User talk:Philosopher/Archive 11
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Ping
I have sent you an e-mail. --Tenmei (talk) 02:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks - I've replied at your talk page. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:38, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you for your time and consideration. As a gesture of appreciation, may I share a rhetorical question from the Analects of Confucius: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" --Tenmei (talk) 15:31, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Belated RfA news
I'm writing to let you know that WP:Requests for adminship/SMcCandlish 2 goes live today. You had previously indicated an interest in the (long-delayed) RfA, at User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 21#RFA.2FSMcCandlish on 26 August 2008. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 19:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Davenport Template
Do you think Davenport has enough related articles that I could use its own navigational template, or no? CTJF83 chat 21:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
- Sure - it looks like you should have enough articles to create a parallel to {{Chicago}} or some such. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- Would you add places like Davenport Public Library and Davenport Skybridge or just main things like History of Davenport, Iowa and Neighborhoods of Davenport, Iowa? CTJF83 GoUSA 20:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'd list the main ones first - depending on how much space they take up, you might add a few of the others. Just my thoughts, though - I'm not really familiar with how city nav-templates are structured. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ok CTJF83 GoUSA 20:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
- How does this look? CTJF83 GoUSA 22:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
- {{Davenport}} looks good! :) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:25, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
- How does this look? CTJF83 GoUSA 22:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
- Ok CTJF83 GoUSA 20:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'd list the main ones first - depending on how much space they take up, you might add a few of the others. Just my thoughts, though - I'm not really familiar with how city nav-templates are structured. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:17, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
- Would you add places like Davenport Public Library and Davenport Skybridge or just main things like History of Davenport, Iowa and Neighborhoods of Davenport, Iowa? CTJF83 GoUSA 20:57, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Final discussion for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
Hello, I note that you have commented on the first phase of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
As this RFC closes, there are two proposals being considered:
- Proposal to Close This RfC
- Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy
Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip 03:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
WikiProject State Legislatures
Hey Philosopher, I am looking to jump start the WikiProject State Legislatures. If you would to help set goals and recruit members I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks, --ilamb94 (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry for the late reply - school has been exceptionally busy recently. Did you have anything in particular you were looking to achieve with the project? Of the work I've done on state legislatures, collaboration has really only been done for general issues - WP and WT:IOWA/G, or occasionally WP:POLITICIAN; with discussion at specific pages - Template talk:Current Iowa Senators - when specific issues come up; but most of the work has simply been done by individuals. What particular issue(s) do you see that require collaboration? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
John L. Bascom
I came across some redlinks involving John L. Bascom who served in the Iowa House of Representatives. Rather then removed the redlinks-it was easier to start a stub-Thanks-RFD (talk) 12:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
- Awesome - thanks for letting me know! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Simple
You ever gonna return? :) fr33kman -simpleWP- 05:37, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
- Probably not. I'm not spending as much time on Wikipedia as I used to, and most of that is going to be on en. I'll still pop in now and again, though. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
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The Land Before Time
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why have you deleted my article
my article was about being heard a contreversy about him not an attack choose a poor choice of words probably but please put it back and let people read it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Citizen of S.D. (talk • contribs)
- I just re-read it for consideration, and have to conclude that it was an attack page violating both WP:ATTACK and WP:BLP. It was an unsourced attack (no controversy was referenced) on an individual, making an allegation and urging an action against a person. Such attack pages are not allowed on Wikipedia. If there is a legitimate controversy, and if this person is notable, please read both policies (linked above) carefully before attempting to re-create the article, noting that such an article needs both references from credible sources and a neutral tone. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
- If you wish to challenge the deletion or have another administrator review the article, you may do so at WP:Deletion review. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Template:Narnia character has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. WOSlinker (talk) 21:59, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
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WikiProject Iowa * * * Iowa House Senators and Representatives * * *
I have just signed up as a Wiki editor and will have a long learning curve. I have picked out two Iowa politian stubs that have just the very basic page start to work on. Deborah Berry (Democrat) House District 22 is the area I grew up and have a passing friendship with her father and one brother (a very large family) and Kraig Paulsen (Republican) House District 35 who is my current representative. At this time I am planning to use the Dave Loebsack page as a guide unless you can suggest better sites to emulate. I would prefer a State Representative site. RifeIdeasTalk
How do I add the time and day stamp to my personalized User ID? RifeIdeas (talk) 19:34, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
I found the answer to my own time and date stamp question! RifeIdeasTalk 21:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
- As a starter, have you read {{Welcome}} yet? It contains some good tips for beginning users. You may also want to take a look at WP:IOWA/G if you haven't yet. Finally, for ease of communication, I've added links in your initial post.
