User talk:Rschen7754/Archive 47
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Mobile IP editors are now able to receive warning notices indicating they have a talk page message on the mobile website (similar to the orange banners available on desktop). These notices will be displayed on every page outside of the main namespace and every time the user attempts to edit. The notice on desktop now has a slightly different colour.
Changes later this week
- Wikidata will be read-only for a few minutes on 11 November. This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance.
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- In the future, unregistered editors will be given an identity that is not their IP address. This is for legal reasons. A new user right will let editors who need to know the IPs of unregistered accounts to fight vandalism, spam, and harassment, see the IP. You can read the suggestions for how that identity could work and discuss on the talk page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 47
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 47, September – October 2021
- On-wiki Wikipedia Library notification rolling out
- Search tool deployed
- New My Library design improvements
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:59, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Most large file uploads errors that had messages like "
stashfailed" or "DBQueryError" have now been fixed. An incident report is available.
Problems
- Sometimes, edits made on iOS using the visual editor save groups of numbers as telephone number links, because of a feature in the operating system. This problem is under investigation.
- There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of a configuration error.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 November. It will be on all wikis from 18 November (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:05, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
- The template dialog in VisualEditor and in the new wikitext mode Beta feature will be heavily improved on a few wikis. Your feedback is welcome.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:01, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message
 | Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add |
The Signpost: 29 November 2021
- In the media: Denial: climate change, mass killings and pornography
Will they deny non-fungible tokens next?
- WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2021
15th annual event closes with hundreds of articles improved
- Deletion report: What we lost, what we gained
1,767 nominations in November... AN/Is... DRVs... The largest AfD in history, possibly ever!
- From a Wikipedia reader: What's Matt Amodio?
Wikipedia democratizes knowledge, but is it in Jeopardy?
- Arbitration report: ArbCom in 2021
We should have at least one of these every year!
- Discussion report: On the brink of change – RFA reforms appear imminent
Editors propose modifications to Wikipedia's admin-making process.
- Technology report: What does it take to upload a file?
How MediaWiki works with media files.
- WikiProject report: Interview with contributors to WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers
From the silver screen to your computer screen
- Serendipity: "Did You Know ..." featured a photo of the wrong female WWII pilot
A worthy pilot but the photo didn't match the article!
- News from Diff: Content translation tool helps create one million Wikipedia articles
Sharing the wealth of information!
- Traffic report: Reporting ticket sales on the edge of the Wiki, if Eternals should fail
Conjuring up the jesters again!
- Recent research: Vandalizing Wikipedia as rational behavior
And other recent research publications
- Humour: A very new very Wiki crossword
Answers to last month's puzzle included.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 December. It will be on all wikis from 2 December (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:14, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- MediaWiki 1.38-wmf.11 was scheduled to be deployed on some wikis last week. The deployment was delayed because of unexpected problems.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 December. It will be on all wikis from 9 December (calendar).
- At all Wikipedias, a Mentor Dashboard is now available at
Special:MentorDashboard. It allows registered mentors, who take care of newcomers' first steps, to monitor their assigned newcomers' activity. It is part of the Growth features. You can learn more about activating the mentor list on your wiki and about the mentor dashboard project. 
The predecessor to the current MediaWiki Action API (which was created in 2008), action=ajax, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to the corresponding API module.- An old ResourceLoader module,
jquery.jStorage, which was deprecated in 2016, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch tomediawiki.storageinstead.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:58, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).
Administrator changes
Technical news
- Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page. (T284642)
- The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse. (T293866)
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
- The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.
