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Tech News: 2020-36

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. [1][2]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Infobox modifications

Hello. A couple years ago you made a series of changes to Template:Infobox NFL Cheerleaders. I don't recall what they looked like before, but I think it would be nice if the infoboxes had the capability of displaying the team colors in the header bars, similar to the infoboxes of their respective NFL teams; and it seems like used to have that. If there is some compelling reason it shouldn't do that, or if it's just impractical for some reason, that's fine. Not a huge thing to me obviously. Just thought it would look nice. Also, having never really made any deep edits to templates, I thought it might be a good learning experience for me, if you or someone could give a little help to get me started. Just a thought. Thanks. --DB1729 (talk) 20:13, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@DB1729: I tend to prefer standard colours, for accessibility. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).

Administrator changes

added Eddie891
removed Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

readded SQL

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 or should use the articles for creation process.
  • A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #432

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Events
    • Upcoming: Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call: Rob Fernandez (Wikimedia District of Columbia) on Listeria, a tool that uses SPARQL queries to define a list, and provides a bot that will update a wiki page containing that list if the results of that SPARQL query change, all based on Wikidata, 08 September. Agenda
    • Upcoming: live SPARQL queries on Twitch and in French by Vigneron, September 8 at 18:00 CEST
    • Upcoming video: Wikipedia Weekly Network - LIVE Wikidata editing #19 Facebook, YouTube, September 10
    • Upcoming: Online Wikidata editathon in Swedish #29, September 13
  • Development
    • Added Wikidata support to Japanese Wikivoyage. phab:T261451
    • Investigating the nature of our training outliers to improve the way ORES automatically scores the quality of an Item.
    • Working on error that sometimes causes Wikidata UI to report 2 error messages when saving a sitelink in an item. phab:T260869
    • Completed various investigations to make an informed decision on the output format of WikibaseManifest files (automated configuration detection for toolbuilders) phab:T261285
    • Completed various bug fixes and wrap-up tasks to conclude the major engineering work on the Federated Properties project
    • More work on Item Quality Scoring and Federated Properties

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Tech News: 2020-37

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. [3]
  • Recurrent item 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).
  • Advanced item All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlist instead of watch. This was inconsistent before. [4]

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. [5]
  • 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. [6][7]
  • Advanced item Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
  • Advanced item Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a .menu class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use nav ul instead. .vectorTabs and .vectorMenu will 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)

Books & Bytes – Issue 40

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 40, July – August 2020

  • New partnerships
    • Al Manhal
    • Ancestry
    • RILM
  • #1Lib1Ref May 2020 report
  • AfLIA hires a Wikipedian-in-Residence

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --10:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue Issue CLXXIII, September 2020

Full front page of The Bugle
Your Military History Newsletter

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 12:53, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: August 2020



Headlines
  • Albania report: Wikivoyage edit-a-thon - Editing Albania and Kosovo’s travel destinations
  • Brazil report: Open innovation and dissemination activities: wrapping up great achievements on a major GLAM in Brazil
  • Czech Republic report: First Prague Wiki Editathon held in Prague
  • Estonia report: Virtual exhibition about Polish-Estonian relations. Rephotography and cultural heritage
  • Germany report: KulTour in Swabia and 8000 documents new online
  • India report: Utilising Occasion for Content donation: A story
  • Netherlands report: WMIN & WMNL collaboration & Japanese propaganda films
  • Serbia report: Enriching Wiki projects in different ways
  • Sweden report: Free music and new recordings of songs in the public domain; Autumn in the libraries; Yes, you can hack the heritage this year – online!
  • Uganda report: Participating in the African Librarians Week (24-30 May 2020)
  • UK report: Spanish metal and ...
  • USA report: Wiknic & Black Artists Matter & Respect Her Crank
  • WMF GLAM report: Wikipedia Library, new WikiCite grant programs, and GLAM office hours
  • Calendar: September's GLAM events
Read this edition in full • Single-page

To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. Past editions may be viewed here.

Activity templates

Hey Andy, I don't think we've ever interacted directly before, so hello! Hope you're well in these crazy times. I saw you've been posting a few activity templates at TFD, and as you mention there is one glaring and frequent problem, which is that the templates are often waaaaay out of date.