- But I haven't answered your question. Good models of state-level politicians would be Christopher Rants, former Speaker of the Iowa House, who has a rather simplistic article not much more developed than those of Berry and Paulsen (I created it at about the same time I created the others - I was just using their official state legislative page, their Project Vote Smart page, and their listings in the Iowa Official Register and didn't dig around for more information). More detailed models would be those of Iowa Governor Chet Culver and former Speaker of the California Assembly Fabian Núñez, though I would retain the committee listings (though they may need updating) in the articles despite the fact that Governor Culver and Speaker Núñez don't have them in their articles. Hope this helps! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, and a final note - if I come through and edit Berry and Paulsen's articles, I'm probably not trying to interfere - I'm making a series of mostly minor changes to the articles of all of the members of Category:Iowa State Senators and Category:Members of the Iowa House of Representatives. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- A final, final note. (Enough, already! I know.) Please do not use Dave Loebsack as a model article - the tags note some of the issues with the article - now that I've taken a look at it, the entire Political positions section either needs to be rewritten or removed. If you want an example of a federal representative to use as a source of ideas, I'd recommend Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner instead. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, and a final note - if I come through and edit Berry and Paulsen's articles, I'm probably not trying to interfere - I'm making a series of mostly minor changes to the articles of all of the members of Category:Iowa State Senators and Category:Members of the Iowa House of Representatives. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, I have spent the last two days of my free time reading and learning about Wiki editing (including the Welcome, WP IOWA/G, markup and many other pages which I have bookmarked) as this is an entirely new field of learning for me. Thanks again for all the leads of sites to emulate (I bookmarked them), The Christopher Rants site is too simplistic in my opinion, I found the Ralph Watts site (style not the content) to be more in line with my thinking. I have made only 2 small edits to Deborah Berry's site as I want to learn how to site and link references before adding much information therefore eliminating the need for referencing cleanup. I searched for a "free copyright" picture of Deborah to no avail and have emailed her with a request for one, but can I use her picture from the official State website for the interim or for that matter for all state reps and senators?
A final note (haha) any and all information and/or suggestions you give me is greatly appreciated, and you never need to apologize for the length, and I expect (and welcome) someone to be checking up on me and making changes to my edits as I am a newbie, the goal is for that not to be needed. Oh thanks for adding the links in my initial post as by looking back to your work I have learned and used this tool in this post, also I purposely did not add colons as I felt this was not really just a reply but a new information communication. RifeIdeasTalk 15:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) You would be unable to use pictures from the official state site, as they are copyright, and per WP:NFCC if a free image can be used, you can't use a copyright image. Try www.flickr.com for images, noting they must be one of the acceptable licenses at WP:FLICKR. Oh, and as he pointed out, I'm working on Davenport, Iowa and can be of assistance to any questions. you have, RifeIdeas.
