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I should now be online most days, at least briefly, in the next few months, absent some unexpected RL matters or medical issues. If I expect to be offline for more than a day or two at a time, I will post a message here and on my user page. Donner60 (talk) 09:47, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

I have added a prioritized to do list to my user page. These have been getting done much more slowly than intended because of coordinator tasks and other unanticipated editing that needed more immediate attention. Donner60 (talk) 05:06, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

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Current talk page items follow these sections.

Barnstars and awards before July 6, 2025 are at User:Donner60/Barnstars. Some of the earlier ones kept here may be shown there as well.

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping Flavian dynasty retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:34, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

Appreciated guidance and review

		The Original Barnstar
		Thank you, Donner60, for your straightforward review of the “Charles Thau” article. Your expertise (and time) to help get my 1st wiki article to B‑class status are deeply appreciated.

— Milwaukee911 (talk) 07:25, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your truly outstanding work in helping Battles of Lexington and Concord retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:43, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping Edward Porter Alexander retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping Siege of Fort William Henry retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

Congratulations!

		The Coordinator stars
		On behalf of the members of WikiProject Military history, in recognition of your election to the position of Coordinator, I take great pleasure in presenting you with the Coordinator's stars, and wish you the best of luck for the coming year! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping P. G. T. Beauregard retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

In appreciation

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		This is presented to you by the GAR process in recognition of your sterling work in helping Siege of Yorktown retain its Good Article status. Please feel free to display the GA icon on your userpage. Keep up the good work! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:56, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Mediator Barnstar

		The Mediator Barnstar
		For your efforts in fairly mediating a lengthy and drawn-out dispute on Battle of Maritsa, which ended in a suitable compromise thanks to your suggestions. Keep up the good work! Botushali (talk) 08:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

Congratulations from the Military History Project

		Military history service award
		On behalf of the Wikiproject Military History coordinators, I am pleased to reward your performance - 95 points - in the November 2025 Article Improvement Drive with this award. Congratulations! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:21, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

November 2025 WikiProject Unreferenced articles backlog drive – award

		Citation Barnstar
		This award is given in recognition to Donner60 for collecting more than 4 points during the WikiProject Unreferenced articles's NOV25 backlog drive. Your contributions played a crucial role in sourcing over 6,000 unsourced articles during the drive. Thank you so much for participating and helping to reduce the backlog! ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 15:30, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

WP:GAR Barnstar

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		For Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Battle of Long Island/1. TompaDompa (talk) 00:05, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

Military Historian of the Year - Runner up

The Silver Wiki Congratulations! You have been selected in second place for the Military Historian of the Year by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the coordinators of WikiProject Military history, it is my pleasure to present the esteemed Silver Wiki. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:11, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Congratulations from the Military History Project

		Military history reviewers' award
		On behalf of the Military History Project, I am proud to present the The Milhist reviewing award (1 stripe) for participating in 2 reviews between October and December 2025. Hawkeye7 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 00:30, 3 January 2026 (UTC) Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space

James City CW Battle

Thanks for your comments and help a few months earlier. I finally made some more edits and submitted it for review if you have time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Battle_of_James_City

I think James City might be added to the Bristoe campaign now. I'm not familiar with the term for the Wiki "grouping/name" for a campaign.

I really appreciate your help and comments earlier. Qstor2 (talk) 13:55, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I will take a look at the article within the next day or two unless something delays me. I want to be more careful than I was with another reply recently which I did not get exactly right. "Grouping/name" does not ring a bell with me, but I may have forgotten it or think of it under another term. Did you see it on a page you can point out? Campaign may be described or defined on a project page but I would need to think about where to look for it. Closeness in time of the progression of battles and movement of armies may have something to do with it. I am reasonably sure that most, if not all, Civil War campaign names have been placed on a series of battles and movements by historians, and possibly contemporaries, for quite some time and they probably used names of a major battle within these movements. A few such as Peninsula, Antietam, Gettysburg and several others come to mind. Donner60 (talk) 07:20, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

USCGC Dione A-class

Hi Donner60, something got screwed up with the USCGC Dione A-class review. MilHist Bot closed the review as a fail, but then promoted the article's talk page. I also saw that you failed the review here because Phoenix was banned (back in January) as a sockpuppet. As the second nominator for the A-class review, would it still be possible to keep the review open as I am still active? GGOTCC 06:42, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

@GGOTCC: This is an edited and I hope is a more accurate and clearer comment on how to progress this than the one I posted at 22:21.

