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Inactive admins

Hi, Xaosflux,

I just noticed that you removed sysop status from some inactive admins. I was just looking at some accounts and came across User:Melchoir who doesn't seem to have done any edits or logged actions in over a year. Did s/he slip through the cracks? I'd love for any inactive admins to come back and be active but I wondered about this admin after looking at their activity. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 15:55, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

(tpw) Can't figure this one out... I've left the first note for them. Thank you Liz. –xenotalk 16:50, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi @Xeno and Liz: Melchoir has a logged action from Octoboer 2018. — xaosflux Talk 17:23, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Ah, doesn't show up in the default "logs" found in the sidebar. Didn't realize thanks counted as activity! –xenotalk 17:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
@Xeno: I don't personally think it should, and the policy reads "neither edits nor administrative actions" so I don't think that a "thanks" or a "patrol" would be considered an "administrative action" - but the last time this came up there was decent argument that "any" edit or logged action, even if not publicly available should count to belay inactivity. I'm also in the camp that our inactivity policy is too lax though, but I've accepted that the arguments at the time supported that process. — xaosflux Talk 17:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
In fact, the message you left them (templated) even said "any edits or logged actions". — xaosflux Talk 17:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
I can't believe a "Thanks" counts as much as an edit or admin action! That seems absurd. But I know you guys follow the guidelines, you don't write them so I'll just file this one as "an example to bring up at the next RfC". Thanks for figuring this one out. Liz Read! Talk! 04:04, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
@Liz: yea its a real edge case for sure, there is a 'resysoping' RfC starting up now - I'd probably wait for that to complete before trying to re-discuss "admin activity requirements" in a new RfC - but if the first one passes it could be a good follow up. — xaosflux Talk 04:30, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


Cincinnati landmark designation

Hi Xaosflux - I wrote the inputs necessary for template:designation. Would you be able to edit it to implement them? I tested it here and it looks good, works well. I have the code to be added, listed out here. Thank you -ɱ (talk) 16:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@Ɱ: I can't where I am right now, would you please add or reactivate an edit request on the associated talk page to get it in the queue? — xaosflux Talk 17:28, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Okay, no problem. As soon as you can, that would be very nice, really appreciated. I reactivated the request. ɱ (talk) 20:27, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Hi - I really don't think anyone's active enough or has the user right to help me on that page, besides you. Could you help me with those brief edits I laid out? Thank you ɱ (talk) 14:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Yeah - mine's the one right at the top. ɱ (talk) 14:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
@Ɱ: yea, sorry saw that right after. OK, so I'm a bit confused on your edit request at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Historic_sites#edittemplateprotected. How many different pages do you need a change to be made on? For each of them, is there a sandboxed version ready to "go-live"? — xaosflux Talk 14:14, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Yeah adding the designation requires adding bits of code to five separate pages, listed in the request. I have tested it all on sandboxes; the result from those sandboxes is what you can see here: Template:Designation/Supported designations/State. Thanks ɱ (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
OK, see my special note there. — xaosflux Talk 15:01, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

What's broken?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T229986

Hi SilkTork, noticed you had to do this - can you elaborate on what is broken, as it must be broken for everyone else then? — xaosflux Talk 16:03, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I can't see the editnotice (Group notice / Page notice) on article space anymore. I wondered if it was me. I found it useful to put in language notices in the page notice, such as at Beer: [1], but now if I go to articles I can't edit page notice anymore - the link is no longer there (unless there is already a page notice, as there is with Beer). See [2], etc. SilkTork (talk) 16:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
@SilkTork: hmm - did adding that group actually fix it? (It really shouldn't). Which skin are you using? — xaosflux Talk 17:26, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Does this link to testwiki show the pagenotice redlink? — xaosflux Talk 17:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Also, are you using the source editor or visual editor? — xaosflux Talk 17:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

The testwiki makes no difference for me. I am using MonoBook. I don't use visual editor. Is it just me then? I am wondering if it's something I added to [3]. SilkTork (talk) 18:19, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@SilkTork: you may have some script collisions going on for sure. Could you try turning off meta:User:SilkTork/global.js and then trying the testwiki link again? — xaosflux Talk 18:24, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I emptied meta:User:SilkTork/global.js and the testwiki still doesn't show me the page notice. SilkTork (talk) 18:44, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I've changed browser, changed skin, and emptied User:SilkTork/common.css of the last few changes. Nothing worked. Not even a combination of all those things. So I have restored everything.

