DARIO SEVERI

A journeyman's work in the ZU WP

Greetings, Dario! Thank you for your message on my Talk page here at ZU WP. I'm still in the initial probing stage, wikifying pages and especially looking to structure the most relevant categories here. This is vaguely systematic, plus some "Load a random page" for viewing what's already been created. As there's no Administrator and my few attempts to hail an isiZulu-speaking editor haven't yet borne fruitful collaborations, I'll gladly take you up on your offer of guidance. A request follows. -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 20:20, 17 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

A set of 109 Articles for Deletion with low relevance in ZU WP

Hello again, Dario! I've encountered a large set of minimal-content stub pages on "bands from New York" that have negligible relevance to the Zulu WP. All were created on two dates (106 on 25/xii/2016, 3 on 27/xii/2016) by User:Shriheeran of the Tamil WP. They consist of:

• a name in English only
• a single sentence: "[X] bayibhendi kwIMelika" ([X] is a band from America)
• a Stub template
• the misspelled/mistyped Categonery: Amabhendi (i.e., Category:Bands)
• nearly all have the Edit summary creating articles about new york bands [sic]

At first I duly fixed the Category syntax and linked the page in Wikidata - but after a few repetitions I reconsidered this action. I strongly feel this non-notable, non-Zulu content is mere bloat in the ZU WP and advise these pages' deletion. I haven't yet posted anything on the editor's page nor any "AfD" beyond this present message to you. How should I (we) proceed? -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:43, 17 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Response from User:DARIO SEVERI at this link Added by Deborahjay (talk) 12:36, 18 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

My remarks in reply are at that same link -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:19, 18 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Just I wished to improve Zulu WP by no. of articles.--Shriheeran (talk) 01:46, 19 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Hi Shriheeran, thanks for contributing to this Wikipedia. However some of the articles you created are little encyclopedic because they provide few informations. We'll try to add a little more text in them, you could help by adding some image, obviously if you have time available. Best regards. DARIO SEVERI (talk) 01:57, 19 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Three updates, links provided

Greetings, Dario! Here are my present issues:

• Problem: In 11-12/2016 a certain User account created several pages and filled them with junk content; see Special:Contributions/Heleen_Uytterhoeven_lookalike. Do you agree that these pages deserve deletion and the User account blocked?
• I posted at w:Wikipedia talk:Local Embassy#The ZU WP for guidance on starting a WikiProject with Task Force activity here on the ZU WP, but there's been no response.
• You may click here to see where I've been progressing this past week.

Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 21:12, 21 uNcwaba 2017 (UTC)

Where is the Category designated?

Hello, Dario! Here's a mystery (to me), which I hope you'll understand and can explain how to proceed: Preparing to Move a Category, I first entered each of its 43 pages and 2 subcategories to manually change the old Cat-name to the new one before executing the page Move. All of these pages have what looks like the same Infobox, and about half of the pages had no indication below the content designating the (old) Category (e.g. within double brackets). I added the new Category to them; in the others I just changed the name from old to new. Then I made the page Move, the old Category became a REDIRECT page but it's still populated with the 25 pages on which I didn't know how to remove the old Cat. See the details on User talk:Njabulo19#Proposed category name change, Category moved. I don't want to leave a mess after me! -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:53, 14 uMandulo 2017 (UTC)

Back here at ZU WP

@DARIO SEVERI: thank you for taking care of the five pending Japanese "junk" pages. I hadn't expected to see you back here so soon (as it seems to me), and I hope all's well with you and that your journey in Nepal was everything you'd hoped. When you have the time, perhaps you can advise on how the ZU WP might proceed in light of a recent interwiki development, though I've yet to hear from its proposer nor from Wikimedia South Africa. -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 19:17, 13 uMfumfu 2017 (UTC)

Dec. 2017: Repeat request for mass deletion

Next week marks ONE YEAR of 109 minimal-content and (more important) irrelevant articles in a single category, all added by a visiting user to "up the article count" here in the ZU WP. (See above, User talk:DARIO SEVERI#A set of 109 Articles for Deletion with low relevance in ZU WP for details and previous discussion with the pages' creator.) This amounts to 11% of all ZU WP pages, which clutters up the Random article view, degrading the overall content of this neglected Project. Now to address your previous remarks (See User talk:Deborahjay#RE:User talk:DARIO SEVERI#A set of 109 Articles for Deletion with low relevance in ZU WP):

• For months, the ZU WP has remained static at #250 in size (ca. 968 articles) on the m:List of Wikipedias. By deleting this large set of good-faith-but-disruptive "articles", its position will drop by only two places, to #252 (with ca. 860 articles) - and still far ahead of #253 (with 801 articles).
• My daily activity (with rudimentary isiZulu now that I have a student's bilingual dictionary) has focused on category cleanup and wikifying, mainly for Geography and Biography pages.
• In my five months here, one isiZulu speaker, then a second, have made occasional contributions including New page creations of their choice, plus answering my specific language queries.
• Now, good news! m:User:Metrónomo has discovered this project and volunteered to build templates (including topic-sorted stubs) and coordinate categories with me.
• Our latest collaboration is fixing year pages and categories (birth and death dates, etc.) - meaning many new, useful pages are about to be created.

