User talk:CX Zoom/Newsletters/2023
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The Signpost: 1 January 2023
- Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief
- Technology report: Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"
- Essay: Mobile editing
- Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022
- Recent research: Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes
- Featured content: Would you like to swing on a star?
- Traffic report: Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!
- CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire
- From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
Welcome to the 2023 WikiCup!
Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2023 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:17, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Oversighter changes
Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.
Arbitration
- Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
- The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
- The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.
Miscellaneous
- Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
- Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.
The Signpost: 16 January 2023
- Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020
- News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion
- In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again
- Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery
- In focus: Busting into Grand Central
- Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100
- Featured content: Flip your lid
- Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022
- From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
Books & Bytes – Issue 54
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 54, November – December 2022
- New collections:
- British Newspaper Archive
- Findmypast
- University of Michigan Press
- ACLS
- Duke University Press
- 1Lib1Ref 2023
- Spotlight: EDS Refine Results
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
- Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.
Technical news
- The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
- In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
- Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.
The Signpost: 4 February 2023
- From the editor: New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function
- News and notes: Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan
- Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos
- Op-Ed: Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter
- Recent research: Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias
- WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour
- Tips and tricks: XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles
- Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea
- Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT
The Signpost: 20 February 2023
- In the media: Arbitrators open case after article alleges Wikipedia "intentionally distorts" Holocaust coverage
- Disinformation report: The "largest con in corporate history"?
- Tips and tricks: All about writing at DYK
- Featured content: Eden, lost.
- Gallery: Love is in the air
- From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago: Let's (not) delete the Main Page!
- Humour: The RfA Candidate's Song
Administrators' newsletter – March 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
- Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
- A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.
Technical news
- The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.
Arbitration
- Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
- The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
- A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.
Miscellaneous
- The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
- Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
- The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a
[p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing
. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.
WikiCup 2023 March newsletter
So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:
Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.
The top sixteen contestants at the end of Round 1 had all scored over 300 points; these included 
LunaEatsTuna, 
Thebiguglyalien, 
Sammi Brie, 
Trainsandotherthings, 
Lee Vilenski, 
Juxlos, 
Unexpectedlydian, 
SounderBruce, 
Kosack, 
BennyOnTheLoose and 
PCN02WPS. It was a high-scoring start to the competition.
These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.
If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:37, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 9 March 2023
- News and notes: What's going on with the Wikimedia Endowment?
- Technology report: Second flight of the Soviet space bears: Testing ChatGPT's accuracy
- In the media: What should Wikipedia do? Publish Russian propaganda? Be less woke? Cover the Holocaust in Poland differently?
- Featured content: In which over two-thirds of the featured articles section needs to be copied over to WikiProject Military History's newsletter
- Recent research: "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the Holocaust" in Poland and "self-focus bias" in coverage of global events
- From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
Books & Bytes – Issue 55
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 55, January – February 2023
- New bundle partners:
- Newspapers.com
- Fold3
- 1Lib1Ref January report
- Spotlight: EDS SmartText Searching
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:46, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 March 2023
- News and notes: Wikimania submissions deadline looms, Russian government after our lucky charms, AI woes nix CNET from RS slate
- Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians
- In the media: Paid editing, plagiarism payouts, proponents of a ploy, and people peeved at perceived preferences
- Featured content: Way too many featured articles
- Interview: 228/2/1: the inside scoop on Aoidh's RfA
- Traffic report: Who died? Who won? Who lost?
The Signpost: 03 April 2023
- From the editor: Some long-overdue retractions
- News and notes: Sounding out, a universal code of conduct, and dealing with AI
- Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" case is ongoing
- Featured content: Hail, poetry! Thou heav'n-born maid
- Recent research: Language bias: Wikipedia captures at least the "silhouette of the elephant", unlike ChatGPT
- From the archives: April Fools' through the ages
- Disinformation report: Sus socks support suits, seems systemic
Administrators' newsletter – April 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.
Technical news
- Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
- The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
- A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.
Arbitration
- The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
- A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.
