Halloween fun
* Image 1 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anime_North_2019_C_IMG_0404.jpg: A walking plant was seen at the Anime North https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime_North 2019 convention. 31 October is Halloween https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween, and the primary author of this publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pine generally likes plants.
* Image 2 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_impossible_cast_1970.JPG: Cast members of the television show Mission: Impossible for the production season that started in 1970. A Halloween-ish music video that features Lindsey Sterling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsey_Sterling and The Piano Guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piano_Guys playing the theme music from the show is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p0BqUcQ7i0. I like the video with the exception of the ending.
Donation of 2000 medical images
User:Netha Hussain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Netha_Hussain announced https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-medicine/2019-October/000404.html that Dr. Yale Rosen, a pathologist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathology, agreed to donate his entire collection of approximately 2000 pathology images to Wikimedia Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Commons.
New affiliate recognition from the Affiliations Committee
Community Wikimedia User Group Haïti https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wikimedia_User_Group_Ha%C3%AFti
Project milestone for Italian Wiktionary
Italian Wiktionary https://it.wiktionary.org has passed 500,000 entries. Also, see this page on stats.wikimedia.org https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/it.wiktionary.org/content/pages-to-date/normal%7Cline%7C2-year%7Cpage_type~content%7Cmonthly which shows a significant increase in Italian Wiktionary content pages during the year 2019.
English Wiktionary Word of the Day for October 14
"Woozle effect https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Woozle_effect: The phenomenon whereby frequent citation of earlier publications leads to a mistaken public belief in something for which there is no evidence, giving rise to an urban myth." Regarding the etymology for this term, Wiktionary says in part: "A reference to the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh_(book) by English author A. A. Milne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Milne (1882–1956), in which the characters Winnie-the-Pooh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piglet follow their own tracks in the snow, believing them to be the tracks of the imaginary "Woozle"."
Survival and adventure in Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down
As described in the English Wikipedia article for the book Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down, it "is a survival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_fiction and adventure novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_novel by English author Richard Adams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Collings_Ltd of London in 1972. Set in southern England, around Hampshire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural wild environment, with burrows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrow, they are anthropomorphised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism, possessing their own culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture, language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapine_language, proverbs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proverb, poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry, and mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology. Evoking epic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry themes, the novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrow and seek a place to establish a new home (the hill of Watership Down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down,_Hampshire), encountering perils and temptations along the way."
I first learned of these Watership Down quotes from User:OohBunnies! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:OohBunnies!:
"All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed."
"Look. Look. That's the place for us. High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry, and the ground's as dry as straw in a barn. That's where we ought to be. That's where we have to get to."
"The Sound of Her Voice"
Many relationships in the Wikiverse involve remote communication. Someone who influenced my early days in the Wikiverse was User:Sonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sonia, who graciously took me under her wing. I remember her as being intelligent and kind. She left the Wikiverse years ago, and I miss her. As far as I know, Sonia is alive and well, somewhere in the world. I wish that I could have met her in person.
Mindful of Sonia and the many other people that I know through remote communications, I am sharing a video clip from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine episode "The Sound of Her Voice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Her_Voice".
Some background information is necessary here. This contains plot spoilers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_(media). (For a more thorough summary of the episode and a commentary by Michelle Erica Green, see https://www.trektoday.com/reviews/ds9/the_sound_of_her_voice.shtml.) In this episode, Captain Benjamin Sisko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Sisko and the crew of the USS Defiant (NX-74205) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Defiant receive a distress call from Captain Lisa Cusak, who is the sole survivor of the destruction of her ship. The Defiant begins a six day journey to rescue Captain Cusak. The Defiant's crew members have voice conversations with Cusak during their journey, and the crew members form friendships with her. Unfortunately, when the Defiant arrives at Cusak's location, she is deceased. The video clip that I link below shows the end of the episode. Sisko and the crew of the Defiant have an Irish wake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_wake for their friend. Chief O'Brien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_O%27Brien_(Star_Trek) shares reflections that I think are applicable to many friendships, especially friendships across long distances like many of us have in the Wikiverse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yryqc8RETgE
WMYHTW reflections
I am glad that generally people like these WMYHTW emails and I appreciate the positive feedback about them. I think that these emails encourage a collegial environment in Wikimedia-l, and I hope that they are good for morale. However, they are time consuming to write. I have a backlog of Wikimedia emails that I have not read, I want to complete a few of my long delayed Wikimedia video tutorials, and I have many off wiki demands on my time. As I wrote in September, I need to reduce the amount of time that I spend writing these pieces. Perhaps shorter contributions from me to WMYHTW will lead to other people feeling that there is more space for them to make their own WMYHTW contributions.
WMYHTW should not be about me, but I will say that of the projects that I could do for the community, this has become one of my favorites. Before I started writing WMHYTW emails, I spent a lot of my time being vigilant for problems and wondering what would go wrong next. The habit of writing these pieces has slowly changed how I think. I am thankful for the community members who accept and encourage the WMYHTW initiative, and the Wikimedians on Facebook who gave me the idea for this practice.
Off wiki
* From the Mozilla Blog: "Examining AI’s Effect on Media and Truth" https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/09/17/examining-ais-effect-on-media-and-truth/
* From the BBC: "What Japan can teach us about cleanliness" https://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20191006-what-japan-can-teach-us-about-cleanliness
* From the BBC: "The beautiful ways different cultures sign emails" https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190508-why-the-way-you-close-your-emails-is-causing-confusion
Closing comments
Additional translations of the subject line of this email would be appreciated on Meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine/WMYHTW_translations. Thanks to User:Neetha Hussain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Netha_Hussain for the Malayalam translation.
What’s making you happy this week? You are welcome to write in any language. You are also welcome to start a WMYHTW thread next week.