Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library/Archive 4

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Archive 9

For applications through the Library Card Platform, is having your wikipedia preferences set so that allowing other users to email a requirement? I ask because account managers can get applicant email addresses through the platform so the requirement isn't really necessary, but I don't remember the requirement being relaxed. Thanks, Smmurphy^(Talk) 16:16, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Smmurphy: Good question. The platform gets the information through OAuth, but I'm actually not sure if that preference has any effect on our ability to grab the email in that way. We'll need to check - T189235 for updates :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I have one user who otherwise satisfies the requirements (User:Spintendo) and I can see their email address on the platform, but there is no "Email this user" link on their userpage which, I think, means they do not allow other users to email them in that way. Shall I go ahead and process their application, or should I require that they check the allow box? Smmurphy^(Talk) 19:27, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

They've changed their setting, so the previous comment is moot. Smmurphy^(Talk) 19:47, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Smmurphy: The requirement is only there such that coordinators could email details directly before we switched to the platform. If you've got someone's email through there then it doesn't matter whether they have that setting turned on or not since you can just email directly. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:26, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm double checking some references that I got from google books, but it won't give me access to content that I previously had access to. Does anyone know why I can't 're-access' content? I know that I'm not imagining things...

Best Regards, Barbara ✐  ✉ 00:43, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

@Barbara (WVS): You have a finite number of pages you can look at per previewable book - you've likely hit that limit. See here. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:19, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Is anyone else having trouble with this? It appears not to work at all when accessed from a cellphone. I've just been refused access to Taylor and Francis because I "won't respond". But it's not that I won't respond but that I can't. Here's a comment I wrote (from a laptop) there: "I've been accessing this page from my phone, as I get an email about every 10 minutes saying there's a comment needed. None of what you wrote or I wrote shows up there, just a blank box marked 'Discussion' and an "Add comment' button that makes anything you write in that box disappear. Now accessing from a laptop. What might actually be useful here is a list of the various subscriptions a user has, with the expiry date of each. I know that some are now self-renewing, but I don't know which they are. My Taylor & Francis "Access" page shows many journals with the access period "19 Dec 2016". I have no idea what that means, but my log-in seems still to work. Do I have, or can I get, access to both the arts and the life sciences T&F packages?".

Can anyone tell me:

• whether the platform/site is going to be fixed, and if so, when
• whether or not my access to T&F content has expired, and if so when, and
• whether there's any other way of asking for it to be renewed
• whether it's possible to receive access to both packages

and also:

• whether there's anywhere where I can see what resources I have access to, and – most important – when they expire; or
• how to request automatic renewal of those various resources.

I'm truly grateful for all the work that people put into making this whole scheme work. It seems a pity for it to be hampered by a non-functional website. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:16, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: Sorry to hear you're having these issues! We're not aware of some of the issues you're reporting so I'd appreciate if you could provide some extra information. Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say the website doesn't work on mobile - can you not load it up at all, or do you have a problem doing something specific like logging in or applying for access. Additionally, what device and browser are you using when you get this issue?

Looking through the admin logs on the site, I'm also not seeing emails sent every 10 minutes to you. You have received quite a number of emails over the past month, but that's because you applied to many different partners, some of which received comments from the coordinator. I did, while investigating this, notice a bug with comment email content, however, which we'll fix soon: Phab:T190048.

A list of subscriptions with expiry date would be useful - I agree - but unfortunately it's just not feasible at this time. There are many variables that go into your account's exact expiry date and we just can't keep up with them all for every user/publisher. Your account might initially last for a year, but since most accounts are sent off to be set up by the publisher it's hard for us to know the exact date it will expire. Additionally your account might be renewed, either automatically to a certain date or manually by you. This renewal might extend the date by one year or reset to one year from when you renew. Unfortunately we just can't track all this for every user. We're aware that the website currently tells you explicitly when it thinks your account will expire, even if that might not be accurate - we plan to remove this explicit statement system (Phab:T177472). I'll also look into whether we can improve the communication of expected expiry dates generally.

We are, however, in the process of building out authentication-based access. Under this system most of our partnerships will have their setup handled by us, meaning we can tell you exactly when your accounts will expire.

@AnthroMimus: Can you shed any light on the current status of this users' T&F subscription(s)?

