter writes out the project name, the size of the page requested, and the title of the page requested." Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:16, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Signpost draft moved, for pub next week

Excellent news; although we should be mindful of the trivial that updates that need to happen as the result of a fresh 5000/25 report. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I'll make sure we have top 25 ready in advance of publication. Can't wait to see how many Superbowl-related articles will be on there this time!--Milowent • hasspoken 03:30, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
It's likely to be humongous! At least we can test our theory about extreme popularity -- that "highest hours" ever table might need updating with Beyonce if it holds! Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 03:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
My apologies again, and let me say that you two have crafted an excellent article. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Relatively few football articles, given the off week. I will rush through Sunday/Monday statistics to produce an early number of how well Beyonce did. Ping me when the new top-25 is up, and I'll see if I can add anything. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 13:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
New Top25 is up at Wikipedia:5000/Top25Report. I also tweaked the draft article to reflect the number of featured articles and good articles, etc., in the updated WP:5000 list[1]. If Beyonce was super popular, we only need to update that table and mention it in text, because it was so recent. I suspect it will not be in Top 10, though.--Milowent • hasspoken 16:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Beyonce didn't crack the top 8 (i.e., enough to make it into our article's table). However, I did make a small post at WT:5000 and will make a note of where she fell in the article, regardless. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism permanence?

Are there any stats on how long it takes for vandalism to be reverted? In other words, if vandalism was becoming more of a problem, how would we know it? Biosthmors (talk) 04:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a CDF graph in this week's Signpost article that displays this. If my memory serves me correct, the median is around 80 seconds. We can learn more about this by plotting the survival times for vandalism sets collected over different time periods. With tools like ClueBot_NG, STiki, and the like being on the scene we are in a much much better place than we were several years ago when there was more reliance on manual discovery and revert/warning work. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 04:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I wonder if something like this manual revert (I calculated 66 views -- also relevant is where in the article it is) would have been counted in that graph. I see the publication is about link spamming. Also the CDF graph shows a 500,000 "wide" slice of is cross-sectional data. Are you aware of any currently published longitudinal stats? Biosthmors (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe that edit would be in the set. While it is an identity revert done by a trusted user (an important part of the equation), it lacks some of the heuristics consistent with vandalism (like being a rollback, a summary mentioning vandalism, or a warning to the user talk page). The set is built using hindsight heuristics described elsewhere in research.
Towards the CDF graph, realize that ~40% of damage is now undone with virtually no latency by bots. Indeed, prominence and article positioning are an important factor as to whether or not someone sees the damage, as my link spam publication discusses. I don't fully understand your point about the CDF graph and the 500k slice. Regardless, I am aware of no longitudinal analysis in publication -- but I would speculate that my data sets are in the best position to quantify it (if I had time). West.andrew.g (talk) 04:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I'll ask at the WP:WMFN if there is any interest in quantifying this from WMF staff. Biosthmors (talk) 05:12, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Signpost Barnstar
For your fantastic Signpost story on the most popular Wikipedia articles, which gathered a staggering 5877 views on the day it was published, please accept this token of my gratitude. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for this excellent article. If you would like to do something similar in the future, just let me know. Regards, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! I feel like this is a win-win for researchers and the Signpost alike. I recently heard from User:EpochFail (a researcher working on WP:Snuggle) that the Signpost was trying to create a small feature on "editing tools" (and recently featured his/that tool). If that opportunity comes around, I can not just talk about WP:STiki, but hopefully include some more fascinating statistics about damage/vandalism discovery and reversion. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 03:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I'd welcome those pieces. You'll be happy to know that thebrowser.com has picked up your piece, and the bit.ly link has 874 clicks alone... I'm waiting for this day to end to see the overall page views! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Excellent news! It's my dream to make Slashdot, but I fret I don't know anyone with enough influence in that realm. West.andrew.g (talk) 21:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
In that vein, I gave submission a shot, in a shameless self-plug in case anyone would like to "upvote". West.andrew.g (talk) 21:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I was going to tweet about it... but I don't see it there? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't know. I submitted here but it disappeared out of their feed. I can't imagine it was that universally hated in a couple minutes time, unless I failed on some policy matter. Maybe you could give a copy edit and retry? West.andrew.g (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, enjoy [2] and [3]. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Very very cool (especially the "tested.com" article, which obviously required a bit of effort). I hope this works out well for not just myself, but also draws traffic into the Signpost and the adjacent articles. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