I forgot to change the bot's A class assessment when I put the "fail" into the current status. It is a separate entry which the bot does not change automatically. I have changed it to B.

I have edited the assessment review to change the status on the review page to "current" from "fail". I have not done this before and don't recall ever seeing it done. For the next 24 hours, I am counting on the bot reopening the review page. Perhaps a new review page will need to be set up to confirm supports and pass the assessment to A.

I think the bot should reopen the review within the next 24 hours. If it doesn't, I will need to find out how to restart it unless the supports can be otherwise confirmed. I assume that if a new one is started the current reviews and comments can be transferred to it which would result in it not having to start the reviews and comments all over.

So with your changes, we may just need to confirm that the reviews' support votes still apply. The previous reviewers can be pinged when it is again ready for confirmation of supports or any necessary reviews to finalize the supports.

Let me know if you do not see the review reopened after 24 hours and I will see if restarting it on a new page is necessary or whether we can just confirm the supports and pass it to A class. Donner60 (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

@Donner60: The Bot already closed the nomination, so you have to go through the WikiProject Military history/Academy/Creating an A-Class review or reappraisal procedure. I'll do this now. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:16, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, Hawkeye. I had not encountered this type of situation before. I thought I might be more or less on the right track but was not completely sure - as I think my comments showed. Donner60 (talk) 02:10, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@GGOTCC: I have carried out the required move. Could you re-nominate the article? That way it will be listed against your name. You can ask the previous reviewers to re-confirm their support. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:25, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Also: I have corrected the Bot error. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:04, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

I have just done that, and contacted the reviewers. Thank you both for the help! GGOTCC 01:52, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for progressing this. Donner60 (talk) 02:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Update: @Hawkeye7: MilHist Bot just closed the new review and reverted my new listing for the same reason as before. Is this MilHist Bot's fault for a new review so soon after the old one, or have I incorrectly renominated the article? I will not revert the edits yet, because I am not sure if that would break things further. What is the best course of action here? GGOTCC 15:40, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for your help reopening USCGC Dione's A-class review! :) GGOTCC 02:12, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue 240, April 2026

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at four works Timeline: This month in military history

The Signpost: 21 April 2026

Good Article Gazette, Issue 13

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

March 2026 WikiProject Unreferenced articles backlog drive – award

		Citation Barnstar
		This award is given in recognition to Donner60 for collecting more than 3 points during the WikiProject Unreferenced articles's March 2026 backlog drive. Your contributions played a crucial role in sourcing over 8362 unsourced articles during the drive. Thank you so much for participating and helping to reduce the backlog! – DreamRimmer ■ 16:38, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

New pages patrol May 2026 Backlog drive

May 2026 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
On 1 May 2026, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:23, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2026).

Administrator changes

• Deepfriedokra

• EvanProdromou
• Wouterstomp

Interface administrator changes

L235

Chaotic Enby

CheckUser changes

• TheresNoTime
• Versageek

Oversight changes

Moneytrees

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• Changes to user permissions made from Meta are now included in the local user permissions log (T6055).
• The autoconfirmed user group will soon be modified such that the four-day account age requirement begins when an account makes its first edit (T418484).

Arbitration

• The arbitration case SchroCat has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case closed on 15 April.
• Per a recent motion, appeals of blocks from the conflict-of-interest VRT queue are, by default, appealed on-wiki through the normal unblock process. However, they may be heard by the Committee if COIVRTers disagree on the interpretation of the evidence or believe ArbCom would be better suited to hear the appeal. Administrators are also advised that loosening or lifting such blocks without the consent of someone with access to the queue or ArbCom can be grounds for desysopping.
• Per a recent motion, restrictions issued directly by the Committee may now be enforced with blocks which work exactly like contentious topic blocks.
• The arbitration case Maghreb has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The May 2026 administrator elections are scheduled to run from April 29 to May 19. The call for candidates ends May 5.
• The 2026 Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is scheduled to run from April 25 to June 1. Candidacy submissions close on May 10.
• A new noticeboard for non-urgent, batch page protection requests has been created, primarily for the enforcement of contentious topic restrictions.

May 2026 Administrator Elections – Discussion Phase

The discussion phase of the May 2026 administrator elections is officially open. As a reminder, the schedule of the election is:

• May 8–12: Discussion phase (we are here)
• May 13–19: SecurePoll voting phase
• Scrutineering phase

We are currently in the discussion phase. The candidate subpages are open to questions and comments from everyone, in the same style as a request for adminship. You may discuss the candidates at Wikipedia:Administrator elections/May 2026/Discussion phase.