I appreciate that the system is a bit frustrating at the moment, it's in a transition phase of being centralised but without the authentication access component! Thanks for all your feedback - I especially hope that we can solve the mobile view issue. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for a detailed reply, Samwalton9 (WMF). "Every 10 minutes" was just a hyperbole – I got a lot of emails saying "there's a new comment", but when I went to look, the discussion was still blank, exactly as before. Nikkimaria has, with my agreement, now passed my email address to the developer of the site, so I'll do my best to explain the problem to him/her. However, in brief: when I use my laptop to follow the link from the email I received on 13 March ("Your Wikipedia Library application has been denied"), I can see the discussion between AnthroMimus and myself in full; when I use my iPhone (which is where I habitually read email) to follow the same link from the same email, there's nothing between "Discussion" and the "Comment" box. Anything I write in that box just disappears. It's extremely frustrating, and to my chagrin I find that I've allowed some of that frustration to affect the tone of my comments there – AnthroMimus, please excuse me for that! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone,

There's a great suggestion Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Whitelisting_sites_for_newbies here to expand use of a facility in Mediawiki to list sites that are generally reliable sources and low risk for spam. It would be great to add all the websites in the Wikipedia library's collection to that whitelist. Can anyone create a list of the Wikipedia Library's websites? Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Clayoquot: Sure, and that definitely does sound like a good idea! I've compiled a list of the domains for TWL partners below, along with a few extra at the bottom that come to mind as obvious additions:

Hope that helps. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks! I'll copy this list to the whitelist talk page. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:11, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi everyone - just wanted to post a quick update about some changes we just made to the Library Card platform! I've summarised the major updates below:

• You can now filter the Browse page by language or topic - we appreciate that this page isn't super easy to navigate but hope that these filtering options should help you find what you need!
• On your User page, the site no longer tells you when your accounts have expired, and instead you can always send a request for the renewal of your account (if renewals are available for that publisher). Before now, we estimated that an account given to you for a publisher lasted for a year, and at the end of that year told you categorically 'Your account has expired'. This was rarely accurate and gave a false sense of when exactly your account actually needed renewing - that's information we don't often have on a per-user basis, so for now we're leaving it up to you to request renewals when needed.
• On partner pages (e.g. https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/24/) the Apply button will change based on whether you have an open or accepted application, allowing you to either view your open application or renew an approved one.

As always if you have any feature requests or issues with the website, please file a task on Phabricator. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I recently had a couple of days trial with the Routledge History of Feminism (which was offered because of my access to Taylor & Francis resources through the WP Library). I found this dedicated resource hugely useful, and provided a larger amount of information than is normally accessible through Taylor & Francis. Would someone be able to examine if we would be able to get access to this specialist data source? Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 13:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I'll look into it SchroCat! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:47, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I am still waiting for my access to Newspaperarchive.com as promised in an email. I still have no access. I requested it in 2017. "We are happy to inform you that your application has been approved. You can expect to receive details about how to access this source within a week or two. Cheers! The Wikipedia Library" from "Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 12:12 PM". Where is my login and password? Every time I write an inquiry, I get a response weeks or months later that someone will look into it. 4 months is a long time to wait for something that should be simple to take care of. This is my 4th time asking. --RAN (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Newspaperarchive.com accounts have been migrated from the original (i.e. here) signup procedure and to the new Wikipedia Library Card platform. It's possible your account got lost in the migration or something like that. The coordinator for Newspaperarchive.com accounts is Iazyges, but it's possible he only watches WP:Newspaperarchive.com, so I'm pinging him to see what's up. --Xover (talk) 16:48, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library kindly gave me an RSC Gold account about a year ago. Due to a hard-drive failure a couple of weeks ago I’ve now lost the password for it. I’ve tried the password reset options on the RSC website without success. Would the details be held by a custodian here, and if so could someone please re-email them to me? Thanks. --Project Osprey (talk) 08:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

@Project Osprey: I've dropped our contact at RSC an email to check that your account is still active. We don't have your password on file. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:58, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks. --Project Osprey (talk) 11:50, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should WP:TWL be allowed to acknowledge the services they have partnership with in our articles?. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I am very keen to ensure that sources are attributed properly. In the case of Newspapers.com, I attribute using the via parameter to either "Newspapers.com" or "Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)". In the case of Internet Archive texts, I attribute using the via parameter to "Internet Archive". However, for analyses, should these be wikilinked, or are you able to use scripts that extract values from designated parameters to satisfy usage statistics? Thanks for helping me to properly contribute to usage stats. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:26, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ceyockey: Thanks for the concern! We track source usage via the URLs, not the via parameter, so however you use it is absolutely fine :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Samwalton9 (WMF): — if I'm interpreting right, that means that you are tracking the links to the clips, so that even bare links are tacitly attributed in the overall statistics? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:24, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