MOS:RJL spamming
Why are you spamming hundreds of articles with tags? What benefit does this give to the reader? The best advice I've seen is from the classic User:Beyond My Ken/Thoughts "Editors should also remember that the Manual of Style presents guidelines to assist us, not strict rules to be slavishly followed with dogmatic intrasigence. The presentation of references should be judged as every other contribution to Wikipedia should be judged: Is it clear? Does it present the information in an unambiguous and coherent manner? Is the visual presentation clean and uncluttered? If it meets these conditions, then it should not be reverted: almost nothing on Wikipedia is more lame, or reflect worse on good-faith editors, than edit-warring on the basis of "The MoS says so!". I get utterly depressed looking through Pink Floyd articles like "Echoes", finding unsourced information that's sat in there for years, while people squabble over formatting and templates, leading to two depressing Arbcom cases. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- In the course of such "spamming" I have noticed how said articles are often not accessibility compliant and often do not present the information in both miles and kilometers. Rather than seeing this through a political lens, can you take a dispassionate look at the merits of MOS:RJL? --Rschen7754 19:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- I rarely go onto the MOS because frankly I don't understand it or how it helps the reader gain knowledge. By my own admission, I completely suck at templates and infoboxes, because I just don't have the time to understand what they mean and how they benefit the reader? How are they not accessibility compliant? Bear in mind I have, as stated on my user page, bad eyesight and have required glasses since I was eleven years old, and cannot generally look at more than 1080p resolution on a 24" monitor. And presenting in miles and kilometres is political, because professional highways engineers use the latter, no matter what the UKIP or Brexit Party might claim otherwise. So, to repeat, can you explain these issues in terms my mother could understand? If you can't, it may highlight a problem. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:34, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- TBH that template would be better suited for filling a tracking category. It's utility as an ambox is pretty limited as its target audience is largely we who edit road articles. –Fredddie™ 20:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- because professional highways engineers use the latter very well, but most of us aren't and we shouldn't expect someone (in the US, or in the UK, or in any country in the world really) to have to pull out a calculator to understand the distances. As far as the accessibility issues, you can't convey information in only graphics or colors that a visually impaired person cannot understand, among other things. --Rschen7754 23:09, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
- I know all of that - I've just told you I've got bad eyesight so please do not patronise me about accessibility when it can directly affect me - but I was asking for specifics. You haven't specified exactly what you're looking for or what action you want taken. Is to add
{{convert}}to various entries? Is it to replace one template field with another? Is is to add alt tags to images? Or is it something else entirely? By dropping a load of unhelpful and unexplained tags on 150 articles for seemingly no reason, all you've done is irritate people. I notice I'm not the only one to revert your drive by tagging simply because you haven't explained what action you want taken - and looking that article, it already has distances in metric and imperial anyway. And, furthermore, the document you quoted says "While this document has been developed to provide a basis for a uniform presentation of road junction information, not all information is applicable to all roads in all regions. Thus, certain provisions of this guideline are noted as being for optional use." So what is the problem? It'll take you, what, five minutes to fix up a couple of templates, why haven't you done this yourself? Perhaps if you'd actually done the work instead of hectoring other people in an unnecessarily patronising manner, you might have actually got the result you wanted. Something to think about. - Incidentally, "can you explain these issues in terms my mother could understand" comes from Joel Spolsky's "Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing", whereby if candidates continued to use jargon and fail to explain to themselves, they'd fail the interview. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- It'll take you, what, five minutes to fix up a couple of templates, why haven't you done this yourself? When I did similar conversions for California, it took me several months. I would estimate probably 20-30 minutes per article. Nobody expects that it will be done right away or even within the next year (does any cleanup template mean this?) - this is just noting that there is a problem that should be addressed at some point. Why did I add the tags? Because RJL has been part of the MOS for 10 years and I didn't want nothing to be done about the 2000+ articles worldwide that are still not compliant. (For the record, 4000+ articles are compliant).