On 13 May, we will start the voting phase. The candidate subpages will close to public questions and discussion, and everyone will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for.

Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.

-- MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:22, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Civil War High Commands

Donner, I've been working through the article for Elkanah Greer in fits and starts over the course of several months and there are some dates which the sources disagree on - could you please look up what Eicher has for Greer? I'm particularly interested in what Eicher has for date of birth, the date that he was replaced as commander of the Trans-Miss conscription bureau, and any inkling of what he was doing between his resignation and when he was appointed to the conscription bureau position. Hog Farm _Talk 23:55, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1, pp.266-267. (266): Born Paris, TN 11 Oct. 1825. Moved to MS, Pvt. 1st (MS} Rifles, Mexican War. Moved to Texas, planter, merchant. Grand C. in C., Knights of the Golden Circle, 1859. Col. CSA 3 Tex Cav, 1 July 1861; South Kans. & Tex (267): Aug. 1861. Cav B, Army of the West, 13 Mar. 1862-1 June 1862, wounded Pea Ridge Ark. Mar. 1862 resigned 1 June 1862; Brig. Gen. CSA 8 Oct. 1862; Bureau of Conscription Trans.-Miss Dept. 8 Oct 1862 - 26 May 1865; Texas Reserve Cavalry Forces 27 Mar. 1865-26 May 1862; no record of parole. Died Devalls. Bluff, Ark. 25 Mar 1877, int. Elmwood Cemetery, Memphis, TN. That is Eicher's information in its entirety. Nothing on the interim between the resignation and appointment to the conscription bureau. Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9 which you may have, at p.118 notes that Jefferson Davis was colonel of the 1st Mississippi Rifles, that Greer was grand commander of the Knights of the Golden Circle, wounded at Elkhorn Tavern, the alternate name for Pea Ridge as I am sure you know. Warner says Greer tried to reconcile the laws of Richmond with the laws of Texas, not entirely successfully. He lived in Marshall, Texas after the war and died while vising his sister in DeValls Bluff, Ark. Also says he was "slightly wounded" rather than just wounded. Also nothing on the June to October 1862 period. No contradiction in dates. Hope that helps. Donner60 (talk) 07:38, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

New Page Patrol Newsletter - May 2026

Hello Donner60,

Backlog update

At the time of this message, there are 15,282 articles and 32,951 redirects awaiting review.

After the January–February drive the article backlog was reduced to 15,179 articles and the redirect backlog to 19,053 respectively. Great job! However, both queues are growing rapidly and any additional reviews are highly appreciated.

2024 and 2025 NPP Awards

JTtheOG was selected as the NPP reviewer of the year for both 2024 and 2025, for reviewing the most articles amongst all reviewers.

Hey man im josh and MPGuy2824 won the Redirect Ninja Master Award for 2024 and 2025 respectively, for reviewing the most redirects.

Overall in 2024, one Platinum, two Gold, eight Silver, 12 Bronze and 45 Iron Barnstars were awarded. Additionally, 66 reviewers got the NPP barnstar for doing more than 100 reviews through the year. In 2025, one Platinum, ten Silver, 13 Bronze and 38 Iron Barnstars were awarded. Additionally, 38 reviewers got the NPP barnstar for doing more than 100 reviews through the year.

BoyTheKingCanDance, Rosiestep, SunDawn, and Vanderwaalforces were inducted into the NPP Hall of Fame for having two separate years of 2,000+ article reviews.

January–February backlog drive

The experimental two-month long backlog drive concluded with 183 reviewers patrolling over 27,761 articles and 35,309 redirects, earning over 36,836 points. Congratulations to JTtheOG, who achieved first place with 6,484.6 points in this drive.

May backlog drive

An article-only backlog drive is currently underway. We are hoping to make a big dent in the backlog. You can read more about it or join at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/May 2026.

PageTriage

An attempt was made to get the New Pages Feed to sort by date marked as reviewed instead of date created. However we had to revert it due to bugs. We may try again in the future. You can subscribe to the Phabricator ticket if you're interested in following along.