While we're keeping score here, add [4] and [5]. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Me too! Note that it looks like my submission is sticking... I think yours may have been removed because you had no tags. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I notice the Slashdot sub and The Atlantic blog piece are receiving a good bit of chatter on Twitter. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:35, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
I am trying to add to it too, with @wikisignpost :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

6000 reads or so says Henrik's tool. I don't have much perspective on this, but I thought I'd pass it along. West.andrew.g (talk) 04:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Some others are now picking up the story: Gizmodo!! and the The Verge and another. These could all push a lot of traffic today. West.andrew.g (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Awesome! This reminds me that I think we need to have a public relations noticeboard to keep track of Wikipedia news stories/internet activity (or to try and drive them). I imagine a place where people could propose letters to submit to ask for corrections, the freedom to strategize about whether or not to publish a Signpost article, or how to comment on any external website/social media platform, what to say, etc. etc. so that there is a clear place to do it. Thoughts? Biosthmors (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not quite clear on what you are proposing. Basically a strategising area for dealing with articles about Wikipedia on external sites? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's one possibility I see, along with monitoring coverage. Also, people could propose drafts about writing opinion pieces and the like, such as strategizing about how to do outreach on social media (to try and get more editors). Or how to best respond to people who criticize or compliment Wikipedia on social media. How to teach people how to use Wikipedia externally. People could talk about how to make the best possible YouTube video about how to edit Wikipedia. Over at WikiProject Medicine, we had this and this develop, but I'm not sure how much follow up we executed. If there was a noticeboard with and a clear purpose/mission, it could help further collaboration amongst people who care about our coverage in external sources. Biosthmors (talk) 02:09, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

STiki

I want to work with you at STiki. Can I join with you at STiki?--Pratyya (Hello!) 05:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

It's unclear what you mean by this. Is this a request for permissions? You automatically have permissions based on your edit count. If you have any questions, please post them at WT:STiki. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 14:15, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I meant I want to work with you like a co-ordinator. Will you permit me doing this?--Pratyya (Hello!) 14:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I am never one to turn down free assistance, though I would be interested in knowing what you plan on "coordinating". By and large the operation runs itself (aside from spot-checking the work of new users and nightly barnstar distribution). Use of the tool has been slowing a bit lately, so I would be interested in some promotional/recruitment efforts -- but one would need to be careful to avoid spam-like behaviors. Let's continue this at WT:STiki. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:12, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Congrats

You're in the news! Vacationnine Public 12:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

+1 Seconded! —Theopolisme (talk) 12:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, a couple outlets (most prominently, The Atlantic) picked it up. See the "Thanks" section above. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:32, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

RfA

RfA is now open here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/West.andrew.g

Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions. Ocaasi t | c 18:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Interesting

Ex WMF board member partners with a major German corporation to statistically evaluate the quality of Wikipedia articles on corporations. Unfortunately, in German only but could have interesting applications on English Wikipedia. I know there are a lot of public relations firms who would love that kind of data, and it might involve some mechanisms we would want to co-opt for our own article assessment processes. Link: http://wikipedia-corporate-index.de/ Ocaasi t | c 21:24, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record: I am actually working for Fleishman-Hillard, not partnering with them. If you're interested in quality assessment there are some other interesting tools that you want to have a look at: http://wikibu.ch, RENDER -- akl (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the clarification, sorry for the mistake. Andrew, there's an english overview of their project here: [6]. I'm wondering, could STiki's algorithm compute an aggregate article quality estimate using metadata about individual edits? Ocaasi t | c 17:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