The Signpost: 26 April 2023
- News and notes: Staff departures at Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo hands in the bits, and graphs' zeppelin burns
- In the media: Contested truth claims in Wikipedia
- Obituary: Remembering David "DGG" Goodman
- Arbitration report: Holocaust in Poland, Jimbo in the hot seat, and a desysopping
- Special report: Signpost statistics between years 2005 and 2022
- News from the WMF: Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation
- Featured content: In which we described the featured articles in rhyme again
- From the archives: April Fools' through the ages, part two
- Humour: The law of hats
- Traffic report: Long live machine, the future supreme
WikiCup 2023 May newsletter
The second round of the 2023 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to have scored 60 points to advance into round 3. Our top five scorers in round 2 all included a featured article among their submissions and each scored over 500 points. They were:
- Iazyges (1040) with three FAs on Byzantine emperors, and lots of bonus points.
- Unlimitedlead (847), with three FAs on ancient history, one GA and nine reviews.
- Epicgenius (636), a WikiCup veteran, with one FA on the New Amsterdam Theatre, four GAs and eleven DYKs
BennyOnTheLoose (553), a seasoned competitor, with one FA on snooker, six GAs and seven reviews.- FrB.TG (525), with one FA, a Lady Gaga song and a mass of bonus points.
Other notable performances were put in by Sammi Brie, Thebiguglyalien, 
MyCatIsAChonk, PCN02WPS, and 
AirshipJungleman29.
So far contestants have achieved thirteen featured articles between them, one being a joint effort, and forty-nine good articles. The judges are pleased with the thorough reviews that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.
Technical news
- Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.
Arbitration
- The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.
Miscellaneous
- The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.
The Signpost: 8 May 2023
- News and notes: New legal "deVLOPments" in the EU
- In the media: Vivek's smelly socks, online safety, and politics
- Recent research: Gender, race and notability in deletion discussions
- Featured content: I wrote a poem for each article, I found rhymes for all the lists; My first featured picture of this year now finally exists!
- Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" approaches conclusion
- News from the WMF: Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation
The Signpost: 22 May 2023
- In the media: History, propaganda and censorship
- Arbitration report: Final decision in "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland"
- Featured content: A very musical week for featured articles
- Traffic report: Coronation, chatbot, celebs
Books & Bytes – Issue 56
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 56, March – April 2023
- New partner:
- Perlego
- Library access tips and tricks
- Spotlight: EveryBookItsReader
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:04, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 5 June 2023
- News and notes: WMRU director forks new 'pedia, birds flap in top '22 piccy, WMF weighs in on Indian gov's map axe plea
- Featured content: Poetry under pressure
- Traffic report: Celebs, controversies and a chatbot in the public eye
Administrators' newsletter – June 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
- As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's IP Masking project, a new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.
Technical news
- Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.
Arbitration
- The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.
Miscellaneous
- Following a community referendum, the arbitration policy has been modified to remove the ability for users to appeal remedies to Jimbo Wales.
The Signpost: 19 June 2023
- News and notes: WMF Terms of Use now in force, new Creative Commons licensing
- Featured content: Content, featured
- Recent research: Hoaxers prefer currently-popular topics
Administrators' newsletter – July 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2023).
Administrator changes
Bureaucrat changes
Guideline and policy news
- Contributions to the English Wikipedia are now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of CC BY-SA 3.0. Contributions are still also released under the GFDL license.
Technical news
- Discussion is open regarding a proposed global policy regarding third-party resources. Third-party resources are computer resources that reside outside of Wikimedia production websites.
Arbitration
- Two arbitration cases are currently open. Proposed decisions are expected 5 July 2023 for the Scottywong case and 9 July 2023 for the AlisonW case.
The Signpost: 3 July 2023
- Disinformation report: Imploded submersible outfit foiled trying to sing own praises on Wikipedia
- Featured content: Incensed
- Traffic report: Are you afraid of spiders? Arnold? The Idol? ChatGPT?
WikiCup 2023 July newsletter
The third round of the 2023 WikiCup has come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 175 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
Thebiguglyalien, with 919 points from a featured article on Frances Cleveland as well as five good articles and many reviews,- Unlimitedlead, with 862 points from a high-scoring featured articles on Henry II of England and numerous reviews,
- Iazyges, with 560 points from a high-scoring featured article on Tiberius III.
Contestants achieved 11 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 47 good articles, 72 featured or good article reviews, over 100 DYKs and 40 ITN appearances. As always, any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.
If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 July 2023
- In the media: Tentacles of Emirates plot attempt to ensnare Wikipedia
- Tips and tricks: What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject)
- Featured content: Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin', keep those readers scrollin', got to keep on scrollin', Rawhide!