Reminders:

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• To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:37, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Good Article Gazette, Issue 14

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue 241, May 2026

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7, Hog Farm and Nick-D look at four recent works Timeline: This month in military history

The Signpost: 22 May 2026

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest scoring question

For Talk:USS Arkansas (1863) - reassessment to b-class is this diff. Would the starting class be start-class as was hardcoded in the template, or c-class as would be indicated by the prior manual assessment of meeting all criteria except for b1? Hog Farm _Talk 00:58, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

This is an odd one. I looked at the changes in the assessments during the early years of the article, which were mainly made by bots or by users assisted by AWB, as in this case. Of course, the user is supposed to check all of the changes made (and presumably should have been made) by AWB. I also looked at the article immediately before and at the times the b4 criterion was changed. An assessment for the b4 (grammatical) criterion before it was changed to yes had been erroneously entered as yes/no, apparently by a bot or user assisted bot. Despite a run-on sentence, b4 seems to have been met all along. The user making the change to yes for b4 to correct an error apparently was the reason the user changed b4 to yes. He appears to have determined that "no" for b4 resulted from an erroneous yes/no entry, not because the article did not meet b4. Once that correction was made, the article met all criteria except b1. However, the editor using the AWB seems to have neglected to change the overall rating to C as should have been done as a result of correcting the b4 criteria. That left the contradiction in place for 12 years until your recent work on the article.

At first I thought that these inconsistences were caused by conflicting bots and that start could be the appropriate starting entry for work done this month. But when I noted that the user, only using a bot for help, actually changed a criterion which was considered "no" due to a "yes/no" entry, I thought that C was actually intended by that user 12 years ago but that user in turn made an error by leaving the rating at start. This present a hard case to me in some respects. But I think I have to come to the conclusion that it was a C class article when you started to work on it and was not shown as such due to a mistake in matching the rating with the criteria met. (I certainly hope that no other such cases arise, although it seems like a judgment call of a sort, I do think the history of the assessments leads to the conclusion I am expressing in this case.) Noting run-on sentences may appear in this odd hour reply: if this explanation is unclear in some way, misses something obvious or otherwise leaves you with some question or different analysis, please let me know. 07:27, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2026).

Administrator changes

• Asukite
• Bobby Cohn
• Bonadea
• Ca
• Drm310
• Reconrabbit
• Sammi Brie

• Tamzin
• TonyBallioni

• Ezhiki
• Queen of Hearts

Bureaucrat changes

• WereSpielChequers

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the "persistent usage of large language models" has been included as a common reason for a block.

Technical news

• Mandatory 2FA for bureaucrats: Bureaucrats without two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled have already lost access to their advanced rights on 26 May. Those who do not enable 2FA may be automatically removed from the groups in mid-June 2026, and from that point onward, new members must have 2FA enabled before they can be added. (T423119, T423120)

Arbitration

• The arbitration case SchroCat has been closed.
• The arbitration case Michael Jackson has opened. Evidence submissions in this case closes on 1 June.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the 2026 Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election closes on 1 June.

Good Article Gazette, Issue 15

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 74

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 74, March–April 2026

• New partnership: Swissdox
• User survey results

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team – 10:34, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

(This message was sent to User:Donner60 and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

The Bugle: Issue 242, June 2026

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at three recent works Timeline: This month in military history

CS1 error on Nerva

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Nerva, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A URL error. References show this error when one of the URL-containing parameters contains an invalid URL. Please edit the article to add the valid URL. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 03:08, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 June 2026

June 2026

		The Good Article Rescue Barnstar
		Thank you for your work in helping to maintain George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and Nerva as Good Articles! Bgsu98 (Talk) 00:39, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Donner60 (talk) 18:09, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2026).

Administrator changes

• Chipmunkdavis
• TechnoSquirrel69

• Mlaffs
• SpuriousQ
• Lectonar
• Dennis Brown
• Hog Farm

CheckUser changes

• Giraffer
• TonyBallioni

• Dbeef
• EdJohnston

Oversight changes

• Giraffer
• TonyBallioni

L235

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether the criteria for autoconfirmed and extended confirmed should be modified.
• A request for comment proposes an addendum for the Real name section of the Username policy.

Technical news

• The special page Special:RangeCalculator has been created for any users to use to find an IP range. (phab:T268429)
• The "indefinitely" button in Special:Block for temporary accounts can be replaced with a preferred block duration stated on MediaWiki:ipb-indefinite-expiry-temporary-account. (phab:T427125)

Arbitration

• Following a series of motions, changes to the contentious topics procedure to restructure awareness have been implemented.
• The arbitration case Michael Jackson has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• The 2026 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
• 10 candidates have been appointed to the U4C.