"Several"

Howdy. You have an interesting definition of "several": "...conditions I have now honored for several years".--Rockfang (talk) 00:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion elsewhere in the RfA is explicit about when the incidents occurred. It has been 2.5+ years, which I suppose is technically "more than two", albeit not in integer terms. Regardless, I used imprecise terminology and I will correct accordingly. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 01:01, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I think User:West.andrew.g/Popular pages should be in Wikipedia namespace rather than being a redir to a user page. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

As an explanation, WP:BRFA rules say no bot account/approval is needed to automatically edit in one's own userspace. It would inconvenient to run through that bureaucratic process every time I needed to get a new bot "task" approved just to write out a simple report to Wikipedia space. I should probably try to get a generic approval under that system for this type of reporting (which I also do elsewhere on the project). However, given real-life busy-ness, it is not something I'll be pursuing in the immediate future. West.andrew.g (talk) 20:32, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Cleanup

Hello, West.andrew.g.

You are invited to join WikiProject Cleanup, a WikiProject and resource for Wikipedia cleanup listings, information and discussion.

To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:5000/Top25Report/January 13-19, 2013

Milowent tagged this page for G7 speedy, but since it's part of your WP:5000 process, I thought it best not to delete it unless you'd given input. If you think it should be deleted, please either retag it with G7 or delete it yourself if your RFA be done. Nyttend (talk) 07:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the notify, but I re-tagged the article: (1) Milowent is the user who actually cultivates the Top25 lists, and (2) So that talk page comments continue to be useful, we aggregate them at WT:5000/Top25Report, instead of on the individually archived reports talk pages, where no one is likely to ever find them. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 07:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks; my whole reason for asking you was to ensure that you knew, so I well understand that you retagged it. Nyttend (talk) 13:13, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll be better about avoiding moving around the talk page inadvertently when updating the Top25 report , there are one or two more "blanked" archive talk pages I will also G7.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are an administrator!

We pooled together and got you this.

Hello West.andrew.g! I am pleased to report that I have closed your request for adminship as successful. You may find the New admin school helping in getting started, and I am happy to answer any questions you might have about the toolkit. Happy editing, and happy adminning! 28bytes (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Congrats on receiving the admin tools. You had a bit of opposition, but you deserved them. Your research sounds great, so have fun doing it! I'm sure you will use the tools well. Congratulations! Vacation9 18:19, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Well done. Much deserved. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. Ocaasi t | c 18:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, congratulations. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 21:42, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I want to wish you success in your editing career as a sysop. Please remember to use caution with blocking and assume good faith when dealing with newcomers and most important of all have fun. –BuickCenturyDriver 02:33, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Well done and good luck with the mop! Brookie :) { - he's in the building somewhere!} (Whisper...) 09:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations, Andrew! — madman 04:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


New Administrator Award
Congrats on your recently successful RfA! Command and Conquer Expert! speak to me...review me... 02:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


The Admin's Barnstar
Hey Andrew! A Big Congratulations on your recent successful adminship! I knew you will be an admin someday and now, here it is and you're an admin now. Congrats again Andrew! ;) Mediran (t • c) 11:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Broad thanks!

To everyone who has acknowledged my successful RfA above, or is coming here to do so now... I thank you all! I am currently busting my tail to finish my PhD dissertation (its 4:16AM local time, just as a point of perspective), so sadly I cannot give everyone the personal thanks they deserve (yet!). When I finally complete that milestone, I plan to return and do them justice, and get down to the business of actually using the admin bit. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 09:19, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Barnstars of Merit

Hi, I have created a Diamond STiki Barnstar of Merit, potentially for a user's 100,000th classification using STiki. Would you like me to upload it, or do you have something else in mind for 100,000? Thanks. FrigidNinja 22:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Try to keep STiki specific discussion at WT:STiki. Why don't you upload it to the talk page there, where the relevant parties can discuss. So long as it is consistent with our current milestone/barnstar awards, I see no reason why we would not include it. West.andrew.g (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at WT:STiki.
Message added 04:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for the note on my userpage; I totally missed this comment, previously. I am interested and commented at the STiki talk page. Jackson Peebles (talk) 04:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism stuff, again