- Looking specifically at M25, I have a lot of questions. What do the italics and bold mean? Why are things in ALL CAPS (which is another violation of MOS)? What do the seemingly random colors mean? Why are there two columns that say almost the same thing? What city or location are these junctions in (besides just the county)? I think I know what the big red C means (congestion charge) but the average non-UK reader would not. While we recommend using a template like {{Jctint}} as it makes any future changes easier, it is not required, so long as the columns are similar and the other MOS/accessibility issues are addressed. --Rschen7754 19:19, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- And for all the accusations about my being "patronizing" with a 8 character tag and a 3 letter edit summary - your comments above come off to me as quite condescending, as "How dare you tell me that I may be wrong about something since I automatically know better than you". That is not effective communication. Just a thought. --Rschen7754 19:22, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- Since this discussion is clearly going places, is my suggestion of making the template just house a tracking category (and thereby removing the visual element of the template) palatable for both of you? –Fredddie™ 19:57, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- And for all the accusations about my being "patronizing" with a 8 character tag and a 3 letter edit summary - your comments above come off to me as quite condescending, as "How dare you tell me that I may be wrong about something since I automatically know better than you". That is not effective communication. Just a thought. --Rschen7754 19:22, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- I know all of that - I've just told you I've got bad eyesight so please do not patronise me about accessibility when it can directly affect me - but I was asking for specifics. You haven't specified exactly what you're looking for or what action you want taken. Is to add
- I rarely go onto the MOS because frankly I don't understand it or how it helps the reader gain knowledge. By my own admission, I completely suck at templates and infoboxes, because I just don't have the time to understand what they mean and how they benefit the reader? How are they not accessibility compliant? Bear in mind I have, as stated on my user page, bad eyesight and have required glasses since I was eleven years old, and cannot generally look at more than 1080p resolution on a 24" monitor. And presenting in miles and kilometres is political, because professional highways engineers use the latter, no matter what the UKIP or Brexit Party might claim otherwise. So, to repeat, can you explain these issues in terms my mother could understand? If you can't, it may highlight a problem. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:34, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There are now default short aliases for the "Project:" namespace on most wikis. E.g. On Wikibooks wikis,
[[WB:]]will go to the local language default for the[[Project:]]namespace. This change is intended to help the smaller communities have easy access to this feature. Additional local aliases can still be requested via the usual process.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 December. It will be on all wikis from 16 December (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Happy Adminship Anniversary!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 10 January 2022.
Recent changes
- Queries made by the DynamicPageList extension (
<DynamicPageList>) are now only allowed to run for 10 seconds and error if they take longer. This is in response to multiple outages where long-running queries caused an outage on all wikis.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
- The developers of the Wikipedia iOS app are looking for testers who edit in multiple languages. You can read more and let them know if you are interested.
- The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from February.
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22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
The Signpost: 28 December 2021
- From the editor: Here is the news
And wishing our readers a healthy, fortunate and bountiful 2022.
- News and notes: Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements
Wrapping up 2021 with a pair of auctions, activity surrounding administrators, and an audit.
- Serendipity: Born three months before her brother?
Wikipedia and the Oxford Dictionary of Music have different opinions.
- In the media: The past is not even past
Even for Wikipedia critics in nappies!
- Recent research: STEM articles judged unsuitable for undergraduates below the first paragraph
And other new research results.
- Arbitration report: A new crew for '22
Elections certified, bans unlifted, mailing lists restricted, but no new cases.
- By the numbers: Four billion words and a few numbers
Commemorating a milestone: word count comparisons with other Wikipedias.
- Deletion report: We laughed, we cried, we closed as "no consensus"
More hats than a rodeo: the best, worst, and gnarliest AfDs of 2021.
- Gallery: Wikicommons presents: 2021
Some of 2021's most dramatic moments through Wikicommons images.
- Traffic report: Spider-Man, football and the departed
We'll always remember the Greek alphabet!
- Crossword: Another Wiki crossword for one and all
Answers to last month's puzzle included.
- Humour: Buying Wikipedia
Helpful how-to for the prospective buyer. Why settle for a measly single edit, when you can buy the whole thing?
GAN Backlog Drive – January 2022
| Good article nominations | January 2022 Backlog Drive |  |
January 2022 Backlog Drive:
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| You're receiving this message because you have conducted 10+ good article reviews or participated in the March backlog drive.
Click here and remove your username from the mailing list to opt out of any future messages. | |
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles at 21:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC).
Merchandise giveaway nomination
 |
A token of thanks
Hi Rschen7754! I've nominated you (along with all other active admins) to receive a solstice season gift from the WMF. Talk page stalkers are invited to comment at the nomination. Enjoy! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk ~~~~~ |
 |
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).
|
|
|
Guideline and policy news
- Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.
- Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.
Arbitration
- Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Cabayi, Donald Albury, Enterprisey, Izno, Opabinia regalis, Worm That Turned, Wugapodes.
Miscellaneous
- The functionaries email list (functionaries-en
lists.wikimedia.org) will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.
How we will see unregistered users
Hi!
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
Thank you. /Johan (WMF)
18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- A
oauth_consumervariable has been added to the AbuseFilter to enable identifying changes made by specific tools. - Gadgets are now able to directly include JSON pages. This means some gadgets can now be configured by administrators without needing the interface administrator permission, such as with the Geonotice gadget.