@Ceyockey: Indeed! Though of course we don't encourage bare links :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:59, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Please see meta:Talk:The Wikipedia Library#wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/about needs an update
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:24, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

A new research source is now available for free access through The Wikipedia Library! Economic & Political Weekly is a social science journal published weekly. Access includes all recent publications in addition to archives going back to 1949. You can check out their website for more information, and apply for access on the Library Card platform! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:09, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello, I've recently been adding additional articles to the world of 9-Ball Pool, specifically, the WPA World Nine-ball Championship over several previous years. The website az billiards has recently started using a pay-wall to display older information (Anything older than a year). In a conversation, SMcCandlish pointed me to yourselves regarding potentially emailing the site for a key account for this information (The information on Pool in general is particularly poor), however, this isn't something I've done before, so would appreciate any help I could get regarding putting like this together.

Many thanks for your time. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: You're in the right place! (though requests can also be made at WP:TWL/Databases/Requests) For a more niche database like this we actually recommend going directly as an individual editor, rather than us working on a broader partnership. Do you think there would be interest in this website from many editors other than yourself? If not, we can help you with the best way to make the request for a single account, based on our pitching process. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 16:05, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd argue that whilst there could potentially be a couple of editors who would use the service, as the WP:WikiProject Cue Sports is virtually dead, it may be best to request as myself. Having looked through the pitching process, I should warn you, my knowledge of copyright law is quite poor (Specifically, as this is a US company, and I am British.) Would this be an issue? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:13, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: Doubtful :) All publishers tend to be concerned about is whether editors are going to copy their content to Wikipedia wholesale, or simply summarise and cite it (hint: it's the latter) so in depth copyright knowledge shouldn't be an issue. Looks like the only public email I can find for them is support@azbilliards.com, so that's probably your best bet. I'd advise just dropping them an email explaining that you're a Wikipedia editor who finds their content useful on Wikipedia, and that you'd like to be able to cite more of their content, that you can't currently access due to the paywall. It's worth highlighting in particular that this can lead to more exposure for their website in relevant Wikipedia articles, used by readers when researching billiards topics. That natural benefit of giving Wikipedians free access is what motivates many of our partners, and you could mention that we already successfully partner with many large publishers. Feel free to drop me an email (see my user page) if you want to run the email by me first, and feel free to CC me on the email. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:58, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Samwalton9 (WMF) - Thank you for your help. I now have the access granted. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:08, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

That's great to hear! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The "online catalogue" link on the Browse Partners page leads to a page that says, "Oops! That page can’t be found." I suspect that McFarland's Browse Books by Subject page is what is needed. I don't see a talk page for the Browse Partners page, so I hope posting here will alert whoever has access to change the link in the McFarland box. Eddie Blick (talk) 02:29, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Fixed that, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

So, I wanted to glance at this article, available through Gale's General OneFile. I supposedly have access to that database, I'm logged in ... but whatever I do I can't access the article. What am I doing wrong? Can anyone advise? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:15, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: It's not clear to me either - it might be best if you message Gale support to see if there's a sensible reason you can't see that document. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:23, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

One of the core reasons we moved our signup processes for Wikipedia Library resources over to a centralised platform last year was the ability to open up the signup process to editors from all language Wikipedias. TWL resources shouldn’t just be available for the English Wikipedia, but for editors from any language project. I’m therefore very happy to announce that the Library Card platform interface is now available to translate on translatewiki!

If you are capable of doing so, please help out by translating some pieces of text! Doing so will help open up our resources to so much more of the Wikimedia community.

Note that this process only allows translation of the tool’s interface; we’re currently working on translation support for elements such as the publisher description text, which will likely be translated on Meta.