What's your opinion about amending the whole set of templates? We could, for example, insert an automatic link that shows up only if the page it's on hasn't changed in a set time period, something along the lines of This editor may no longer be active (check me). This would be a relatively easy way to indicate to other editors that the template might be out of date and then we can link to a page like contribs to help them check that. Do you think this is worth exploring / discussing further? --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:17, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): Hi. Nice idea. I've nothing against it in principle, but I'm not sure that the last updated date is detectable, in template code. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
You are probably right. Maybe it's better to link directly to the contribs such as (see if I'm active). An alternative would be to link to an essay type page that describes was editors can verify if another editor is active or not (eg via contribs, message or email). Do you think this is worth discussing further? Given all the problems you've identified with these sorts of templates, I think it's important editors know the messages can often be inaccurate.--Tom (LT) (talk) 09:04, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Connecting Wikidata items and redirects

Another user has been connecting taxon redirects to Wikidata items by temporarily converting them to non-redirects, adding them to the Wikidata item, and then restoring the redirect. This fixes one of my problems with Wikidata's modelling of taxa and wiki articles about taxa, namely the impossibility of correctly connecting articles on monotypic taxa when wikis have very different approaches (see User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues#Monotypic taxa). However, I suspect that Wikidata editors may not agree. I'm interested to know what you think. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:08, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Personally , I think that's the correct method of modelling; but as you surmise, some on on Wikidata disagree. This 2017 RfC on Wikidata found consensus to use such links, with caveats. Hope you managed to see the RBS, BTW. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:16, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
The problem with that RfC is that the closer said in effect "consensus to allow links to redirects but some issues need to be sorted first" and, afaik, they weren't. So the opposers are still entitled to say that redirect links should not be present. I've never created any deliberately myself, but I have seen useful redirect links created by legitimate conversion of an article to a redirect (monotypic genus wrongly at the species, for example) removed from Wikidata.
No, I didn't see the RBS, although I was aware of the excitement. The location has been too busy for me during most of lockdown. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:39, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #433

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Tool of the week
    • Mbabel is a tool that simplifies article creation by providing pre-made sentences based on Wikidata statements.
  • Development
    • Fixing an error that sometimes causes Wikidata UI to report 2 error messages when saving a sitelink in an Item instead of just one. (phabricator:T260869)
    • Development of version one of Federated Properties has concluded! Expect an announcement with timing of the release of this feature soon. Wikibase users who want an early look at the feature are invited to reach out to participate in the pre-release testing round.
    • Development of the WikibaseManifest extension has continued into its second sprint; we focused on determining a product specification for the Manifest output.
    • Finishing a draft documentation for a REST API to get it ready for a feedback round before implementation.
    • Finished improvements to the automated scoring of the quality of Items with ORES. Still need to retrain ORES and deploy the changes before the scores are actually different though.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here. If you want to help, you can also have a look at the tasks needing a volunteer.

Tech News: 2020-38

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. [8][9]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item 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)

Microformats dates

Hey. Had a Q about Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats/dates. Specifically, it seems to advise not using date templates when the year is preceding 1583. This advice is echoed for eg {{Infobox person}}. Could you clarify the issue for me? What's the issue with using {{birth date}} for someone born 11 March 1283, eg as: (1293-03-11)March 11, 1293? Thanks, ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:25, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Microformats should only be used for Gregorian calendar dates, not Julian. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
I see, thanks. Applied that amongst other changes to ProcBot’s task 2. Looks like it is able to convert most valid date formats into the templates now (incl years, was skipping too many before as I wasn’t entirely sure of template limitations). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:33, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: Thank you - the changes look fine, but where is the bot's approval? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:36, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
task 2 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:38, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Thoughts on Special:Diff/978399167? Currently not adding |df=y to year-only dates, because redundant, but wondering if that's a good idea? The page has {{Use dmy dates}} and I'm guessing if someone later comes along to add the more full date, they won't bother add the df=y to make it show in the proper format. At the same time, {{end date|1998|df=y}} looks a bit silly. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:02, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't add it in such cases, but no harm, either way. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:24, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Brass

Greetings played by Moop Mama, more on my talk, or the Main page ;) - As for the above, I wouldn't actually make these edits, but understand removing false promises. I just have no time besides writing articles. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

My portrait

Andy, the portrait of me taken by MS Studios in Ashgabat was paid for by the U.S. government with a U.S. government purchase order with the standard language transferring copyright to the U.S. government, thus the copyright to the photo is owned by the U.S. government, which puts it squarely in the public domain. Please restore the photo to the article you wrote about me. The other portrait is wretched--if there is to be a photo of me in the article please let's use a photo that doesn't make me look like something from a bad sci-fi movie. Thanks! Amustard (talk) 01:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Amustard: Thank you for the info, but it is standard policy both on Wikipedia and on Wikimedia Cpmmons, that such claims must be supported with evidence, supplied by the photographer or copyright holder from their official email address, as described at c:Commons:OTRS. And while the work of US government employees is "squarely in the public domain", I do not accept that that automatically applies to work purchased by the US gov., though of course that can be clarified in the same manner. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
@Pigsonthewing: Andy, reaching back to Sergey Mirzoyev, the photographer in Ashgabat, is not that simple, so let's just drop the issue for now. I have other things going on I need to focus on, as you are well aware. If circumstances permit in the future, I'll see if I can get such "evidence" for you without imposing on the folks at Embassy Ashgabat. Amustard (talk) 13:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Talk pages of blocked users