Good Article Gazette, Issue 16

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:23, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 July 2026

Books & Bytes – Issue 75

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 75, May–June 2026

• New partnerships: The Telegraph, Marg, The Tribune newspapers
• Tech tip: Expired partnerships

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team – 14:43, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

(This message was sent to User:Donner60 and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Happy WikiBirthday!

Thanks. Time flies. Donner60 (talk) 08:22, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Hey, Donner60. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! ☘︎☘︎☘︎ALEXHammeke (talk | guestbook | sandbox) 08:02, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

☘︎☘︎☘︎ALEXHammeke (talk | guestbook | sandbox) 08:02, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day! Hi Donner60! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of the day you made your first edit and became a Wikipedian! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 13:10, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Articles for Creation backlog drive

Hello Donner60:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive in August!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than a month of outstanding reviews from the current 3+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 August 2026 through 31 August 2026.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is a backlog of over 5000 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

• If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.

The Bugle: Issue 243, July 2026

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at works on the US and Australian militaries Review essay: Nick-D on South African military museums Timeline: This month in military history

Good Article Gazette, Issue 17

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Good Article Gazette, Special issue

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:04, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks!

	The Working Man's Barnstar
	For your constant work as MilHist project coordinator -- your name is never off my watchlist, and that says plenty! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:36, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. The encouragement is well appreciated. I have not been prompt with bot reviews for the past several months, and perhaps a few other tasks as well. That can be discouraging. Admittedly, I have been slowed down by RL matters recently. Medical and dental procedures in particular have affected my energy. So I am glad not to have fallen off entirely. I will be starting physical therapy presently and that should help get me back on track. Donner60 (talk) 07:08, 29 July 2026 (UTC).

Adam Poe

Thanks so much for your help on Adam Poe. Do you think there's enough for GA? If so, what tweaks would it need? BlueRockThrush (talk) 11:51, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Technically, it meets the criteria. However, I won't claim to be an expert at predicting how a random reviewer, who might not even be a military history project contributor at the GA level, might evaluate a good article request. If you have any more sourced material that you could add to the sections of the article, that might help in some assessors' views. I am not sure about it being a problem or being evaluated by that way by someone; just a random thought.

If you have not done so, please look at Wikipedia:Good article nominations and the main article and any of the other articles in the boxes at the top of that page that may appear pertinent to you.

I don't often look at recent requests and evaluations for GA. So I won't discourage you since I would rate it such. Not only do I not find time to do GA assessments, however, but I believe I would not meet the criteria as an "independent" reviewer after having done the B class assessment.

All of my GA icons are for saved reassessments; I don't claim the one that another editor brought to GA class even though the statistics count that for me. I may have one or more if I ever put them up for GA assessment - or if I had done so when they were first written, sometimes many years ago. However, the backlog has become so large that unless you do a quid pro quo assessment, it may sit for some time before you get any feedback. That is a discouraging factor for me. I don't want to discourage you but I think I should give you my opinion or thoughts on the process to the extent they have any value.

Donner60 (talk) 02:05, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the info. I think I'll leave it be. Thanks for helping. BlueRockThrush (talk) 02:21, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 August 2026

Pacifism in France assessment

Hi,

Sorry for some reason it will not let me reply to your comment on the History page so I am adding a comment here.

Thanks for your reply. I'd like to ask if you think Pacifism in France is in the scope of the project and if so, if it should now be rated as B-class.

Thanks for your help Equivalent-Text2598 (talk) 21:03, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