Thanks - Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I am having trouble finding easy links to the requirements for accounts. I can see them here, and as a coordinator, I know what they are. But I'm concerned new users won't easily find them. I think it would be helpful to add a version of the list to the partner pages (such as here) or at least a clear link to the about page. I'm also adding the list to the project pages for the projects I coordinate, Wikipedia:Project MUSE and Wikipedia:Foreign Affairs. Am I missing something? Is this a good idea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smmurphy (talk • contribs) 13:38, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

@Smmurphy: That's totally a fair point. We might have 'over-centralised' that information. I've filed T204998 - we'll get a more prominent link on the platform itself. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:02, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Smmurphy: This should now be fixed --AVasanth (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for improving the mobile reading experience on this page @Damenleeturks:! Is there a way we could use that layout on smaller screen widths, but retain the previous layout on wider screens? There's a lot of whitespace on a typical computer monitor size screen now. Appreciate you spending the time on this :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I was granted access to NewspaperArchive.com in October 2018 and an email from Wikipedia Library Card Platform (noreplywikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org) said I could “expect to receive access details within a week or two once it has been processed”. Neither organization has contacted me since. Where should I ask for help on this, please? —LLarson (said & done) 14:05, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

You have email. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:40, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Thank you!

For the expectations of future applicants, that is an:

1. application on October 2, 2018;
2. acceptance by email on October 31, 2018;
3. talk message here on December 15, 2018; and
4. credentials by email on December 20, 2018.

—LLarson (said & done) 13:33, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Same situation with me only with JSTOR. Received this email January 8th "Thank you for applying for access to JSTOR resources through The Wikipedia Library. We are happy to inform you that your application has been approved. You can expect to receive access details within a week or two once it has been processed." Is there someone I can ping about this? Thank you Jessamyn (talk) 04:19, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

@Jessamyn: AFAICT you should have received access from JSTOR directly. Can you check your spam mail, and if you don't see anything can you email me? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:24, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Checked and had no email from them. Sent you an email. Thank you. Jessamyn (talk) 18:23, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi! I'm pretty sure this doesn't come under WP:LIBRARY, but as you were so nice the first time, I thought I'd ask again here.

I raised a question regarding working with a company for sourcing here before [1], which went really well. I have recently been talking to the EPBF president regarding sourcing and in particular releasing images from some Euro Tour events into the free domain to be used on articles.

They seemed quick responsive to the idea, and I'm looking to draft up an email to confirm if they would be ok to do this; however, my question is if there is a simple way for them to release the images into the free domain, rather than forcing them to upload them individually to commons, or any other free domain site. Could they simply send a waiver for me to use the images?

If you could point me in the correct direction, I would appreciate it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:51, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: That's exciting! Your best bet for resources on this topic would be found over at Commons, in particular Commons:Email templates where you can find a link to a tool which semi-automates the process of creating the text for an email EPBF can send to Commons OTRS to confirm the licensing. Either you could upload the images, tagging them with Template:OP to flag them as 'OTRS approval pending', or I believe they could even attach the images to their OTRS email. If the images can be found on their website or another image hosting website like flickr, they could simply add some text to the images flagging them as CC-BY-SA; you'd then have free reign to reupload them to commons, because the copyright is clear at the source. Hope that helps :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your speedy reply Samwalton9 (WMF). I've sent off an email and see what they go for. There's currently only around 50 pool items on commons, so if they could provide something, it would change an awful lot of articles. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

It seems that my account at newspapers.com no longer has a subscription. I was given it around this time last year. Do they only last for one year, and if so can we re-apply? SarahSV ^(talk) 00:03, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Sam and Cameron. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:12, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi SarahSV, unfortunately Newspapers.com subscriptions though The Wikipedia Library do only last for one year. You are more than welcome to apply for a renewal through the library card platform. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 03:57, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Cameron, thanks for the reply. I've requested access again. Could TWL make that clear as part of the subscription process? That way, we could reapply in time to avoid losing access. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:02, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

