User talk:L235/Archive 22

Latest comment: 9 months ago by MediaWiki message delivery in topic Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 15
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RfC ongoing regarding Abstract Wikipedia (and your project)

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(Apologies for posting in English, if this is not your first language)

Hello all! We opened a discussion on Meta about a very delicate issue for the development of Abstract Wikipedia: where to store the abstract content that will be developed through functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata. Since some of the hypothesis involve your project, we wanted to hear your thoughts too.

We want to make the decision process clear: we do not yet know which option we want to use, which is why we are consulting here. We will take the arguments from the Wikimedia communities into account, and we want to consult with the different communities and hear arguments that will help us with the decision. The decision will be made and communicated after the consultation period by the Foundation.

You can read the various hypothesis and have your say at Abstract Wikipedia/Location of Abstract Content. Thank you in advance! -- Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:26, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

More languagesPlease help translate to other languages.

Dear all,

This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.

The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].

Here are the key planned dates:

  • May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
  • June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
  • July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
  • August 2025: Campaign period
  • August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
  • October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
  • Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated

Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Call for Questions

In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related. [link]

Election Volunteers

Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Thank you!

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Results

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Committee:Elections_Committee_Charter

[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Committee_Membership,_December_2024

[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Roles

[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/FAQ

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Questions_for_candidates

Best regards,

Victoria Doronina

Board Liaison to the Elections Committee

Governance Committee

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

+intadmin

Following your request, the int-admin flag has been added to your account. Please be sure to review Wikipedia:Interface administrators. If you have questions about things, feel free to bring it up at Wikipedia:Interface administrators' noticeboard (I suggest you watchlist that one). Additionally, if you are interested in responding to edit requests, watchlisting this report is useful: User:AnomieBOT/IPERTable. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 00:41, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Congrats Kevin! Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 01:27, 1 June 2025 (UTC)
Thank you!! KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:38, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 10

MediaWiki message delivery 21:56, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2025).

Administrator changes

removed

Interface administrator changes

added 0xDeadbeef

CheckUser changes

readded L235

Oversight changes

readded L235

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open to determine whether the English Wikipedia community should adopt a position on AI development by the WMF and its affiliates.

Technical news

Arbitration

  • An arbitration case named Indian military history has been opened. Evidence submissions for this case close on 8 June.

Miscellaneous


Vote now in the 2025 U4C Election

Copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) § Vote now in the 2025 U4C Election because this page is listed on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Subscribe.

Please help translate to other languages.

Eligible voters are asked to participate in the 2025 Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee election. More information–including an eligibility check, voting process information, candidate information, and a link to the vote–are available on Meta at the 2025 Election information page. The vote closes on 17 June 2025 at 12:00 UTC.

Please vote if your account is eligible. Results will be available by 1 July 2025. -- In cooperation with the U4C, Keegan (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 - Call for Candidates

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Hello all,

The call for candidates for the 2025 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees selection is now open from June 17, 2025 – July 2, 2025 at 11:59 UTC [1]. The Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's work, and each Trustee serves a three-year term [2]. This is a volunteer position.

This year, the Wikimedia community will vote in late August through September 2025 to fill two (2) seats on the Foundation Board. Could you – or someone you know – be a good fit to join the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees? [3]

Learn more about what it takes to stand for these leadership positions and how to submit your candidacy on this Meta-wiki page or encourage someone else to run in this year's election.

Best regards,

Abhishek Suryawanshi
Chair of the Elections Committee

On behalf of the Elections Committee and Governance Committee

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Call_for_candidates

[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Bylaws#(B)_Term.

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Resources_for_candidates

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:43, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 11

MediaWiki message delivery 19:39, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 June 2025

Sister Projects Task Force reviews Wikispore and Wikinews

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Dear Wikimedia Community,

The Community Affairs Committee (CAC) of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees assigned the Sister Projects Task Force (SPTF) to update and implement a procedure for assessing the lifecycle of Sister Projects – wiki projects supported by Wikimedia Foundation (WMF).

A vision of relevant, accessible, and impactful free knowledge has always guided the Wikimedia Movement. As the ecosystem of Wikimedia projects continues to evolve, it is crucial that we periodically review existing projects to ensure they still align with our goals and community capacity.

Despite their noble intent, some projects may no longer effectively serve their original purpose. Reviewing such projects is not about giving up – it's about responsible stewardship of shared resources. Volunteer time, staff support, infrastructure, and community attention are finite, and the non-technical costs tend to grow significantly as our ecosystem has entered a different age of the internet than the one we were founded in. Supporting inactive projects or projects that didn't meet our ambitions can unintentionally divert these resources from areas with more potential impact.