- Gadgets can now specify page actions on which they are available. For example,
|actions=edit,historywill load a gadget only while editing and on history pages. - Gadgets can now be loaded on demand with the
withgadgetURL parameter. This can be used to replace an earlier snippet that typically looks likewithJSorwithCSS. - At wikis where the Mentorship system is configured, you can now use the Action API to get a list of a mentor's mentees.
- The heading on the main page can now be configured using MediaWiki:Mainpage-title-loggedin for logged-in users and MediaWiki:Mainpage-title for logged-out users. Any CSS that was previously used to hide the heading should be removed.
- Four special pages (and their API counterparts) now have a maximum database query execution time of 30 seconds. These special pages are: RecentChanges, Watchlist, Contributions, and Log. This change will help with site performance and stability. You can read more details about this change including some possible solutions if this affects your workflows.
- The sticky header has been deployed for 50% of logged-in users on more than 10 wikis. This is part of the Desktop Improvements. See how to take part in the project.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 January. It will be on all wikis from 13 January (calendar).
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey 2022 begins. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When using WikiEditor (also known as the 2010 wikitext editor), people will now see a warning if they link to disambiguation pages. If you click "Review link" in the warning, it will ask you to correct the link to a more specific term. You can read more information about this completed 2021 Community Wishlist item.
- You can automatically subscribe to all of the talk page discussions that you start or comment in using DiscussionTools. You will receive notifications when another editor replies. This is available at most wikis. Go to your Preferences and turn on "Automatically subscribe to topics".
- When asked to create a new page or talk page section, input fields can be "preloaded" with some text. This feature is now limited to wikitext pages. This is so users can't be tricked into making malicious edits. There is a discussion about if this feature should be re-enabled for some content types.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 January. It will be on all wikis from 20 January (calendar).
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey 2022 continues. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 January. It will be on all wikis from 27 January (calendar).
- The following languages can now be used with syntax highlighting: BDD, Elpi, LilyPond, Maxima, Rita, Savi, Sed, Sophia, Spice, .SRCINFO.
- You can now access your watchlist from outside of the user menu in the new Vector skin. The watchlist link appears next to the notification icons if you are at the top of the page.
Events
- You can see the results of the Coolest Tool Award 2021 and learn more about 14 tools which were selected this year.
- You can translate, promote, or comment on the proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. Voting will begin on 28 January.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 January 2022
- Special report: WikiEd course leads to Twitter harassment
Education, deletion and social media can be a volatile mix.
- News and notes: Feedback for Board of Trustees election
Plus, the incredible shrinking admin cadre.
- Interview: CEO Maryana Iskander "four weeks in"
"Impossible ideas can be created, not just imagined."
- Black History Month: What are you doing for Black History Month?
Over 1,700 U.S. congressmen owned slaves. You can help document this.
- Deletion report: Ringing in the new year: Subject notability guideline under discussion
More than you wanted to know about the massive NSPORTS RfC.
- WikiProject report: The Forgotten Featured
Interview with volunteers at the Unreviewed featured articles 2020 working group.
- Arbitration report: New arbitrators look at new case and antediluvian sanctions
The spirit of 2006 is going strong.
- Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2021
Royals, Freddy and movies.
- Gallery: No Spanish municipality without a photograph
How many more photos are needed?
- Obituary: Twofingered Typist
Rest in peace.
- Op-Ed: Identifying and rooting out climate change denial
Will this method apply to other sensitive topics?
- Essay: The prime directive
Just imagine!
- Opinion: Should the Wikimedia Foundation continue to accept cryptocurrency donations?
One editor doesn't think so.
- In the media: Fuzzy-headed government editing
Get down and party! But no COI editing!
- Recent research: Articles with higher quality ratings have fewer "knowledge gaps"
And other research results.
- Serendipity: Pooh entered the Public Domain – but Tigger has to wait two more years
Copyright is almost always complicated, but we break it down for you.
- Crossword: Cross swords with a crossword
Featuring an experimental on-wiki entry box.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- If a gadget should support the new
?withgadgetURL parameter that was announced 3 weeks ago, then it must now also specifysupportsUrlLoadin the gadget definition (documentation).
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 February. It will be on all wikis from 3 February (calendar).