So, dear Dario, we have a highly realistic chance of meeting and breaking the +1,000 articles barrier by 1 January 2018, even without those nine dozen New York bands soon to be replaced by valid content about South Africa and Zulu culture (plenty of notable content in EN WP). What do you say? -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 16:51, 16 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Deborahjay:, your contribution to this project is excellent, you improved many articles and managed to create a small group of collaborators ... congratulations! If after this time you still think that the 109 articles should be deleted, I have to agree with you. The category "Amaqembu omculo aseMelika" has 112 articles if I delete the 109 it only be left three, is this what I should do? If you confirm it, I'll delete them, 20 each day ... before I forget ... A Happy New Year for you. Cheers DARIO SEVERI (talk) 00:32, 17 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hey, @DARIO SEVERI:, I'm greatly appreciative of taking this step. I've looked over the category's present content, and even for the more notable among them (e.g. The Velvet Underground) these stubs aren't worth keeping. (I mainly mentioned the original 109 if delete-per-page-creator was possible as a mass action here.) When the category's emptied, I'll populate it with some pages having higher notability (i.e. American bands who might've played South Africa post-apartheid, or are popular with record sales, etc.) so it won't be empty. Thanks again, with wishes for a very happy New Year! -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 15:30, 17 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Deborahjay:, I left four article in the category because there is more text in them, what do you think about them? -- Cheers, DARIO SEVERI (talk) 09:30, 21 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the keeps - those were good-faith edits and perhaps their contributors will return someday, we can but hope! Thanks again for the cleanup and happy Solstice! -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:27, 21 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Two good pages

Hello, Dario - this is just to let you know (if it isn't clear from today's activity in Special:RecentChanges) that I've protected two good pages, The Doors and The Velvet Underground, that had been in the Category:Amaqembu omculo aseMelika but created earlier than that "Christmas present" (2016) set you're deleting in batches. As a kludge, I just temporarily moved them out of that category into the purpose-created categories "People from Los Angeles" and "People from New York City" (my old home town and birthplace, respectively) with notes in the edit summaries. It also gave me the opportunity to write some actual sentences in isiZulu to expand the pages' lead paragraphs. When I'm not cleaning up date pages and categories here, I'm in Wikidata connecting zuwp templates from the hundreds listed in Special:UnconnectedPages, hoping to get more translated to isiZulu soon. That's it for now! Sending you appreciation for your continued efforts here. -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 17:53, 19 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)
Edited to add: Looking back at your most recent deletions where you've already reached the letter "E" - I can see you share my respect for The Doors! Thanks, bro! -- Deborahjay (talk) 18:55, 19 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Deborahjay:, I'm deleting them slowly because I prefer to control one by one, and I also noticed, as you mentioned above, that 'The Doors' had been created earlier and had more text in it and that's why I did not delete it. Great idea to have added a little more text in both articles and moving them to the news categories. You are from New York City ... I visited it a few years ago when I was England, my two daughters residing there. Well, I think I'm talking a lot. Cheers, DARIO SEVERI (talk) 01:49, 20 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

I left New York City as a child (as did my now-husband, whose family took a similar journey of relocation to Greater Los Angeles). I can understand its fabulous attraction for young people who have the energy to engage with its appeal. For myself, though, I've become more of a homebody over the years; rural Israel is about my level of adventurousness. I'll be pleased if our two daughters (b. 1998 and 1999) will stay in this country where they've been born and bred, but shall certainly understand if they take flight to sample life elsewhere. No matter what and where, We and they are fortunate to have mobility (US passports) and the great enabler that is the English language. (And don't ever be concerned about talking a lot with me, I'm fine with that!) -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:05, 20 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hot-Cat missing?

Today I discovered two major categories with duplicates due to alternate spelling (well, isiZulu grammar). While awaiting the answers so I can make the moves to combine each pair under the proper name, I thought about enabling the Hot-Cat gadget here. It's marked in My Preferences>Settings, but doesn't appear on pages. Would you kindly check this (or refer this request onward) so I'll know how to proceed? -- Many thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 15:58, 20 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Deborahjay:, I went in the Commons to copy Hotcat, it is here [1] (see "Installing HotCat on another wiki") but it already exists in Zulu Wikipedia (see MediaWiki:Gadget-HotCat.js), so now I :( do not know what may be causing its malfunction and I do not have much technical programming knowledge. The editor who created the page here has not been editing for two months. DARIO SEVERI (talk) 09:11, 21 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

Whoa, I'm not sure where to go with this - but with several major duplicate categories I want (need) to manually merge ASAP, HotCat would be a really helpful tool. I myself am at zero-level at tech stuff. How would you suggest proceeding to getting it operational here? -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:56, 21 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC).

Hi @Deborahjay:, I edit rarely in the Commons and therefore I know almost nobody, but configuration requests are made in this page, they also have few editors with technical knowledge and therefore the requests take some time to be attended (see [2] or probably this is better [3] General request). -- Cheers, DARIO SEVERI (talk) 23:11, 21 uZibandlela 2017 (UTC)

How to supply missing templates?

Greetings, dear Dario, belated for the Equinox and Easter too. As I'm starting to add meaningful content pages here in the ZU WP, my first attempt shows we lack useful templates here, as described in Talk:Tsotsi#Templates needed. If this is something I can learn to do independently, just point me at an explanation in English and I'll give it a try. Or is this an advanced operation? -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 19:19, 1 uNdasa 2018 (UTC)