- Traffic report: The Idol becomes the Master
Books & Bytes – Issue 57
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 57, May – June 2023
- Suggestion improvements
- Favorite collections tips
- Spotlight: Promoting Nigerian Books and Authors
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 1 August 2023
- News and notes: City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians, Ruwiki founder banned, WMF launches Mastodon server
- In the media: Truth, AI, bull from politicians, and climate change
- Disinformation report: Hot climate, hot hit, hot money, hot news hot off the presses!
- Tips and tricks: Citation tools for dummies!
- In focus: Journals cited by Wikipedia
- Opinion: Are global bans the last step?
- Featured content: Featured Content, 1 to 15 July
- Traffic report: Come on Oppie, let's go party
Administrators' newsletter – August 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Technical news
- The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
- Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)
Arbitration
- The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
- The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.
The Signpost: 15 August 2023
- News and notes: Dude, Where's My Donations? Wikimedia Foundation announces another million in grants for non-Wikimedia-related projects
- Tips and tricks: How to find images for your articles, check their copyright, upload them, and restore them
- Cobwebs: Getting serious about writing
- Serendipity: Why I stopped taking photographs almost altogether
- Featured content: Barbenheimer confirmed
- Traffic report: 'Cause today it just goes with the fashion
The Signpost: 31 August 2023
- From the editor: Beta version of signpost.news now online
- News and notes: You like RecentChanges?
- In the media: Taking it sleazy
- Recent research: The five barriers that impede "stitching" collaboration between Commons and Wikipedia
- Draftspace: Bad Jokes and Other Draftspace Novelties
- Humour: The Dehumourification Plan
- Traffic report: Raise your drinking glass, here's to yesterday
Administrators' newsletter – September 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).
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Guideline and policy news
- Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
- A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that
[s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment
.
Technical news
- Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date. (T324166)
Arbitration
- The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming
local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus
. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged tonote when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful
.
Miscellaneous
- Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.
WikiCup 2023 September newsletter
The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were
- Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was- Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.
Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.
Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them and within 24 hours of the end of the final. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.
I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), and Cwmhiraeth (talk)
Books & Bytes – Issue 58
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 58, July – August 2023
- New partners - De Standaard and Duncker & Humblot
- Tech tip: Filters
- Wikimania presentation
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --14:27, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 16 September 2023
- In the media: "Just flirting", going Dutch and Shapps for the defence?
- Obituary: Nosebagbear
- Featured content: Catching up
- Traffic report: Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic
The Signpost: 3 October 2023
- News and notes: Wikimedia Endowment financial statement published
- Recent research: Readers prefer ChatGPT over Wikipedia; concerns about limiting "anyone can edit" principle "may be overstated"
- Featured content: By your logic,
- Poetry: "The Sight"
The Signpost: 23 October 2023
- News and notes: Where have all the administrators gone?
- In the media: Thirst traps, the fastest loading sites on the web, and the original collaborative writing
- Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to know how to restore images to make massive improvements
- Featured content: Yo, ho! Blow the man down!
- Traffic report: The calm and the storm
- News from Diff: Sawtpedia: Giving a Voice to Wikipedia Using QR Codes
WikiCup 2023 November newsletter
The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, 
BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-
BeanieFan11 with 2582 points- Thebiguglyalien with 1615 points
- Epicgenius with 1518 points
MyCatIsAChonk with 1012 points- BennyOnTheLoose with 974 points
AirshipJungleman29 with 673 points- Sammi Brie with 520 points
- Unlimitedlead with 5 points
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.
- Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
- MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.- MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
- BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
- Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.- MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
- Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.
The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 6 November 2023
- Arbitration report: Admin bewilderingly unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin who was extremely banned in 2015
- In the media: UK shadow chancellor accused of ripping off WP articles for book, Wikipedians accused of being dicks by a rich man
- Opinion: An open letter to Elon Musk
- WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2023
- News from Wiki Ed: Equity lists on Wikipedia
- Recent research: How English Wikipedia drove out fringe editors over two decades
- Featured content: Like putting a golf course in a historic site.
- Traffic report: Cricket jumpscare
Administrators' newsletter – November 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).