No problem. Occasionally when a discussion gets long, it is carried on at one the editors talk pages at one or the other editors' suggestion so as not to add much content to a usually busy page. I probably should have suggested that. In any event, I want to look at this article more carefully because it is longer than the inter-war years article and perhaps may have content that would lead me to believe it should be considered within the scope. I should be able to do that sometime this weekend, unless something unexpected RL arises which I need to attend to promptly. Such has been happening to me recently. Donner60 (talk) 06:57, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I added the following comment to the assessment page. I repeat here for continuity of the entry on this page. *:::@Equivalent-Text2598: This is an interesting article. Perhaps some coordinators or experienced assessors would view this as a close call as to scope or even within the scope. In my opinion this is not within the scope of the military history project as set out on the main project page. I have removed the military history project banner from the talk page of this article. This restores a B-class assessment. I did not check to see who or what project added it. I added the general history project banner (but several minutes later am removing it because the scope of that project is narrower than I thought it was) and the sociology project banner. The sociology project has assessments. The culture project, on the other hand, is inactive. I note that wikproject philosophy is already listed on the talk page, which I think is appropriate. The sociology wikiproject specifically states on its main page "Articles on interdisciplinary issues and terms (such as history of sociology, family, traditions or peace movement) should be included" as within the scope of that project. I did not strike through the request. I suggest leaving this open for at least 10 days. While open, I will defer to any coordinator, former coordinator or experience project assessor who judges this within the scope of the project and will assess it accordingly." I will proceed to remove the banner from the inter-war years article with a similar comment. I note that the philosophy project is already mentioned. After further review I am removing the general history project banner. I double checked and I think that the scope of the project is more narrow than I thought it was. Donner60 (talk) 06:02, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

For the record note: I note that Hawkeye7 considers this within the scope of the project. He is lead coordinator and has been around a long time so I agree that this conclusion is justified in what I acknowledged was a close call for me. A longer comment is on the project assessment request page under his comment. I restore the project banner and am of the opinion someone not earlier involved with this should assess the article because I find that I do not have the sources or past knowledge to do so. Also, I suppose my neutrality might be questioned depending on any comments on the article that I might make, even though I always try to be neutral and follow the guidelines and assessment requirements as I understand them. Donner60 (talk) 03:51, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2026

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2026).

Administrator changes

• MCE89
• Staraction

• Danaman5

CheckUser changes

• dbeef

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the 30-day requirement for extended-confirmed status now begins after an account's first edit instead of its registration (T431060).

Technical news

• Inactive editors can now be removed as mentors at Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship automatically.
• The Suggested Edits' Revise Tone feature is now enabled. It encourages editors to identify and revise non-neutral language in articles.

Miscellaneous

• The Unreferenced articles August 2026 backlog drive is underway. Help to add references to 47,000 articles.
• The Articles for creation August 2026 backlog drive is under way. Help to review 4,500+ drafts.

Good article nominations RfC

Hi Donner60,

There is an ongoing Request for Comment (RfC) at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/August 2026 RfC, which you may be interested in because in the past year, you have nominated or reviewed more than one good article nomination. This message has also been sent to all subscribers to the Good Article Gazette. The RfC contains many proposals (33 at the time of writing), which are split into the following categories: nominators, reviewers, reviews, volunteer roles, reviewing initiatives, and others. However, you are more than welcome to add any proposals of your own that you wish to put to the community.

By the end of September, all the proposals will have been closed by an uninvolved editor, either as a consensus for one of the options or with no consensus. At this point, editors will be invited again to develop these proposals into coherent policy and implement them.

Thank you for your contributions to the good articles project, and I look forward to your input! (in solidarity), JacobTheRox^{(talk|contributions)} 16:02, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue 244, August 2026

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7, Pickersgill-Cunliffe, Nick-D and Simon Harley look at six works Timeline: This month in military history

The Signpost: 24 August 2026

New pages patrol September 2026 Backlog drive

September 2026 Backlog Drive | New pages patrol
On 1 September 2026, a one-month backlog drive for new pages patrol will begin at a particularly important time for NPP. The backlog has now passed 30,000 unreviewed articles, a level that has been described in current NPP discussions as exceptionally high and potentially difficult to overcome through normal reviewing alone. Backlog drives are one of the few measures that have historically produced a noticeable reduction in the backlog, so the participation of as many active patrollers as possible will matter this month. If you can review during September, please make articles your priority. Every article that is reviewed is a meaningful reduction in the backlog. With the queue at its current size, even a relatively small increase in the number of articles each patroller reviews can add up to a substantial difference over the course of the month. This is a hybrid drive, so redirect reviewing is still included. Redirects can be a useful way for newer patrollers to get comfortable with NPP and can help people build up to reviewing articles. However, the main goal of this drive is to tackle the article backlog, and experienced patrollers are particularly encouraged to spend as much of their available reviewing time on articles as they can. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Each article review will earn 1 point, while each redirect review will earn 0.2 points. Streak awards will be given out based on consistently hitting point thresholds for each week of the drive. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. If you have been thinking about doing more NPP, this is an especially good month to jump in. Whether you can review a few pages or hundreds, every review helps. And if you are already an active patroller, please consider whether you can put in some additional time during September to help bring the backlog back under control. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2026 (UTC)