Hi  Michael,

Thanks, this is helpful to document. If you would be willing to update/expand the documentation here, that would be great: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Documentation/Send_a_mass_message

In general, this is the place where we try to collect these best practices: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Documentation 

Best,
Lodewijk

On Tue, Sep 3, 2019 at 12:19 PM Michael Maggs <Michael@maggs.name> wrote:
I just copied and edited the original template for the UK situation. Here's the UK version:

https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/38769

Just stepping through what to do:

1. Fork the above query, using the Fork button

2. Change both sections of yellow text to relate to your situation, the first with your old Commons categories and the single line underneath with your current category.  Note that you need the underlines between the words; spaces won't work
 
3. Copy the results. If too many, download as csv, then open in a text editor, to get raw text with one entry per line

4. Use the results as the target for a mass message on Commons.  Unless you're an admin, you'll need help doing that, as non-admins are limited in the number of messages they can send.

4a. Start a new page on Commons, in your own userspace.  Set out the subject line and body text of the message you want to send.  Also include the list of targets. My example page is here:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MichaelMaggs/WLM-UK2019Message

4b. Post a request to the Commons Administrator's noticeboard (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard) for an admin to send the message for you.  Here's my request: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=364449416

4c. If all's OK, a friendly admin will be along soon to complete the messaging.

Hope that helps

Michael
3 September 2019 at 7:50 pm
This sounds fantastic. Is there a foolproof way to do this for those of us with no knowledge of SQL? :)

I've changed the categories to WLM in Malta, as appropriate. Is there anything else I need to change?

Neville



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3 September 2019 at 4:53 pm
This was really useful information. Thanks!

I have used a modified version of this to invite 2500 people on Commons who previously contributed to WLM in the UK.

Regards

Michael



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