- Asking them for an image sounds like a good idea, but you'll have to specify that the image be released either into the public domain or by the CC-BY-SA license, though. Simply "for Wikipedia" doesn't work because all Wikipedia content can be used elsewhere by other sites. If you want to learn more about referencing, these two templates come in VERY handy - {{cite book}} and {{cite web}}. That way you don't have to worry about formatting, you just plug the information into the parameters and it formats it for you. --Philosopher Let us reason together. via alternate account 02:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
- Since I'm already in edit mode, Philosopher, what do you think of pages like Iowa Senate elections, 2010 and Iowa House of Representative elections, 2010? CTJF83 chat 16:00, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- I noticed that they hadn't been created yet (whoops! I should have made sure those were created a while ago!) - they're on my to do list to make some time in the next week or so. But if you wanted to go ahead and do it, that's fine too. --Philosopher Let us reason together. via alternate account 02:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Being new at this I did not know that someone had made pages for the Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2006 and Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2008 until today. Otherwise I may of used them for my sourcing. Looking at them I am sure that there was a typo in the 2006 House page under the heading of House Composition. The boxes were reading Iowa Senate: pre election and Iowa Senate: post election and should of read House instead of Senate. Looking at the editing I seen it was an easy fix so I changed them inserted House for Senate. I hope this was okay and that just House was okay instead of House of Representatives.
Looking at the two sites I would say that the 2006 site is much easier to read although I seen a formatting problem with the Total votes area of each district. On the 2008 Elections page I have a harder time discerning between the different districts and can see problems with visually challenged users (like me) seeing the breaks between districts, maybe some kind of outline between the districts (a note this format is very similar to ctjf83 example you pasted on the Iowa/gov talk page). Just a though If we can come up with a standardized way of making these same templates usable on both the Main results page and individual representatives and senators pages it would be easier to just copy and paste from here on out.
I apologize for being (off topic) on the WT:IOWA/G#Vote count formats in articles. page about the committees but at least I learned about the changes in committees from you. I have been going by and will continue to use those of record from the official Iowa General Assembly site.RifeIdeas Talk 23:12, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- It was a right forum to discuss it in, don't worry. It's good if the discussion occasionally occurs in a more "formal" forum instead of just on our talk pages (which is why I put the election temmplate discussion there - I don't know anyone else is watching it, but if they are, they'll be able to join the discussion). With regard to the committees, I believe the one from the official site reflects the committee assignments as of the end of the members' terms, and with the current members it represents an almost-up-to-date version. A good source, imho. --Philosopher Let us reason together. via alternate account 01:48, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
- I also agree 2006 is easier to read. 2008 has a color overload, and it is semi-hard to straight across and see for sure which district a candidate is in. Perhaps for the 2006 we could bold or put an (I) for the incumbent? CTJF83 chat 03:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
- Oh, I see the * now...might not be as easy to notice as we'd like. CTJF83 chat 03:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
- IMHO we should come up with a well thought out way of using voting results that can be used for both the Iowa House of Representatives elections, 2010 and for individual Representatives pages and then back track and rework both the 2006 and 2008 pages (Senators also and possibly earlier years).RifeIdeas Talk 12:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Hi Philosopher. Because you participated in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/MediaWiki:History short, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 23#MediaWiki:History short. Cunard (talk) 06:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know! --Philosopher Let us reason together. via alternate account 03:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Conflict in Article of Andre Geim, winner of 2010 Nobel Prize
Hi, I am a foreigner and a simple reader of Wikipedia. Thank you very much for your job. Frankly say, Editing article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Geim, is in a wrong way, by colluding of some editors and admins there. Their IDs are: Therexbanner, Gladsmile, Narking, Christopher Connor, RobertMfromLI, NickCT, Beetstra, 7. These Users are trying by reverting correct edits of the article, and doing a sort of anagram and "misusing" information in sources, show Mr. Andre Geim (winner of 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics) is not a Jewish and he has another ethnic. They seem like pure (but a bit hidden)vandalism. All correct RS sources, like:
- http://www.scientific-computing.com/features/feature.php?feature_id=1,
- http://www.russia-ic.com/education_science/science/breakthrough/1176/,
- http://www.forward.com/articles/131944/
- http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2010/10/07_a_3426604.shtml
- http://www.kfki.hu/chemonet/osztaly/kemia/ih.pdf
- http://onnes.ph.man.ac.uk/~geim/pt.html
- http://www.forward.com/articles/131944/