Administrator changes
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
- The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
- There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
- Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
- Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
- Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
- Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
- Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
- An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.
Miscellaneous
- The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!
The Signpost: 20 November 2023
- In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup
- News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health
- Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads
- Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom
- Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships
Books & Bytes – Issue 59
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 59, September – October 2023
- Spotlight: Introducing a repository of anti-disinformation projects
- Tech tip: Library access methods
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
The Signpost: 4 December 2023
- In the media: Turmoil on Hebrew Wikipedia, grave dancing, Olga's impact and inspiring Bhutanese nuns
- Disinformation report: "Wikipedia and the assault on history"
- Comix: Bold comics for a new age
- Essay: I am going to die
- Featured content: Real gangsters move in silence
- Traffic report: And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain
- Humour: Mandy Rice-Davies Applies
Administrators' newsletter – December 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.
Arbitration
- Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
- The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
- Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
The Signpost: 24 December 2023
- Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article?
- News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023
- In the media: Consider the humble fork
- Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI
- In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU
- Technology report: Dark mode is coming
- Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata
- Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols
- Comix: Lollus lmaois 200C tincture
- Crossword: when the crossword is sus
- Traffic report: What's the big deal? I'm an animal!
- From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^
- Humour: Guess the joke contest
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 23
New year, new scripts. Welcome to the 23rd issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering around 39% of our favorite new and updated user scripts since 24 December 2021. That’s right, we haven’t published in two years! Can you believe it? Did you miss us?
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Featured script
- RefRenamer by Nardog is this issue's featured script. For whatever reason, the foundation will only give us better reference names in VisualEditor if we wish for it in the next survey. Nardog to the rescue! This script has a ton of options to satisfy almost anyone who wishes to use better refnames than ":0" and ":418".
Updated scripts
- Nardog: MoveHistory can now look up the move history of any page from anywhere on the site.
- User:Enterprisey/diff-permalink now has a version that copies the Special:Diff link with square brackets.
- User:GhostInTheMachine/WatchlistTidy now moves the Active Filters panel to the right so that the Show/Hide button doesn't constantly jump.
- User:Alexander Davronov/HistoryHelper has now become stable with some bugfixes and features such as automatically highlighting potentially uncivil edit summaries and automatically pinging all the users selected.
- Wikipedia:AutoEd/unicodehex.js will no longer replace legacy MediaWiki dot-entities (dot followed by two uppercase alphanumeric characters) in article links, which caused several links to become broken.
Improve a script
- Many of our favorite scripts such as User:Fred Gandt/userResourceManager, User:Guarapiranga/search-shortcuts and User:Bradv/Scripts/Superlinks haven't been updated for Vector 2022. You could be the one to change that!
- User:Elominius/gadget/media timer works, but its UI looks alien. Someone could improve it...
- To a lesser extent, the same goes for User:PrimeHunter/Search sort.js. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
- We want...
- ...a mark-as-read button for Watchlyst Greybar Unsin
- ...a tool to automatically fix CAT:BROKENREFs, preferably a fork/addition to User:TheJJJunk/ARA
- ...a fix/fork of User:DannyS712/SectionRemover.js to make it work
Requested scripts
- A WP:3O requesting and responding tool, similar to Terasil's classic edit request tool
- A "bytes removed"/"added" filter on the user contribs page
- A review tool for WP:proposed deletions
- Mass patrol new pages by a user for use in WP:RFP/A
- ...and many more, all available at Wikipedia:User scripts/Requests
New scripts
- Aaron Liu: Watchlyst Greybar Unsin is a rewrite of Ais's Watchlist Notifier with modern APIs and several new features such as not displaying watchlist items marked as seen (hence the name), not bolding diffs of unseen watchlist elements which doesn’t work properly anyways, displaying the rendered edit summary, proper display of log and creation actions and more links.
- Alexis Jazz: Factotum is a spiritual successor to reply-link with a host of extra features like section adding, link rewriting, regular expressions and more.
- User:Aveaoz/AutoMobileRedirect: This script will automatically redirect MobileFrontend (en.m.wikipedia) to normal Wikipedia. Unlike existing scripts, this one will actually check if your browser is mobile or not through its secret agent string, so you can stay logged in on mobile! Hooray screen estate!