SarahSV - I encountered the same issue today as well. Chetsford (talk) 21:52, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Chetsford, you can reapply for access here. In the meantime, you can request individual articles at WP:RX. It would be very helpful if all the time-limited subscriptions could be marked as such. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:06, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: This is on our radar. The primary reason we didn't prioritise this task yet was that most TWL partners have very variable account lengths, they're only more or less exactly one year from setup for a few. But I agree this would be a great feature to have to avoid access gaps. Hopefully we can work on it soon. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I note that citation bot is removing JSTOR stable urls and substituting "|jstor=xyzabc" in the citation template. Is this now acceptable? I recall being told when I gained access that one had to include the JSTOR stable url & "|via=jstor |subscription=yes", but I can't find a place under the new library card system where this information is given. Looking at what the bot is doing, it looks as if this is not specific to JSTOR. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict: I'll grant you that Citation bot doing anything now defaults to "probably not acceptable" for me, but… TWL access does not come with any requirement in regards citations: there's a suggested format for how to cite, but that's mainly for convenience. The citation requirements ultimately all stem from WP:V and related policies and guidelines; and in particular WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Note particularly that those guidelines explicitly make optional (not required) mentioning journal database providers like JSTOR (I disagree: I think it's important and tend to always include it, but that's a matter for WP:CITEVAR).

For your concrete example, though, the |jstor= parameter is just a convenience shortcut to generating the stable JSTOR URL. Unlike a DOI (|doi=), which is an actual identifier (that is, it is looked up in the database at dx.doi.org and can change target over time), the so-called "JSTOR number" is just the unique part of JSTOR's stable URLs that allows us to auto-generate an address with a briefer syntax than giving the full URL ourselves. Thus, in general, replacing |url=[stable jstor url] with |jstor=[jstor number] is perfectly fine, usually preferable, and a mere syntactic difference that does not affect semantics at all.

The second part of your question, regarding |subscription=yes, stems from TWL's examples and guidance predating subsequent developments around the CS1/CS2 templates ({{cite book}} and friends). There was a series of discussions and RFCs there related to adding (general, not TWL-related) access indicators to the templates. The discussions resulted in various half-baked consensuses, so the end result is neither comprehensive nor nearly perfect, but for the purposes of your question the summary is something like this:

Access levels like "requires registration", "requires subscription", "free to access", and so forth, should be indicated per-identifier, not globally for the citation, since |url= and |doi= (or |jstor=) might lead to different destinations which may have differing access restrictions. The citation templates therefore provide per-identifier parameters to indicate access types: |url-access=, |doi-access=, |jstor-access=, and so forth. Each of these parameters have a assumed access level (default) and a set of valid keywords. For |url-access= the default assumption is that access is |url-access=free, and thus the parameter should only be provided when the URL is not free to access. The opposite applies for DOI and JSTOR etc.: the default assumption is that these require subscriptions to access, and so the parameter should only be provided when they do not require a subscription. As a result of this the |subscription=yes (and |registration=yes) parameters are effectively deprecated (not in a technical sense).

I also happen to disagree with this, and on articles where CITEVAR permits it I will usually provide |subscription=yes even when the above guidance would have suggested using no access indicators: I think it's important to give readers a visual indicator that the citation as a whole is not free to access (particularly as people are increasingly used to web citations that are free to access). That's mainly because I myself find it hugely annoying to click on a link from a citation and then running into a paywall of some sort and prefer to see that at a glance. But, as mentioned, only on articles where CITEVAR allows for my preference to prevail, and as everything subject to being overruled by local consensus on the relevant article's talk page. --Xover (talk) 07:20, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

See this Signpost article that was published today. This has been the results of nearly 9 months of efforts. Feel free to share the article (and the WP:SOURCEWATCH link) to relevant people and communities you may know! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:21, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

This AfD would benefit from someone who has the Publishers Extra access searching for "'Rick Norwood' comics" to see if any of the resulting hits are significant coverage of Norwood. I tried to do the search but found that not only do I not have Publishers Extra, my subscription has expired; I've reapplied but in the meantime if anyone is interested enough to look, please post your thoughts on what you find at the AfD. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

• Excellent service, well done! This kind of thing might support expert editor outreach. I've put up a note of thanks on my user page :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chalst#Editor_support — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