Moreover, maintaining projects that no longer reflect the quality and reliability of the Wikimedia name stands for, involves a reputational risk. An abandoned or less reliable project affects trust in the Wikimedia movement.

Lastly, failing to sunset or reimagine projects that are no longer working can make it much harder to start new ones. When the community feels bound to every past decision – no matter how outdated – we risk stagnation. A healthy ecosystem must allow for evolution, adaptation, and, when necessary, letting go. If we create the expectation that every project must exist indefinitely, we limit our ability to experiment and innovate.

Because of this, SPTF reviewed two requests concerning the lifecycle of the Sister Projects to work through and demonstrate the review process. We chose Wikispore as a case study for a possible new Sister Project opening and Wikinews as a case study for a review of an existing project. Preliminary findings were discussed with the CAC, and a community consultation on both proposals was recommended.

Wikispore

The application to consider Wikispore was submitted in 2019. SPTF decided to review this request in more depth because rather than being concentrated on a specific topic, as most of the proposals for the new Sister Projects are, Wikispore has the potential to nurture multiple start-up Sister Projects.

After careful consideration, the SPTF has decided not to recommend Wikispore as a Wikimedia Sister Project. Considering the current activity level, the current arrangement allows better flexibility and experimentation while WMF provides core infrastructural support.

We acknowledge the initiative's potential and seek community input on what would constitute a sufficient level of activity and engagement to reconsider its status in the future.

As part of the process, we shared the decision with the Wikispore community and invited one of its leaders, Pharos, to an SPTF meeting.

Currently, we especially invite feedback on measurable criteria indicating the project's readiness, such as contributor numbers, content volume, and sustained community support. This would clarify the criteria sufficient for opening a new Sister Project, including possible future Wikispore re-application. However, the numbers will always be a guide because any number can be gamed.

Wikinews

We chose to review Wikinews among existing Sister Projects because it is the one for which we have observed the highest level of concern in multiple ways.

Since the SPTF was convened in 2023, its members have asked for the community's opinions during conferences and community calls about Sister Projects that did not fulfil their promise in the Wikimedia movement.[1][2][3] Wikinews was the leading candidate for an evaluation because people from multiple language communities proposed it. Additionally, by most measures, it is the least active Sister Project, with the greatest drop in activity over the years.

While the Language Committee routinely opens and closes language versions of the Sister Projects in small languages, there has never been a valid proposal to close Wikipedia in major languages or any project in English. This is not true for Wikinews, where there was a proposal to close English Wikinews, which gained some traction but did not result in any action[4][5], see section 5 as well as a draft proposal to close all languages of Wikinews[6].

Initial metrics compiled by WMF staff also support the community's concerns about Wikinews.

Based on this report, SPTF recommends a community reevaluation of Wikinews. We conclude that its current structure and activity levels are the lowest among the existing sister projects. SPTF also recommends pausing the opening of new language editions while the consultation runs.

SPTF brings this analysis to a discussion and welcomes discussions of alternative outcomes, including potential restructuring efforts or integration with other Wikimedia initiatives.

Options mentioned so far (which might be applied to just low-activity languages or all languages) include but are not limited to:

  • Restructure how Wikinews works and is linked to other current events efforts on the projects,
  • Merge the content of Wikinews into the relevant language Wikipedias, possibly in a new namespace,
  • Merge content into compatibly licensed external projects,
  • Archive Wikinews projects.

Your insights and perspectives are invaluable in shaping the future of these projects. We encourage all interested community members to share their thoughts on the relevant discussion pages or through other designated feedback channels.

Feedback and next steps

We'd be grateful if you want to take part in a conversation on the future of these projects and the review process. We are setting up two different project pages: Public consultation about Wikispore and Public consultation about Wikinews. Please participate between 27 June 2025 and 27 July 2025, after which we will summarize the discussion to move forward. You can write in your own language.

I will also host a community conversation 16th July Wednesday 11.00 UTC and 17th July Thursday 17.00 UTC (call links to follow shortly) and will be around at Wikimania for more discussions.