You still have the page notice when you go to Wine? SilkTork (talk) 19:03, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@SilkTork: I'm getting a bit lost on why you are broken! To be sure we are on the same page, you are referring to what would currently be a red link targeting Page notice while editing Wine correct? I do see that. It is normally hidden, but unhidden based on .css in MediaWiki:Group-sysop.css (and also unhidden for certain other groups). You're not blocking certain .css's are by chance? — xaosflux Talk 19:06, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
We are on the same page. So, how would I be blocking certain .css's? Where should I start looking for that? SilkTork (talk) 21:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC) I see the link on your page, and on articles where there is already a page notice, but not on articles which don't already have a page notice, so this is selective. SilkTork (talk) 21:37, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
@SilkTork: if you go to the page and click edit, then view the compiled page source in your browser, do you see any lines including "editnotice-link" ? — xaosflux Talk 21:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
If I understand you. I go to Wine. Click edit. Then - in Chrome - I right click on the page and select View page source. And then do a search for "editnotice". I have done that, and "editnotice" wasn't found. I then looked just for "notice", and found 14 instances, including "HideFundraisingNotice". I'm not sure which script does that one. I'll roll back all scripts in SilkTork/common.css, SilkTork/common.js, SilkTork/monobook.css, SilkTork/monobook.js, and SilkTork/vector.js to see if that changes anything. SilkTork (talk) 22:33, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Well I cleared everything. Then did a complete scrub with PrivacyEraser so the cache and cookies were gone from my PC and browser. Nothing has changed. I still don't see the page notice link. SilkTork (talk) 22:50, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@SilkTork: OK, I'm at a loss and opened phab:T229986. I was able to replicate the problem on testwiki with an alternate account of mine as well. — xaosflux Talk 00:45, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
@SilkTork: OK, so it wasn't that phab ticket - there was actually something else wrong on testwiki. Can you try it over there now just to see if you are only broken here? — xaosflux Talk 03:22, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
Broken there as well. SilkTork (talk) 09:46, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

So the phab ticket is closed, and I still can't access page notice unless already activated on the article. Where do we go from here? Is this issue just me? I know you managed to create it for yourself, but do other admins have this issue? SilkTork (talk) 03:06, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@SilkTork: as far as I know, you are the only person with the issue reporting - the phab decline said you may want to follow up at Wikitech-l. — xaosflux Talk 13:58, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings!

Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM
  • Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it.
BAG

BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG.

We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.

BOTDICT

Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary

BOTPOL
  • Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC).
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  • Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Wikipedia namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION.
BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

  • 20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
  • 14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status).
  • In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied.
  • Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied.
  • 10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion).
New things
Other discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

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Help with Javascript regarding WikiLove

Hello! :)