How can one contact a Wikipedian with access to Grove's Dictionary? I am trying to find a date of death for pianist August Frederick Ferdinand Hyllested, born 1858. There was an article on him in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Supplement, 1922, vol VI), when he was apparently still living. Is there an article in subsequent editions of Groves that gives a death date? - Nunh-huh 20:32, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Nunh-huh, Try posting your request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request. Someone might see it there and be able to help you. Eddie Blick (talk) 00:40, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried, but just couldn't find the right place! - Nunh-huh 19:13, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Nunh-huh, you may already have found you answer, but in case you haven't: there is one mention of August Hyllested in Grove online, in the article on his student Arne Oldberg; there's no article on him, nor any mention in either The Oxford Dictionary of Music or The Oxford Companion to Music. There's no article on him in the 1980 print edition of Grove; volume 8, page 836, goes from Hyllary to Hylton. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Justlettersandnumbers, I did manage to post in the right place and someone got me an article from an old Groves. But it's also useful to know where he's not covered, so thanks for looking. - Nunh-huh 23:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm lucky enough to have a complimentary subscription to newspapers.com, and grateful to all who helped to make that possible. However, it seems to be of only limited usefulness: whenever I go to actually look at a page (most recently this one), I seem to get a message that says "You need a subscription to view this page". Does anyone else have the same difficulty? Is this how it's supposed to work? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:42, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: It looks like your account has probably expired - they last one year at a time. You should be able to hit the Renew button here to request your account get renewed for another year. We've got a new feature in the works for giving you a forewarning about this for publishers like Newspapers.com who distribute fixed-length accounts, to avoid confusion. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Samwalton9 (WMF), I've applied for renewal. I look forward to the new feature. Meanwhile, I'm having much the same sort of difficulty with Gale/Cengage: I tried to access this, but got only the abstract. It's apparently available as part of Academic OneFile, to which I supposedly have access. Why aren't I able to read the article?

By the way, the bug I reported a year or more ago – which causes comments on the Wikipedia Library Card platform to disappear when trying to read with an iPhone – is still active. Comments don't appear on iPhone, but can be seen on Apple laptops. Thanks for all your help and advice, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:37, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I'll look into the Gale issue for you. As for comments on iPhone, We thought we'd fixed that, but if not I'll re-open that task and look into it again. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:53, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:

• Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
• From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
• Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured article review, but bridging the gap with external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:36, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Just a quick notice that the Library Card platform will be down for maintenance from ~2.20pm UTC. We expect the site to be back up within 30 minutes, but further delays are possible. I'll update here when the tool is back up. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And we're back. Please let me know if anything doesn't appear to be working as intended. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Can we reorder the list of partners in accord with their size? -ApexUnderground (talk) 21:29, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

@ApexUnderground: What metric are you using for size? In general I think subject or alphabetical listing is more useful, but perhaps a flag of some kind could be added for "big ones". Nikkimaria (talk) 03:33, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

One could use prominence as a metric and sort out any attempts at excess promotion. Size meaning access to number of volumes seems simple. -ApexUnderground (talk) 05:10, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Why don't we disclose the list of editors, who have access to a particular resource? ~ Winged Blades^Godric 14:35, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Why would we? --Xover (talk) 15:39, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Why won't we? We needlessly shield this information from public eyes and this goes against our values of transparency.

A few weeks back, I sought for a L'Harmattan article over en-wiki RX. Now, L'Harmattan is a TWL partner whose subscriptions gets processed from fr.wiki. I did not intend to consume one account for accessing a single resource (it seemed unethical to me) and per a conversation with Nikkimaria, sought for folks over fr.wiki, who have access to it. But, I failed to reach a single user, who had a subscription to Harmattan. One had his user-box, despite expiration of the subscription whilst one did not choose to reply. Another, (who was twice-pinged by the former), did not choose to reply either. Per subscription-counts, it was clear that ample people had access to it, but I had no scope of knowing whom to contact other than those, who self-disclosed.

Such a list will aid in collaboration among users.∯WBG^converse 16:00, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree that we should make it as easy and convenient as possible to discover and contact those editors willing to service reference lookup and research requests (cf. eg. WP:RX, the userboxes; both of which I've gratefully availed myself of for much the same reasons you describe). But simply publishing the list of users with access to the various resources is too coarse an approach. Transparency is served (piecemeal) by things like the log on the front page of the Library Card Platform (the access ain't secret), but what you're requesting goes beyond transparency. --Xover (talk) 16:34, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

If you have problems disclosing what resources you can access over TWL, you have no business of being a claimant to them, at the first place. You are feeding on a community-resource. ∯WBG^converse 16:41, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: Those accounts are community resources, distributed by community approval. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:12, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but I am not a "community resource". Whether I am willing to appear in a directory and service research and lookup requests is, like everything on Wikipedia, strictly voluntary. Now as it happens I'm perfectly willing to do so—happy to, even!—but we cannot presume that every volunteer is similarly inclined, nor would it be reasonable to make it a prerequisite of access. --Xover (talk) 16:34, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