-- Victoria on behalf of the Sister Project Task Force, 20:56, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Arbcom word counts

My section in the "Capitalization Disputes" case request didn't show the word count total until I made a second edit that I signed, which triggered your bot to make this edit. (My first edit, which was unsigned, triggered this initial update.) I'm guessing there is some algorithm for how your bot retrieves the user name that tries different locations and uses the first one that succeeds? isaacl (talk) 16:33, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Correct - the operative code is at , which shows the logic. I can change it such that the first letter is always assumed to be uppercase. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 17:14, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into this! I had looked at bit at your code, but at that time I thought the problem was with the timestamps. Only later when I looked at the diffs for the data file did I realize that the user name was determined differently. isaacl (talk) 05:02, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 12

MediaWiki message delivery 19:08, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Feedback for User:KevinClerkBot

Can you consider using colors with transparency for compatibility with dark mode in the data tables? For example, for #FFCCCC, you can replace it with #FF000040, and for #FFFFCC, you can replace it with #FFFF0040. Or maybe use template styles and similar. Aasim (話すはなす) 01:56, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Very glad to change the hue, and I'll make the change when I get to my laptop! More broadly, if there are templates that you would prefer seeing, I'd be glad to incorporate them; I didn't have the time to write them, but I'm glad to consider it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:15, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
Ooh nice I saw you did it. Thanks :) Aasim (話すはなす) 17:51, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day, L235, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 03:10, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2025).

Administrator changes

removed NuclearWarfare

Interface administrator changes

added L235

Guideline and policy news

Miscellaneous

  • The 2025 Developing Countries WikiContest will run from 1 July to 30 September. Sign up now!
  • Administrator elections will take place this month. Administrator elections are an alternative to RFA that is a gentler process for candidates due to secret voting and multiple people running together. The call for candidates is July 9–15, the discussion phase is July 18–22, and the voting phase is July 23–29. Get ready to submit your candidacy, or (with their consent) to nominate a talented candidate!

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 13

MediaWiki message delivery 18:54, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

KevinClerkBot seems to be stopped

First, thank you very, very much for the bot and word counters. It makes life so much easier at AE (and I'm sure the other areas as well) than having to individually copy and paste sections into a word processor or counter tool, and I think it also lets editors be more aware of when they're approaching or exceeding the word limit. That said, for the Icecold request at AE, it has both editors at 0 words. That's actually correct for Snokalok (they made no additional comments past the original request), but Icecold certainly has words in their section, and they added the text several hours ago. KevinClerkBot looks like it normally does updates at least hourly, but I don't show any runs for several hours at User:KevinClerkBot/ArbCom word counts/extended. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: Thanks for flagging this! It seems that earlier today something about the configuration of the site, or about a package that the bot relies on, stopped working. I switched it temporarily, in a kind of unsatisfactory way. I'll look into this more when I have a chance. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
@Seraphimblade the code got clunkier and worse, but should be working again, and as a bonus I improved the caching on the renders so can justify running the bot more frequently. Hopefully the bot should notice changes to sections within 60 seconds now :) KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:30, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Thanks very much! Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:10, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

The Signpost: 18 July 2025

  • Traffic report: God only knows
    Wouldn't it be nice without billionaires, scandals, deaths, and wars?

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 14

MediaWiki message delivery 21:02, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Tuesday, August 26, 2025 Online MN Wikipedia User Group Meeting

  You're invited to the
    ONLINE
Minnesota Wikipedia User Group Meeting
 
  Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
  Time: 7 to 8 PM
This will be a casual meetup to chat, edit, and meet your fellow Wikipedians from across Minnesota. Help is available for new users, and all guests are welcome.
  If you don't wish to receive these invitations any more, please remove your username from our invitation list. Thanks.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:56, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2025).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, G15, has been enacted. It applies to pages generated by a large language model (LLM) without human review.
  • Following a request for comment, there is a new policy outlining the granting of permissions to view the IP addresses of temporary accounts. Temporary account deployment on the English Wikipedia is currently scheduled for September 2025, and editors can request access to the permission ahead of time. Admins are encouraged to keep an eye on the request page; there will likely be a flood of editors requesting the permission when they realize they can no longer see IP addresses.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Wikimania 2025 is happening in Nairobi, Kenya, and online from August 6 to August 9. This year marks 20 years of Wikimania. Interested users can join the online event. Registration for the virtual event is free and will remain open throughout Wikimania. You can register here now.

The Signpost: 9 August 2025

Cyberwolf and OS.

Quo vadimus? I expect to decline tomorrow. Should I tell appellant to e-mail OS from now on? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:57, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: (cc Tamzin, Giraffer) Apologies for the delay. Please see the latest comment (2025-08-15 00:51:36) at to close the loop here. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 15

MediaWiki message delivery 19:39, 19 August 2025 (UTC)