Future changes
- A change that was announced last year was delayed. It is now ready to move ahead:
- The user group
oversightwill be renamedsuppress. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in three weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. As usual, these labels can be translated on translatewiki (direct links are available) or by administrators on your wiki.
- The user group
Events
- You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 28 January and 11 February. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 48
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 48, November – December 2021
- 1Lib1Ref 2022
- Wikipedia Library notifications deployed
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- The Universal Code of Conduct enforcement guidelines have been published for consideration. Voting to ratify this guideline is planned to take place 7 March to 21 March. Comments can be made on the talk page.
Technical news
- The user group
oversightwill be renamedsuppressin around 3 weeks. This will not affect the name shown to users and is simply a change in the technical name of the user group. The change is being made for technical reasons. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. - The Reply Tool feature, which is a part of Discussion Tools, will be opt-out for everyone logged in or logged out starting 7 February 2022. Editors wishing to comment on this can do so in the relevant Village Pump discussion.
- The user group
Arbitration
- Community input is requested on several motions aimed at addressing discretionary sanctions that are no longer needed or overly broad.
- The Arbitration Committee has published a generalised comment regarding successful appeals of sanctions that it can review (such as checkuser blocks).
- A motion related to the Antisemitism in Poland case was passed following a declined case request.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2022 Steward elections will begin on 07 February 2022, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2022, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey is open until 11 February 2022.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- English Wikipedia recently set up a gadget for dark mode. You can enable it there, or request help from an interface administrator to set it up on your wiki (instructions and screenshot).
- Category counts are sometimes wrong. They will now be completely recounted at the beginning of every month.
Problems
- A code-change last week to fix a bug with Live Preview may have caused problems with some local gadgets and user-scripts. Any code with skin-specific behaviour for
vectorshould be updated to also check forvector-2022. A code-snippet, global search, and example are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 February. It will be on all wikis from 10 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Purging a category page with fewer than 5,000 members will now recount it completely. This will allow editors to fix incorrect counts when it is wrong.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 February. It will be on all wikis from 17 February (calendar).
- In the AbuseFilter extension, the
rmspecials()function has been updated so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses ofrmspecials()withrmwhitespace()wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Special:Nuke will now provide the standard deletion reasons (editable at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown) to use when mass-deleting pages. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey.
- At Wikipedias, all new accounts now get the Growth features by default when creating an account. Communities are encouraged to update their help resources. Previously, only 80% of new accounts would get the Growth features. A few Wikipedias remain unaffected by this change.
- You can now prevent specific images that are used in a page from appearing in other locations, such as within PagePreviews or Search results. This is done with the markup
class=notpageimage. For example,[[File:Example.png|class=notpageimage]]. - There has been a change to the HTML of Special:Contributions, Special:MergeHistory, and History pages, to support the grouping of changes by date in the mobile skin. While unlikely, this may affect gadgets and user scripts. A list of all the HTML changes is on Phabricator.
Events
- Community Wishlist Survey results have been published. The ranking of prioritized proposals is also available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 February. It will be on all wikis from 24 February (calendar).
Future changes
- The software to play videos and audio files on pages will change soon on all wikis. The old player will be removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years.
- Toolforge's underlying operating system is being updated. If you maintain any tools there, there are two options for migrating your tools into the new system. There are details, deadlines, and instructions on Wikitech.
- Administrators will soon have the option to delete/undelete the associated "talk" page when they are deleting a given page. An API endpoint with this option will also be available. This was a request from the 2021 Wishlist Survey.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:11, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 February 2022
- From the team: Selection of a new Signpost Editor-in-Chief
Bye-bye 'bones!
- News and notes: Impacts of Russian invasion of Ukraine
Plus, the Steward Elections, Leadership Development Task Force and a contest.
- Opinion: Why student editors are good for Wikipedia
Who are the students and how do we assure quality?
- Special report: A presidential candidate's team takes on Wikipedia
Vive l'encyclopédie libre!
- In the media: Wiki-drama in the UK House of Commons
Plus, Wiki Unseen, the "Sports Wars", and much more.
- Serendipity: War photographers: from Crimea (1850s) to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022)
"The first casualty when war comes is truth".
- Technology report: Community Wishlist Survey results
Plus, DiscussionTools and dark mode.
- WikiProject report: 10 years of tea
Coffee in Teahouse and other secrets revealed in this interview with volunteers.