- http://www.russia-ic.com/education_science/science/breakthrough/1176/
- …
clearly show that Mr. Andre Geim is a Jewish (he repeatedly mentioned about his Jewishness, [subject of self-identification]) in ethnical point of view and his family was originated from Germany(he also several times mentioned that his family are German [origin]). Nowadays German is a general word, which could means: Citizenship, Nationality, Origin, residentship, and so on. When Geim is taking about German being of his family, clearly and logically he talks about their origin before emigration to Russia. There is the same situation about Richard Feynman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman. By the way in a reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Andre_Geim_interview_to_Yedioth_Ahronoth,_Oct_15_2010,_p._25.jpg, (that several times misused by above Users) Geim also said a story concerning Jewishness (clearly in religious point of view) of his grandmother, that of course it doesn’t mean that only his grandmother was a Jewish. Now in article as I checked the history of the article, above Users by reverting the correct edits there, try to present and show by their wrong way Mr. Geim an “ethnic” German person. The point is that in any RS sources, Geim hasn’t say that he has such ethnic, and he never used word “ethnic” there. Andre Geim won the Nobel Prize in the beginning of October; unfortunately, right after his winning until now, above Users kept the text of the article in a wrong position. In any case, if you have time, please check this Users carefully. By the way USER:Gladsmile, repeatedly reverted and undid the edits there, without any explanation(even wrong one). Personaly, seems like an extrimist Vandalism. BestAlexander468 (talk) 16:41, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you, but they seem to be discussing these issues already at the talk page - Talk:Andre Geim - that would be the best place to pursue this. If you still believe it needs outside editor and/or admin input, you can report the page to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Iowa politicians
OK. Sorry. A little OCD there. I am glad I caught the vandalism on Tom Rielly's page most of all. Rms125a@hotmail.com (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
- Indeed, thanks for going after the vandalism, though I think you may have missed a spot. ;-) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
That time again.....
This will be our friend for a while...how do you wanna go about updating all the election results, new house/senate totals, etc, etc. CTJF83 chat 20:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, RL has got me at the moment, I've got a big test tomorrow. Can I get back to you Saturday evening/Sunday evening? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
- Another thing - I don't know how to handle vote counts right now. It is my impression that there are a few elections where the result isn't certain, but I don't know if that's because votes are still being counted or because recounts are going on. If the former, we can go ahead and just update the recounted districts later; if the latter, we may want to hold off until final vote counts are available. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ok, the SOS website says unofficial vote. I think if it is a blowout, we can go ahead and do it, and update it later, but I guess 2 Senate seats are too close to call, I'm hearing, so we should wait on those...or we can wait for all official results. Good luck on the test! CTJF83 chat 19:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
- Looks like RifeIdeas is already doing this. Good for him - I've been busy for the last few days, though I'll get into it soon too. In the meantime, I'm starting a discussion over at WT:IOWA/G on the formats we record vote counts in articles in. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:39, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ok, I'll get on adding some eventually. CTJF83 chat 23:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- Looks like RifeIdeas is already doing this. Good for him - I've been busy for the last few days, though I'll get into it soon too. In the meantime, I'm starting a discussion over at WT:IOWA/G on the formats we record vote counts in articles in. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 14:39, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- Ok, the SOS website says unofficial vote. I think if it is a blowout, we can go ahead and do it, and update it later, but I guess 2 Senate seats are too close to call, I'm hearing, so we should wait on those...or we can wait for all official results. Good luck on the test! CTJF83 chat 19:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
- Another thing - I don't know how to handle vote counts right now. It is my impression that there are a few elections where the result isn't certain, but I don't know if that's because votes are still being counted or because recounts are going on. If the former, we can go ahead and just update the recounted districts later; if the latter, we may want to hold off until final vote counts are available. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
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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
- FileImporter and FileExporter became standard features on all Wikis during the first week of August. They help you transfer files from local wikis to Wikimedia Commons with the original file information and history intact. [17]
Problems
- The mobile skin displays a message at the bottom of the page about who edited last. This message showed raw wikitext. This has now been fixed. Some messages in Structured Discussions and content translation may still appear as raw wikitext. Developers are working on it. [18]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 12. It will be on all wikis from August 13 (calendar).