• @Samwalton9 (WMF)::- I asked you weeks back but got no reply. ∯WBG^converse 13:16, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

The primary issue with creating such a list is that we at TWL don't always know who actually has access at any particular moment in time. Under the current method of distributing accounts, for most publishers we send information over to them for account setup, a process which is usually opaque to us. In some cases, the editor never completes required setup steps and so in fact never receives access - but we don't know that, all we know is that we approved & sent their application over. Additionally, accounts last for varying amounts of time; for some publishers accounts all expire on a specific date, for others accounts last for one year, and for others they never expire. This isn't information we store a complete picture on in the tool, so this muddies the data further. While we might have an approved & sent application for someone, we don't know if they ever completed setup, and we don't always know if their access is still active, at least in terms of data stored within the platform. As for whether, conceptually, we should share the information if we had it, I'd certainly be interested to hear the community's opinion - we've erred on the side of privacy until now, but if there was a feeling that this information should be accessible, then we could look into changing that. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:54, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Samwalton9 (WMF),

The first issue is problematic, indeed. May-be necessitate that once an editor gets his/her access, he/she needs to confirm that over the public list? Unless he/she confirms, we send periodic (monthly/bimonthly?) reminders to the users? Obviously, an user can play around that because we have to take his/her words at face value but that would be peak-ABF-esque.

The second issue is IMO, a non-issue. An account lasts for a specific time, which's unique to the resource across all applicants. The coordinators often knows this span, too and send mails, a month or two before our access is to end, inquiring about whether we still need access or our account can be locked and re-allotted to someone else. The list obviously needs to be updated in a timely manner, corresponding to these communications.

The broader scope of discussion (other than technicalities) is out for debate over VPP, as requested. ∯WBG^converse 16:24, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Dear Wiki-Friends,

September 6th marks the end of my time at the Wikimedia Foundation.

At my center has been the belief that I serve the movement above all else. This was what motivated the creation of a research service for editors in the first place. Today, it leaves me to look outside the Foundation to how I can best influence and impact change for the open knowledge community, and our broadly fractured society.

When I founded The Wikipedia Library in 2011, the course of my life changed. I became a grantee with an Individual Engagement Grant, guided by Siko Bouterse and Anasuya Sengupta, to expand TWL. It was a dream fulfilled to be asked to join the Wikimedia Foundation full-time in 2014 to establish the program worldwide.

With much mentorship and help, we grew TWL from a one-man, English-only publisher signup project into an international, multilingual outreach effort with a global campaign, national convenings, and a functioning digital library stocked with 100,000 free-to-read scholarly journals. Those sources can be used to verify information, write new articles, close content gaps, and remedy systemic bias.

Now, librarians are as likely to be supporters and contributors as they used to be critics. The movement is full of 'wikibrarians', from the 200-member Wikimedia and Libraries User Group to the 2000 person Wikimedia + Libraries Facebook Group. Conferences around the world have strong advocates for the intersection and alliance of Wikipedia and Libraries.

Along the way I had the true privilege of building a team that gave me confidence and extremely good company. It's my conviction that good work is calm, full of humor, and has care for people at its core. I found that generous spirit heartily alive in my team at The Wikipedia Library. I cannot thank them enough.

The work is not yet finished and yet it is in good hands. With Sam Walton in charge of managing The Wikipedia Library, Felix Nartey and Aaron Vasanth running global outreach, Jason Sherman developing the Library Card Platform, and a whole crew of coordinated volunteers handling reference services…much more is still to come.

You can reach out to TWL any time at wikipedialibrarywikimedia.org.

As I look ahead to new vistas, I leave with questions and hope to hear your thoughts. What needs to be done next? Who could use the most support? Which organizations are ripe for change? What capacity still needs to be created? Where can I best advocate and help grow? How can we collaborate?

Email me at jorlowitzgmail.com and share what's on your mind, or just say hello.

It's been a true pleasure to serve our beautiful, messy movement: I couldn't be more excited to join its ranks again.