- Featured content: Featured Content returns
A fantastic diverse mix of a record-breaking amount of content.
- Deletion report: The 10 most SHOCKING deletion discussions of February
You WON'T believe #8!
- Recent research: How editors and readers may be emotionally affected by disasters and terrorist attacks
And other recent research publications.
- Arbitration report: Parties remonstrate, arbs contemplate, skeptics coordinate
The report on lengthy litigation.
- By the numbers: Does birthplace affect the frequency of Wikipedia biography articles?
Some evidence from people born in France.
- Gallery: The vintage exhibit
Some good-ol' posters, restored to its former glory.
- Traffic report: Euphoria, Pamela Anderson, lies and Netflix
Plus quarterbacks, half-timers, Olympians, and Hulu!
- News from Diff: The Wikimania 2022 Core Organizing Team
Meet the folks in charge!
- Crossword: A Crossword, featuring Featured Articles
Can you fill in the boxes with Wikipedia's best content?
- Humour: Notability of mailboxes
Does yours pass?
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- When searching for edits by change tags, e.g. in page history or user contributions, there is now a dropdown list of possible tags. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey.
- Mentors using the Growth Mentor dashboard will now see newcomers assigned to them who have made at least one edit, up to 200 edits. Previously, all newcomers assigned to the mentor were visible on the dashboard, even ones without any edit or ones who made hundred of edits. Mentors can still change these values using the filters on their dashboard. Also, the last choice of filters will now be saved.
- The user group
oversightwas renamedsuppress. This is for technical reasons. You may need to update any local references to the old name, e.g. gadgets, links to Special:Listusers, or uses of NUMBERINGROUP.
Problems
- The recent change to the HTML of tracking changes pages caused some problems for screenreaders. This is being fixed.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 March. It will be on all wikis from 3 March (calendar).
Future changes
- Working with templates will become easier. Several improvements are planned for March 9 on most wikis and on March 16 on English Wikipedia. The improvements include: Bracket matching, syntax highlighting colors, finding and inserting templates, and related visual editor features.
- If you are a template developer or an interface administrator, and you are intentionally overriding or using the default CSS styles of user feedback boxes (the classes:
successbox, messagebox, errorbox, warningbox), please note that these classes and associated CSS will soon be removed from MediaWiki core. This is to prevent problems when the same class-names are also used on a wiki. Please let us know by commenting at phab:T300314 if you think you might be affected.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2022).
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Guideline and policy news
- A RfC is open to change the wording of revision deletion criterion 1 to remove the sentence relating to non-infringing contributions.
- A RfC is open to discuss prohibiting draftification of articles over 90 days old.
Technical news
- The deployment of the reply tool as an opt-out feature, as announced in last month's newsletter, has been delayed to 7 March. Feedback and comments are being welcomed at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project. (T296645)
- Special:Nuke will now allow the selection of standard deletion reasons to be used when mass-deleting pages. This was a Community Wishlist Survey request from 2022. (T25020)
- The ability to undelete the talk page when undeleting a page using Special:Undelete or the API will be added soon. This change was requested in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey. (T295389)
Arbitration
- Several unused discretionary sanctions and article probation remedies have been rescinded. This follows the community feedback from the 2021 Discretionary Sanctions review.
Miscellaneous
- The 2022 appointees for the Ombuds commission are Érico, Faendalimas, Galahad, Infinite0694, Mykola7, Olugold, Udehb and Zabe as regular members and Ameisenigel and JJMC89 as advisory members.
- Following the 2022 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AntiCompositeNumber, BRPever, Hasley, TheresNoTime, and Vermont.
- The 2022 Community Wishlist Survey results have been published alongside the ranking of prioritized proposals.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- There was a problem with some interface labels last week. It will be fixed this week. This change was part of ongoing work to simplify the support for skins which do not have active maintainers.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day!
Have a very happy first edit anniversary!
From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:45, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- In the Wikipedia Android app it is now possible to change the toolbar at the bottom so the tools you use more often are easier to click on. The app now also has a focused reading mode.
Problems
- There was a problem with the collection of some page-view data from June 2021 to January 2022 on all wikis. This means the statistics are incomplete. To help calculate which projects and regions were most affected, relevant datasets are being retained for 30 extra days. You can read more on Meta-wiki.