Recently we just activated the WikiLove extension in SqWiki. We just finished localizing it but there are two technical details which we'd like to change. We have only two interface admins (I'm one of those) and for the moment being, none of us knows hows to do these changes in the .js page. I thought I'd ask for help in the EnWiki interface admins and since I saw your name in that list and you've helped me in the past... :P Can I write what I need help with here? Or if you don't feel like you're the best person for that, can you tell me who I might write to for it? Thank you in advance! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:17, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: hello, what would you like to change on your wikilove? I just sent you a wikilove on sqwiki to show that it works. — xaosflux Talk 14:43, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
I see you have already started working on it at w:sq:MediaWiki:WikiLove.js — xaosflux Talk 14:45, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it does. We only want to change two small technical details, as I said. The first is regarding the template you just used. It's set up with a drop-down menu like with all other types of templates. But, unlike the other cases, this doesn't have subtypes. We tried setting it up as a type without subtypes but then the icon and description disappear. Is there any way to be just like it is only without a drop-down menu?
And secondly, please see the templates at "Medalje komunitetit" called "Medalje gjysmë D" and "Medalje gjysmë M". Those are the Albanian half stars awards. Those are the only templates that have a message form where the user can write, needed to put the name of the collaborator with whom they're sharing the award. We want to make the text (a hint) that appears at the message form disappear when the form is clicked and reappear if nothing was added to it or if it was emptied. How can we do that?
Thank you a lot for your fast replies! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:56, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: I'm getting a little stuck on this, but would you like to try this on testwiki? The changes take about 10mins before they are usable, but you will be able to try without breaking your running wiki. I can add you some temporary access on there if you would like? — xaosflux Talk 16:01, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
Thank you but I'm not sure that would be a good idea. We don't have a very active community so breaking the wiki is not really a problem. I'm just not good enough with the JavaScript syntax and wouldn't know what to do there more than what I'm already doing at SqWiki. Maybe is better than nothing, I'm not sure as I've never used TestWiki before, so if that's the case, then yes, please do grant me access there. Maybe I can make it work by experimenting. But I was hoping more on some help with the coding part. - Klein Muçi (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: OK, I'll add you temporary access at testwiki - just clean up your tests when you are done and don't break it too much :D I suggest you follow up at mw:Extension talk:WikiLove or WP:VPT here. — xaosflux Talk 17:19, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! :) I'll try asking at WP:VPT. Is there anyone from the list here who you think can help me with it? As far as you know them, I mean. Apart from Cyberpower, I've bothered him quite a lot about IABot lately. XD (And Kaldari, for similar reasons. :P ) As for the TestWiki, maybe I won't be able to deal with it a lot often these two weeks as tomorrow I start my vacations but as soon as I get back, I'll catch up with my wikiwork. :P - Klein Muçi (talk) 17:57, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: all of our IAdmins watch VPT here, looking at the WikiLove project on phabricator does include Kaldari as a project member, though @Quiddity: may be able to direct you to someone that can help with WikiLove specific code quicker. — xaosflux Talk 18:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
I see. Okay then. I'll try using the VPT after Quiddity answers. :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: I can only second what Xaosflux suggested, to ask at mw:Extension talk:WikiLove (and I see that you've already edited mw:Extension:WikiLove#Custom_configuration, so thank you for those improvements!). Kaldari is indeed the expert, so you could try pinging him when you write on the extension talkpage there. Hope that helps. Quiddity (talk) 10:37, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
@Quiddity: thank you! :) I've pinged him some days ago about a similar problem but I'm trying one more time. :P @Kaldari: please take a look at the conversation. As I wrote on your talkpage, I've finished working with the extension and we're using it already but there are two technical difficulties we're having with it and I'd need a bit help with the coding regarding them. @Xaosflux: sorry for having this conversation here but I didn't want to start from scratch somewhere else if I wasn't really forced to. :P Hope for your understatement. - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:35, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: it's OK. It looks like even our own local copy of MediaWiki:WikiLove.js has issues (e.g. the "Adding more kitten images" doesn't seem to actually do anything). If you move this to Extension_talk:WikiLove, feel free to copy and paste the entire conversation above for reference. — xaosflux Talk 14:52, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, good idea. I'll pass the entire conversation there, regardless if the problems get solved or not, hoping it may help some people in the future. @Kaldari: pinging a second time as the first one had problems and I'm not sure if it succeeded or not. - Klein Muçi (talk) 15:12, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: The kitten additions at MediaWiki:WikiLove.js seem to be working fine. Just keep re-clicking the kitten icon until you see one of the new ones show up. Kaldari (talk) 10:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: You can add an item without a subitem like this:
$.wikiLoveOptions.types.puppy = {
	name: 'Puppy',