I think vandalism (see a fresh example from my watchlist) is bad around here, in my opinion. Am I wrong? I saw a recent op-ed state in the Signpost that "The dearth of vandalism lasting more than a few seconds has done much to improve our image". I'm under no impression that there is a scarcity of vandalism, though. Hmmmm... Good luck finishing up your dissertation. No need for you to reply now. Biosthmors (talk) 18:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at User:West.andrew.g/Flow funding.
Message added 04:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Sorry for the delay getting back to you, just recovering from (planned) surgery. Doing well now and ready to get going! Added statement, as requested. Excited for project! Jackson Peebles (talk) 04:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Need to know

How do you track the "did you knows"? Serendipodous 08:53, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for Input

Andrew, thanks for all of your hard work on the flow funding initiative. Now, I'm not trying to canvass (hence putting this in public; the last thing I need is someone to think that I'm not being transparent), but my WMF Grant Discussion is stagnating, and I was hoping that you could throw in some comments of your own, if you'd be interested.


Thanks, and hope all is well! --Jackson Peebles (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Can't use STiki

Hi Mr West, I would like to seek your assistance about STiki. I am not able to open it. Please refer to [7] for details about the problem I'm encountering. Thanks for your help. Cheers, Arctic Kangaroo 15:50, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I apologize that this so dramatically slipped off my radar. If this continues to be a concern, or of relevance, please notify me here and I will try to respond as promptly as possible. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 05:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
I'd like to thank you for going to great lengths to secure funding for tutorials for the general public, carefully guiding the grant process, being willing to extend help non-stop to those who request it (particularly myself in my recent statistic request), and your recent work as a new administrator. Congratulations, and thank you, again! I hope that the dissertation is going well! Jackson Peebles (talk) 05:46, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

FYI: Testing the STiki API

Hey! I just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm testing code against the STiki API. You should see a flood of requests for scores. I've specifically added a header noting that these requests are to build a data model for Snuggle. I hope I don't cause you trouble, but if I do, please feel free to cut me off and let me know. --EpochFail(talk • work) 20:49, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I was literally citing your work when I received the notification for this talk page message... very odd. I think the server should do just fine (and if it doesn't you could explore the IRC option). Let me know how it turns out. You'll probably need to interpret the scores relatively, as I imagine probabilities for these users will be quite poor on the basis of their low edit counts, recent registration, etc. If my approach doesn't seem to get the job done, you could also integrate the language-based anti-damage scores of ClueBot NG, which also have an IRC feed. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
It looks like everything survived the weekend. I've updated the code to further minimize the rate at which I'm making requests. If you want to take a look at the way I'm modeling newcomer desirability, check out meta:Research:Newcomer_desirability_modeling. It's the dumbest strategy that I thought would work (and it seems to be working quite well) and be robust to newcomer characteristics. --EpochFail(talk • work) 18:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Need a spam filter person

Sorry if this is an imposition. Normally I'd ask Milowent to do this, but he's stuck in one of those Lilliput vs Blefescu-style conflicts that so bedevil this site. You're probably as familiar with the mechanisms that produce these things as he is so it made sense to ask you.