- Chlod:
- Deputy is a first-of-its-kind copyright cleanup toolkit. It overrides the interface for Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations for easy case processing. It also includes the functionality of the following (also new) scripts:
- Attribution Notice Template Editor (ANTE) graphically modifies content attribution notices. It is the successor to User:Chlod/Scripts/CopiedTemplateEditor and supports more templates than {{copied}} ones.
- Infringement Assistant allows a user to hide sections of a page for suspected copyright violations and report the page to the appropriate Wikipedia:Copyright problems noticeboard.
- Deputy is a first-of-its-kind copyright cleanup toolkit. It overrides the interface for Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations for easy case processing. It also includes the functionality of the following (also new) scripts:
- User:Elominius/gadget/diff arrow keys allows navigation between diffs with the arrow keys. It also has a version that requires holding Ctrl with the arrow key.
- Enterprisey
- diff-permalink-2 allows quickly copying wikilinks to diff and permalink pages from those pages, a variation of existing script User:Enterprisey/diff-permalink
- archiver is a fork of Σ's Archiver with several bugfixes.
- /parent-cats highlights categories that are a subcategory of a category already included in a page's categories.
- User:Guarapiranga/accessKeysCheatSheet adds an access key shortcut to display all shortcuts based on code provided by Nardog and NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh.
- User:HungKhanh0106/ProperDisplay loads a bunch of fonts to add correct rendering supports for "esoteric" languages.
- User:Jeeputer/highlightPiped will make piped links irresistible (or else).
- User:Jerome Frank Disciple/curlyfixer.js adds an WP:AutoEd function that straightens curly quotes per MOS. That's right! Such a module was only made in the 14th year of AutoEd's existence! Configure away!
- Frequently link to Wikipedia on your websites yet find generating CC-BY credits to be such a hassle? Say no more! User:Luke10.27/attribute will automatically do it for ya and copy the credit to yer clipboard.
- User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft, a spiritual successor (i.e. fork) to Evad37's script, with a few bugs solved, and a host of extra features like check-boxes for choosing draftification reasons, multi-contributor notification, and appropriate warnings based on last edit time.
- Nardog
- /CopyCodeBlock: one of the most important operations for any scripter and script-user is to copy and paste. This script adds a copy button in the top right of every code block (not to be confused with <code>) that will, well, copy it to your clipboard!
- /RCMuter: Hide specific users, perhaps User:MediaWiki message delivery, from the Watchlist and Recent Changes.
- /VitalTopicon makes you see the vital article topicon on WP:vital articles.
- m:User:NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh/AceForLuaDebugConsole.js adds the Ace editor (a.k.a. the editor you see when editing JS, CSS and Lua on Wikimedia wikis) to the Lua debug console. "In my opinion, whoever designed it to be a plain <textarea> needs to seriously reconsider their decision."
- Novem Linguae
- DraftCleaner fixes formatting of new articles.
- GANReviewTool quickly and easily closes good article nominations.
- ReviewStatus displays whether or not a mainspace page is marked as reviewed.
- SpeciesHelper tries to add the correct speciesbox, category, taxonbar, and stub template to species articles.
- User:Opencooper/svgReplace and Tol's fork replaces all rasterized SVGs with their original SVG codes for your loading pleasures. Tell us which one is better!
- User:Phlsph7/HighlightUnreferencedPassages adds a button to highlight all unreferenced paragraphs in reds, and can even do it automatically.
- Still hate Vector 2022's floating TOC? User:Phlsph7/UnfoldedNumberedTOC(Vector2022) might make you give it a try.
- Quite a bit of pages at Special:WantedCategories either exist now or got removed. User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/hideUnwantedCategories automatically hides those.
- User:SuperHamster's Wikipedia:Tools/View it! generates a gallery of images for a given subject on any Wikimedia project utilizing Structured Data on Commons. Images can then be added as needed.
- Terasail
- ArticleInfo displays page information at the top of the page, directly below the title.
- /HeaderIcons takes away the Vector 2022 user dropdown and replaces it with all of the icons within, top level, right next to the Watchlist. One less click away! There's also an alternate version that uses text links instead of icons.
- ...and any more, all available at WP:US/L.
Due to budget and procrastination limitations, we've only had time to review the first ~39% of the scripts since last issue. Help us out here! Aaron Liu (talk) 13:24, 29 December 2023 (UTC)