Future changes
- All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [19][20]
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16:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Israel on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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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
- If you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an
undotag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else. [21] - The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems. [22]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).
Future changes
- All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message. [23][24]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:41, 17 August 2020 (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 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).
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17:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment
Your feedback is requested at User talk:Citation bot on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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The Signpost: 30 August 2020
- News and notes: The high road and the low road
- In the media: Storytelling large and small
- Featured content: Going for the goal
- Special report: Wikipedia's not so little sister is finding its own way
- Op-Ed: The longest-running hoax
- Traffic report: Heart, soul, umbrellas, and politics
- News from the WMF: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online
- Recent research: Detecting spam, and pages to protect; non-anonymous editors signal their intelligence with high-quality articles
- Arbitration report: A slow couple of months
- From the archives: Wikipedia for promotional purposes?
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
- This is a reminder. All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 14:00 and 15:00 UTC. Please check on the details on the announcement message. [25][26]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
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20:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next month.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:06, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
WikiCup 2020 September newsletter
The fourth round of the competition has finished, with 865 points being required to qualify for the final round, nearly twice as many points as last year. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with 598 and 605 points being eliminated, and all but two of the contestants who reached the final round having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were
Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
HaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
Lee Vilenski with 1201 points mainly gained from 2 featured articles and 10 good articles.
Between them, contestants achieved 14 featured articles, 14 featured lists, 2 featured pictures, 87 good articles, 90 DYK entries, 75 ITN entries, 95 featured article candidate reviews and 81 good article reviews. Congratulations to 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. 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
- A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors
must
orshould
use the articles for creation process. - A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.
Feedback request: Biographies request for comment
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Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment
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Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
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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.
Changes later this week
- Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere. [27]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
- All MediaWiki API modules will now use
watchlistinstead ofwatch. This was inconsistent before. [28]
Future changes
- The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
- OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change. [29]
- The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users. [30][31]
- Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
- Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a
.menuclass. This will not work in the future. Scripts can usenav ulinstead..vectorTabsand.vectorMenuwill also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
Precious anniversary 7
 | |
| Seven years! |
|---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:07, 10 September 2020 (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
- The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [32][33]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 14 September 2020 (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 is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [34][35]
Changes later this week
- The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [36]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
Imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions will be removed if you do not return to activity within the next several days.
Inactive administrators are encouraged to rejoin the project in earnest rather than to make token edits to avoid loss of administrative permissions. Resources and support for reengaging with the project are available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/administrators. If you do not intend to rejoin the project in the foreseeable future, please consider voluntarily resigning your administrative permissions by making a request at the bureaucrats' noticeboard.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — JJMC89 bot 00:00, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 September 2020
- Special report: Paid editing with political connections
- News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki
- In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later
- Featured content: Life finds a Way
- Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests
- Traffic report: Is there no justice?
- Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases
The Signpost: 27 September 2020
- Special report: Paid editing with political connections
- News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki
- In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later
- Featured content: Life finds a Way
- Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests
- Traffic report: Is there no justice?
- Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases
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
- Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [37]
- Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [38]
Problems
- Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [39]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
- The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
- In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see
Appsas one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [40] - You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
- You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Established policy provides for removal of the administrative permissions of users who have not made any edits or logged actions in the preceding twelve months. Because you have been inactive, your administrative permissions have been removed.
Subject to certain time limits and other restrictions, your administrative permissions may be returned upon request at WP:BN.
Thank you for your past contributions to the project. — xaosflux Talk 00:51, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
Administrator changes
Ajpolino • LuK3
Jackmcbarn
Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created
.