Centrality: We get these periodically; sudden spikes in interest in mathematical or communication tech topics. Either we're missing something rather fundamental or a really lonely tech geek is screwing with us.
Hoisin sauce: I like it as much as the next guy, but it shouldn't be this popular.
Harlan County, Kentucky: A fire occurred there this week that killed one person. Also, the setting for Justified. Other than that, can't see how it got 660000+ views
Munich massacre: OK, so it makes a certain amount of sense; major sporting event, Islamist terrorism, yeah obvious link is obvious. But then why is it so much higher than Boston Marathon bombings?
Socotra: Never heard of this Yemeni biodiversity hotspot before, so thank you whoever pushed this to the top for expanding my yokelish horizons.
Driven due to Reddit traffic in the "Today I Learned" sub-reddit. West.andrew.g (talk) 20:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Edith Macefield: Yeah she stood up to a housing development seven years ago. Why the sudden interest now?
Also Reddit, same reasons as above. West.andrew.g (talk) 20:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

So whaddaya think? :) Serendipodous 14:06, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you proposing a computational filter, or a human who goes through WP:5000 and annotates suspicious entries? West.andrew.g (talk) 17:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
No, I just need a second opinion for the top 25 report. Serendipodous 20:05, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Note on searching Reddit. In the search bar pre-pend "url:" to a Wikipedia article URL, i.e., 
url:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Macefield
in order to produce a result like this. Common sense regarding popularity ("upvotes") and submission date should prevail from there. West.andrew.g (talk) 20:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Lilliput vs Blefescu? Lol. I assure you I am battling for the honor of Wikipedia for all time. In any event, I was not aware of the "url:" search option on reddit, that is very helpful. I am still on the fence about the Munich massacre, but I left it.
  • Also, WP:SIGNPOST is interested in publishing a digest of the Top25 (a top 10 version of it)!! See User_talk:The_ed17#Top_10_draft.--Milowent • hasspoken 20:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
This is good news. I doubt I am of much use, but I'll keep churning out the statistics. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 05:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Only 2 question marks this week

The bigger problem is that a glitch in the page view statistics website means that the entire month of April has been deleted. Since the guy who runs it no longer seems to be running it anymore, I don't really know where this is headed. Anyway, taking the deletions into consideration:

  • G: A fine and venerable letter. Not sure what it's doing in the top 20
  • Steve Jobs: He's always in the news for some reason, but why now?

Serendipodous 14:08, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  • The page view stats tool is working as of right now, at least. I'd definitely exclude "G". Jobs had a prolonged jump in views from April 15 to May 3. Apple Inc. did not have a similar spike. I'd lean toward including it, since we can't really tell. Also, I noted Patti Reagan should be excluded, its a redirect, and the target didn't have a similar spike. And Jeff Hanneman, which was #1, reveals the nature of wikipedia's audience.--Milowent • hasspoken 16:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll agree with all this analysis. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 06:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

FYI: Snuggle got wedged and sent a bunch of requests

Hey. I just wanted to let you know that Snuggle got wedged and sent a huge amount of requests to your server (100 requests every 10 seconds for a couple hours). I've since rectified the problem. I'm working on building a fail-safe that will make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm just posting to let you know what's up. --EpochFail(talk • work) 22:19, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

No problems, I can't even imagine that would cause much of a dent in server load. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Glad to hear it. --EpochFail(talk • work) 23:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Page view stats crashing on some, but not all, articles

Hi. I was wondering if you could shed any light on User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Page view stats crashing on some, but not all, articles. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I have posted on Jimbo's talk page. Summarily: (1) take this issue to the analytics mailing list, (2) I highly suspect this is a technical issue with how HTTPS views are being counted. If anything interesting happens over there, feel free to post talkback here. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 06:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I emailed that list and User Diederek will report back when he has a definitive answer.[8] Thanks for your help. I'll ping you if I notice his response. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at Wiki4Blog's talk page.
Message added 16:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Jeff G. ツ (talk) 16:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this a request for action of some kind? No instances have been brought to my attention where the user has mis-used the tool, and I plan to remain uninvolved so long as that is the case. Regardless, the individual has not classified an edit using the STiki tool in the past 111 days. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:04, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Renan Barão is listed as having had 422344 views in the past week, but according to the traffic checker, it's barely received half that many views in the last month. Serendipodous 22:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

The statistics to do not accommodate redirection. Remove the tilde, observe the spike. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 22:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