	fields: [ 'header', 'message' ],
	header: 'You get a puppy',
	text: '[[File:2009-08-16 Puppy at Duke East 1.jpg|left|150px]]\n$1\n<br style="clear: both;"/>',
	icon: 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Fxemoji_u1F436.svg/53px-Fxemoji_u1F436.svg.png'
};
Kaldari (talk) 13:43, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses Kaldari (I see the local kittens working now, they change when you leave and return to the kitten selector). — xaosflux Talk 13:45, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: once you have your changes tested and working, if you have time to add to the documentation (with examples) at mw:Extension:WikiLove#Custom_configuration it would be appreciated! — xaosflux Talk 13:46, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
@Kaldari: I've tried the aforementioned way. It ends up without a description or image at the second step, only showing the "preview" button. To many inexpert eyes, it looks broken like that and they keep pressing the type button to choose it, thinking their command hasn't been registered by the extension. That's why I asked if there's a way to make it without a drop-down menu while showing the description and image of the type. I understand there's not a way for that now so I'll leave it like that. What about the second question regarding the disappearing and reappearing of the text in the message form? If my explanation seems confusing, I'm talking about this: [4] - Random link I searched on Google that seems to pinpoint the subject right. Isn't there a way to make the text in the message form disappear when clicked and reappear if it remains/becomes empty?
@Xaosflux: I've thought about that. The problem is that most of the changes I've made, were made with the trial and error method. :P And, although I can understand what I'm doing, I'm not able to explain it well enough for the others. That's why I set up the Portuguese Wikipedia as an example (since that was the one I copied the code from and started experimenting) and the Albanian one. I was hoping to at least help people with examples, if they ever needed them, or at least, urge some more experienced editors to write some good technical advice from the examples that were added. I think adding this conversation to the talkpage of that page will be a great help too. - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:58, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Klein Muçi Are you looking to include an input placeholder? This would be best managed as an input field, and not with a javascript hack to add it in. — xaosflux Talk 00:42, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: please, try to give me Medalje gjysmë D (found in Medalje komuniteti) with the extension. A form will follow with some text in Albanian on it saying to erase said text and replace it with a user's name. I just want that text to disappear automatically when the form is clicked and then reappear if nothing was written on it. So the one who is using the extension won't need to delete the text manually before writing the user's name. It's a very common thing in website these days. A message with text as a hint appears telling you what to do and disappears immediately as soon as you click on it and start writing (reappearing if the form was left empty again). I thought it would require no more than a line of javascript code and to be honest, I'm a little surprised I'm having difficulties explaining it. :P - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:51, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: As soon as this patch gets merged, the description for stand-alone types will no longer be broken. Getting images to work properly for stand-alone types will be more complicated. There is currently no support for placeholders in WikiLove. Kaldari (talk) 13:36, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
Okay, that finally answers everything I needed then. I didn't know the term I was looking for was "placeholder". I'm coping the entire conversation, including this sentence, to the talkpage of the extension. Thank you to everyone involved! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:56, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: on general purposes web pages, there are other types of page hacks that can accomplish things like that (using script handlers for onfocus/onblur/etc to replace form data) but that's really not something we would want to shim in. @Kaldar: I don't think it would be "hard" to add placehold functionality to WikiLove right - just would take time for a developer to work on it when they wanted to. — xaosflux Talk 15:03, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: I understand now. I often work with new users, teaching them how to work around Wikipedia and one of the usual problems that arise is the one related to the general interface of the Wikimedia projects. Many things we take for granted in different famous web pages we use on a day to day basis, work differently on Wikipedia. For the average social media user, the whole project seems a bit too technical sometimes, very crude and old fashioned. Being that many famous web pages use similar interfaces for accomplishing similar things, many new users expect instinctively to find things the same way here and get a bit confused when they don't. For example, many new users try to ping someone the same way they do in other websites, @ + Name, no template brackets or forum words like "ping" used. To help with that, one of the pinging templates at SqWiki is {{@|Name}}. As an admin, I'm always helping on this side of the project and that's why I started working with the WikiLove extension because that would greatly help with our barnstar templates that not many new users know how to award them. Therefore, in my opinion, this placehold functionality would help greatly in many areas of the project since it would give us the ability to use forms with hints when needed, like many web pages do these days. For the moment being, the only way we can give hints is with edit notices and, in some cases, tooltips (and comments but that's a bit too technical for the new users) and they work great but I think that could help much too. - Klein Muçi (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