Hi, could you consider not removing stuff from the talk pages of blocked users. These templates are actually really helpful as a CU because people tend to reuse them on all their accounts, and removing them doesn’t seem to have any benefit. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:05, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I would second that; there is no reason to be mucking about with userpage templates unless they've been deleted (per WP:NOBAN). Primefac (talk) 13:23, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I find having templates encouraging people to leave messages on the talk pages of indef. banned or long departed users - or worse, promising replies to such messages - to be harmful. The benefits of removing such false encouragements and promises are therefore clear. I also note that WP:NOBAN and {{not around}} each explicitly allow certain types of editing of such pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Template documentation doesn’t represent policy or any sort of consensus—simply the views of the people who wrote it. NOBAN also isn’t relevant here as I’m not saying that what you’re doing is against any policy (since I don’t think any policy thought this would ever happen.) I’m saying that what you’re doing is pointless at best and makes life difficult for those of us who regularly deal with blocked users at worst. Something doesn’t have to be against a written policy to not be helpful. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:09, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
"template documentation doesn’t represent policy" I didn't mention policy. As to NONBAN, it wasn't me who cited it. I've already explained why my edits were helpful and far from pointless. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:15, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Might I suggest that if multiple people have told you they don’t find this helpful and that you’re currently the only person on Wikipedia making these edits, others might not find them as helpful as you do. In one recent case you removed formatting of a sockmaster who in the past has just copied and pasted his previous talk pages. There are many cases at SPI like this. I’m able to identify the ones I’m familiar with because I know them, but many clerks and patrolling admins aren’t, and these things really do help in sorting out cases there. I’ve given you an example of where this might be unhelpful. I consider this to be a much greater chance of causing issues than someone posting on a talk page of someone who hasn’t edited in a year. I think the best thing here would be to stop doing these yourself, and if someone else agrees with you, let them do it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:24, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Might I suggest that the opinions of just the two of you - especially when you make such unconvincing arguments - don't carry the weight that you seem to think you do? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:33, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't really care about the user page edits for inactive users. I don't think they have as big an impact as you do, but they also don't really have that much an impact either way. I would like you to consider stopping this with blocked users. Like I mentioned above, there are a lot of sockmasters who just copy and paste formatting, and changing it makes things more difficult for the people who deal with them at SPI. It also can trigger an email for someone who is trying to leave Wikipedia behind them, and then cause them to either create more accounts or bring back memories they might want to avoid. This is what I'd really like you to consider stopping, and I think its a good middle ground between stopping completely and doing it for everyone. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:54, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
In January 2020, discussing a case where I removed outdated instances of a time-limited template ("I am busy with exams") from the pages of people who have not edited in the last two years or more (and then nominated the template for deletion), User:Primefac wrote in reply: "I'd say that your removals (with or without the subsequent TFD) was reasonable.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:37, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Emma Louise Turner

I've moved the page to this title since she was an author and naturalist as well as a photographer, and I've added an image. I was thinking of working this up to FA, and since you are the current main editor, I wondered if you wished to be involved in the process? There won't be any rush with this anyway Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: Thank you for asking, and well done for finding the photo - I'd never seen that before. I've never been that bothered by the FA process, but I will watch any suggestions for improvement with interest. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:04, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Andy. I'll be taking my time on this anyway, particularly while the weather's good! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:29, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I have a problem with two existing refs:
  • 1939 England and Wales Register
  • England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1940. TURNER Emma Louisa of...
I don't know if they are yours or not, but quicker to ask than to search the history. If they are, the first is particularly problematic, since there is no url or access date, which there should be even if it's a paid for site, also not sure why 1939. The same applies to the second, since we know what it says, but again there should presumably be a url. Any help you can give would be great. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:02, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Probate added in this edit by User:Vt100. 1939 register added here by User:Wikimandia. I have no access to these sources; but nor do I have any reason to doubt those editors' good faith. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:20, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Andy, I don't doubt that the editors concerned posted correct information, it's just a matter of polishing the refs a bit Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

September

September
Dahlias in Walsdorf

Thank you for improving articles in September! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:43, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

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