Thanks and cheers, Jake Orlowitz Ocaasi ^{t | c} 17:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your hard work on this project! TWL has grown and evolved to become a significant and valuable resource for the community, and you have cause to be very proud. All the best for whatever adventure comes next, Jake! — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks for your support in getting TWL up to its present state. The hosts of editors that you have helped by establishing access to high-quality sources leaves us greatly in your debt! Best of luck going forward! -Thibbs (talk) 01:39, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Ocaasi, for bringing paywalled resources into the reach of thousands of editors who may otherwise not be able to access them. The Wikipedia Library has allowed me to find valuable sources for expanding articles, replacing unreliable sources in articles, and rescuing articles in deletion discussions. I hope you find an exciting and fulfilling project for your next venture. — Newslinger talk 05:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

For the next ~24 hours the Financial Times has dropped its paywall. A great opportunity for Wikimedians needing to check sources (or submit them to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine)! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:36, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

In December, 2017 Nikkimaria created a partner-page for Springer-Nature, which indicates that the house was in an agreement with TWL to donate access by that time. About 18 months after that, on 7 May 2019, some user managed todiscover the dusty page and was surprised to not apply for the resource. Sam replied that TWL was waiting on some technical improvements....

Over Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Databases/Requests#ProQuest, I pinged Sam after about 2 years to let him update us of the developments, if any. He replied:- Our partnership with ProQuest, along with a few others, is waiting on proxy implementation in the Library Card platform. Whilst I asked him about a list of the few others, he chose to not reply any further.

Also, despite requested over his t/p to update us of the developments (if any) across the hordes of threads that span Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Databases/Requests, Sam is yet to take such an initiative.

I am thus re-asking Sam to (1) list those publishers who have agreed to enter into an agreement with TWL , (2) update us of the progress in striking a deal with the various publishers enlisted over the above-linked page and (2) give a specific timeline, as to the implementation of the technical improvements. It seems that those technical improvements have been in a state of perpetual continuity, for about a year and half.....∯WBG^converse 13:30, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: Thanks for your interest in these agreements and technical progress of the platform. I'd like to first request that you take a slightly less hostile tone when making enquiries - we're a small team and some good faith in both directions will go a long way. SpringerNature and ProQuest are indeed publishers we've signed agreements with to provide access via TWL. Both indicated that they would prefer to wait until authentication-based access was an option before going ahead with this - the manual account setup process we have now is often a lot of work for publishers to maintain - so we agreed that we would continue the setup process when that was available. In the case of SpringerNature we optimistically created an on-wiki signup page in advance. We don't make a full list of publishers who have agreements with us available because a) we don't always sign a memorandum of understanding with publishers, they're sometimes happy to go ahead without one, and b) we'd rather wait until the access was immediately available and then announce it. As is evident here, delays can happen after signing an agreement for a number of reasons, so making that information known in advance can lead to confusion.

As to the requests page, there isn't much to provide an update on. Over the last 1-2 years we've really been focused on improving our current account distribution workflow, including numerous improvements to the Library Card platform, and expected to be moving to an authentication-based system sooner. We haven't been as focused on active publisher outreach, at least here at TWL. We have been supporting some community members to create new partnerships, such as those with Economic & Political Weekly and Kinige. As for the timeline on the authentication system, we unfortunately had very long delays relating to legal contracts. I'm happy to say that those issues were recently resolved and we're finally in the process of technical implementation. Tentatively, we're looking at being ready within the next few months, but I don't have a hard timeline for you. I hope that helps clarify things, and again I appreciate your enthusiasm in learning about this. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Any considerable progress, to be delighted about? ∯WBG^converse 16:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

We're currently aiming for September :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:18, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. ∯WBG^converse 03:07, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

(x-posting from email) The list of Gale products is out of date. It should be: Gale Academic OneFile, Gale General OneFile, Gale eBooks, Gale OneFile: News, Gale In Context: Biography, Gale Primary Sources, NewsVault, and The Times Digital Archive. Might be worth keeping the old names too, but worth clarifying. I had to manually compare for overlap against NYPL access. czar 21:33, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Updated by NM. Thanks! czar 02:49, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

H'mm. Does anyone know how this works? I tried signing up for it, but it doesn't seem to like me. Does the library have access to it? ——SN54129 18:30, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm proposing a Wikimedia Foundation Project Grant to study *disinformation* and provide actionable insights and recommendations.

Please check it out and endorse it if you support it.

Meta:Grants:Project/Misinformation_And_Its_Discontents:_Narrative_Recommendations_on_Wikipedia's_Vulnerabilities_and_Resilience

Cheers! -Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:03, 19 February 2020 (UTC)