User:West.andrew.g/STiki UserBox 4

Hello: I noticed you reverted my changes at User:West.andrew.g/STiki UserBox 4, which is fine. I performed the changes in attempts to correct formatting errors on my user page in which extra spacing was added (where I have the userbox listed in a table format). I've corrected the matter on my user page manually. Just a friendly explanation, and thanks for your work in creating and managing WP:STIKI! Cheers, Northamerica1000(talk) 16:43, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi NA. No ill well was intended with the revert. If the spacing is indeed an issue, and people have hacked around it, I didn't want their formatting to be broken/changed if the they subst the template. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:54, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Hey, cool, and thanks again for your work on Wikipedia! Northamerica1000(talk) 08:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, West.andrew.g. You have new messages at Thane's talk page.
Message added 16:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thane formerly Guðsþegn (talk) 16:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done. Approximately 7400 classifications mapped from User:Guðsþegn to User:Thane. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 15:44, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Will this take a while to take effect? The leaderboard still says my old username. -- Thane formerly Guðsþegn (talk) 19:14, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
When the leaderboard regenerates itself at 1PM (East coast, USA time) this evening. It's changed in the back-end database. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 19:18, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Armstrong offline (UPDATE: Maintenance complete)

Hey. I'm timing out when making requests to http://armstrong.cis.upenn.edu/. Is the machine offline? --EpochFail(talk • work) 19:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

(Talk page stalker.) This might address your concern. Biosthmors (talk) 19:07, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi Aaaron, I'll try to be more proactive about pinging you regarding expected maintenance in the future. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 19:15, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
That would be great. Thank you very much.  :) --EpochFail(talk • work) 20:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
If you could, can you confirm everything is online again? Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 23:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I was able to request a few scores, but it looks like the system isn't updating anymore. Could it be that there's missing data for the downtime? --EpochFail(talk • work) 23:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

STiki does not attempt to recover/calculate probabilities for those times when it is offline. Regardless, it should now be processing new edits in earnest. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 04:05, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm still not able to get updated scores. Note this recent edit [9] and the lack of a score [10]. The edit is ~ 5 minutes old at this time. --EpochFail(talk • work) 20:18, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 Fixed -- IRC issues were causing the main thread to hang. IRC output has been temporarily disabled (I don't think anyone uses it, anyways). Let me know if things do not return to normal. I'll investigate this further and report back at greater length sometime later. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 Fixed IRC now fixed as well. All issues should be cleared. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Your input on the STiki talk page would be appreciated

Hi Andrew,

You might want to do some investigating in relation to Wikipedia talk:STiki#Edits older than 20 days.

It did occur to me that it might just be that someone else is burning through the edits before we get to them... but since several people are noticing the issue now that seems unlikely.

Yaris678 (talk) 15:43, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed -- IRC issues were causing the main thread to hang. IRC output has been temporarily disabled (I don't think anyone uses it, anyways). Let me know if things do not return to normal. I'll investigate this further and report back at greater length sometime later. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 16:41, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 Fixed IRC now fixed as well. All issues should be cleared. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 02:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

STiki down again?

My requests to STiki's API have been timing out for at least the last few hours. Is the system down again? --EpochFail(talk • work) 13:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @EpochFail: The database server appears to have gone down shortly after 0625 UTC. The whole University of Pennsylvania's Computer and Information Science's subdomain seemed to go down too, but that's back up now. I wonder if there was a network failure or a power cut, and armstrong failed to come back online. Any update Andrew? 930913(Congratulate) 14:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Essentially correct; the whole engineering department went down over night. I cannot ping armstrong, so it is impossible to do maintenance from afar. I have asked my advisor to send a colleague into the server room to investigate. When it rains, it pours. West.andrew.g (talk) 15:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. It seems that you/STiki can't get a break recently. I wish I could help rather than just complain. :) --EpochFail(talk • work) 15:44, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 Fixed -- The network just failed to auto-re-connect when power was restored, now chugging full steam ahead. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 18:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
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