- There was a problem with the databases on March 10. All wikis were unreachable for logged-in users for 12 minutes. Logged-out users could read pages but could not edit or access uncached content then.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
- When using
uselang=qqxto find localisation messages, it will now show all possible message keys for navigation tabs such as "View history". - Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have
deletelogentryanddeletedhistoryrights through their group memberships. Before, only those with thedeleterevisionright could access this special page. - On the Special:Undelete pages for diffs and revisions, there will be a link back to the main Undelete page with the list of revisions.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Foundation has announced the IP Masking implementation strategy and next steps. The announcement can be read here.
- The Wikipedia Android app developers are working on new functions for user talk pages and article talk pages.
Events
- The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place as a hybrid event on 20-22 May 2022. The Hackathon will be held online and there are grants available to support local in-person meetups around the world. Grants can be requested until 20 March.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
New code release schedule for this week
- There will be four MediaWiki releases this week, instead of just one. This is an experiment which should lead to fewer problems and to faster feature updates. The releases will be on all wikis, at different times, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You can read more about this project.
Recent changes
- You can now set how many search results to show by default in your Preferences. This was the 12th most popular wish in the Community Wishlist Survey 2022.
- The Jupyter notebooks tool PAWS has been updated to a new interface.
Future changes
- Interactive maps via Kartographer will soon work on wikis using the FlaggedRevisions extension. Please tell us which improvements you want to see in Kartographer. You can take this survey in simple English.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:00, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
Books & Bytes – Issue 49
The Wikipedia Library
Books & Bytes
Issue 49, January – February 2022
- New library collections
- Blog post published detailing technical improvements
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:06, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 March 2022
- From the Signpost team: How The Signpost is documenting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
We stand in solidarity with free knowledge.
- News and notes: Of safety and anonymity
The diff that resulted in arrest and jail time in Belarus.
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Kharkiv, Ukraine: Countering Russian aggression with a camera
A Ukrainian Wikipedian volunteers to document the war.
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary
Reporting from on the ground in Ukraine.
- Eyewitness Wikimedian, Western Ukraine: Working with Wikipedia helps
Holding up the elephants!
- Disinformation report: The oligarchs' socks
For whom do the Bells toil?
- In the media: Ukraine, Russia, and even some other stuff
Lenin did not say "Wow, check out those yachts"!
- Recent research: Top scholarly citers, lack of open access references, predicting editor departures
And other research publications.
- Wikimedian perspective: My heroes from Russia, Ukraine & beyond
The thought of cities being destroyed is unbearable.
- Discussion report: Athletes are less notable now
The Discussion Report returns with a diverse mix of community proposals.
- Technology report: 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon
Plus, Desktop Improvements and a new uploading tool for Commons.
- Arbitration report: Skeptics given heavenly judgement, whirlwind of Discord drama begins to spin for tropical cyclone editors
Unclear whether storm will make landfall.
- Traffic report: War, what is it good for?
Ukraine, Russia and Anna Sorokin.
- Deletion report: Ukraine, werewolves, Ukraine, YouTube pundits, and Ukraine
Things that go "boom" in the night.
- Gallery: "All we are saying is, give peace a chance..."
The once-seen beauty of Ukraine, in high quality.
- From the archives: Burn, baby burn
A look at when early backups of Wikipedia were recovered.
- Essay: Yes, the sky is blue
There is such thing as over-citing.
- Tips and tricks: Become a keyboard ninja
And other useful Tips of the Day.
- On the bright side: The bright side of news
Happy-er current events.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a simple new Wikimedia Commons upload tool available for macOS users, Sunflower.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of regular database maintenance. It will be performed on 29 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 31 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- For a few days last week, edits that were suggested to newcomers were not tagged in the Special:RecentChanges feed. This bug has been fixed.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 April. It will be on all wikis from 7 April (calendar).
- Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 7 April at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
Future changes
- Starting next week, Tech News' title will be translatable. When the newsletter is distributed, its title may not be
Tech News: 2022-14anymore. It may affect some filters that have been set up by some communities. - Over the next few months, the "Add a link" Growth feature will become available to more Wikipedias. Each week, a few wikis will get the feature. You can test this tool at a few wikis where "Link recommendation" is already available.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)