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
Technical news
- The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).
Arbitration
- The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
- Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.
Miscellaneous
- The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
- Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.
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 new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
- You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [41]
Problems
- There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [42]
- Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [43]
- Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
- Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in
[[Child]]renis linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [44]
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [45]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:24, 5 October 2020 (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
- Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [46][47][48]
Changes later this week
- Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [49][50]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).
Future changes
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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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.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [52]
- In the AbuseFilter extension, the
rmspecials()function will be updated soon 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. [53] - Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID
#jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either#siteSubor#mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:30, 19 October 2020 (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
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [54]
- Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [55]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [56]
- There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [57]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [58]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).
|
|
|
Guideline and policy news
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet
, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
Technical news
- Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
- Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
- Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.
Arbitration
- The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
- The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.
Miscellaneous
- A reminder that
standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.
(American Politics 2 Arbitration case).
- A reminder that
The Signpost: 1 November 2020
- News and notes: Ban on IPs on ptwiki, paid editing for Tatarstan, IP masking
- In the media: Murder, politics, religion, health and books
- Book review: Review of Wikipedia @ 20
- Discussion report: Proposal to change board composition, In The News dumps Trump story
- Featured content: The "Green Terror" is neither green nor sufficiently terrifying. Worst Hallowe'en ever.
- Traffic report: Jump back, what's that sound?
- Interview: Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner
- News from the WMF: Meet the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year
- Recent research: OpenSym 2020: Deletions and gender, masses vs. elites, edit filters
- In focus: The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia
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
- You can no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [59]
- There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the
{{formatnum}}parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g.{{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that{{formatnum:123,456}}is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [60]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
- Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [61]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [62]
Future changes
- A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of
{{formatnum}}when it is given a negative argument. [63] - In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
WikiCup 2020 November newsletter
The 2020 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round going down to the wire. Our new Champion is 
Lee Vilenski (submissions), the runner-up last year, who was closely followed by .svg){kind=small}
Gog the Mild (submissions). In the final round, Lee achieved 4 FAs and 30 GAs, mostly on cue sport topics, while Gog achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on important battles and wars, which earned him a high number of bonus points. 
The Rambling Man (submissions) was in third place with 4 FAs and 8 GAs on football topics, with 
Epicgenius (submissions) close behind with 19 GAs and 16 DYK's, his interest being the buildings of New York.
The other finalists were 
Hog Farm (submissions), 
HaEr48 (submissions), 
Harrias (submissions) and 
Bloom6132 (submissions). The final round was very productive, and besides 15 FAs, contestants achieved 75 FAC reviews, 88 GAs and 108 GAN reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!
All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.
Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 14 FAs during the course of the competition.- Bloom6132 (submissions) win the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in round 4.
Rhododendrites (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 3 FPs in round 3 and 5 overall.- Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 23 FAC reviews in round 5.
- Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 45 GAs in round 2 and 113 overall.
MPJ-DK (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 33 articles in good topics in round 2.
The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, for 100 good article reviews in round 2.- Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 22 Did you know articles in round 4 and 94 overall.
- Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 63 In the news articles in round 4 and 136 overall.
Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2021 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:38, 3 November 2020 (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.
Future changes
- You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [64]
- From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [65][66]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:49, 9 November 2020 (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
- Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [67][68]
Changes later this week
- If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [69]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).
Future changes
- The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:36, 16 November 2020 (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
- Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [70]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- 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 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [71]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 November 2020
- News and notes: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready"
- Op-Ed: Re-righting Wikipedia
- Opinion: How billionaires re-write Wikipedia
- Featured content: Frontonia sp. is thankful for delicious cyanobacteria
- Traffic report: 007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election
- News from Wiki Education: An assignment that changed a life: Kasey Baker
- GLAM plus: West Coast New Zealand's Wikipedian at Large
- Wikicup report: Lee Vilenski wins the 2020 WikiCup
- Recent research: Wikipedia's Shoah coverage succeeds where libraries fail
- Essay: Writing about women