For your continuous help regardless of the topic, a full tray of baklava only for you. - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:21, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Can you please update the Duggar family page to reflect the changes that have been made?

Can you please update the Duggar family page to reflect the changes that have been made? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6C0:C201:7E45:F43A:4019:693F:A742 (talk) 19:50, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not done no thanks. — xaosflux Talk 23:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi Dear Love You

give me please admin i am from pakistan — Preceding unsigned comment added by RjFaraz Lahore (talk • contribs) 12:46, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not done see Wikipedia:Not now. — xaosflux Talk 13:16, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
while we are at it, kindly see third point in WP:NOTDATINGSERVICE —usernamekiran(talk) 14:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

  • There will be no Tech News issue next week. The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 2 September 2019.

Problems

  • Advanced item Some abuse filters stopped working because of a code change. Only variables for the current action will work. Variables defined inside a branch may not work outside of that branch. You can read more to see how to fix the filters.
  • Only six accounts can be created from one IP address per day. Between 12 August and August 15 this was two accounts per day. This was because of a security issue. It is now six accounts per day again. [5]

Changes later this week

  • Only a limited number of accounts can be created from one IP address. An IP address can be whitelisted so that it can create as many accounts as needed. This is useful at events where many new persons learn to edit. IP addresses that are whitelisted for this reason will also not show CAPTCHAs when you create accounts. This will happen on Wednesday. [6]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 August. It will be on all wikis from 22 August (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • There is an RFC about creating a new global user group with the right to edit abuse filters. This will be used to fix broken filters and make sure all filters will still work when software changes happen. You can read more and comment.
  • Special:Contributions/newbies will no longer be working. This is because of performance reasons. It showed edits by new accounts. You can see this in the recent changes feed instead. [7]

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

15:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

File:OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg listed for discussion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination.

This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:02, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

EFH icon

I think I used the wrong file for the Wiki logo. I don't know if it was png or svg. The quality is noticeable when I compare the info box with other user right boxes. I'm a bit picky about this, but I don't want to created a long unnecessary upload history. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 02:33, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@JudeccaXIII: most userbox icon art is in SVG. — xaosflux Talk 02:38, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (broadcasting)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (broadcasting). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Chet Douglas

Dear xaosflux, please restore the article Chet Douglas, so that the revisions can be imported to de:user:Doc Taxon/Chet because of copyleft attributions. Then the article can be deleted again. Thank you, Doc Taxon (talk) 08:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

@Doc Taxon: please let me know when you have finished the export. — xaosflux Talk 09:37, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 Done and thanks a lot Doc Taxon (talk) 11:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
@Sandstein: other admins do such jobs. Learn to administrate! Doc Taxon (talk) 11:16, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
@Doc Taxon: I see you did not "import" in the native sense this to dewiki. While importing the prior version is not needed for copyright purposes, maintaining the authors is. I've placed the authors list at: w:de:Benutzer Diskussion:Doc Taxon/Chet. This should be maintained with the article. — xaosflux Talk 12:59, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I imported to de:user:Doc Taxon/Chet2, so all is okay. Thank you again, Doc Taxon (talk) 13:40, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
@Doc Taxon: ah OK! Feel free to delete my manual history paste. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 13:45, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Mandelbot

You asked me if I have retired this bot. The answer is no, but events in the real world (I have 6 children in, or entering adolescence) have not allowed me time to make contributions on various maintenance activities I took on in prior years. I am reluctant to retire it, as I can imagine scenarios such as friends making requests for assistance on narrow projects where it would be useful. Is that ok with you? If there is some pressing need to retire accounts that do not have immediate requirements for reasons such as heightened security threats against Wikipedia, then of course I would like to understand more. J JMesserly (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi @J JMesserly: those notes are semi-automated cleanups that are done from time to time (looks like you got one in 2016 as well). It looks like you haven't used that bot account in over ten years. It is OK policy wise to not deflag it. Should you retire it, you can always have it come back out of retirement with a new WP:BRFA - but no worries. — xaosflux Talk 23:03, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:42, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Taiwan

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Taiwan. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-36

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

  • You can use the new termbox interface if you edit Wikidata on a mobile device. This is to edit labels, descriptions and aliases easier on the mobile pages. [8]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki has been deployed during the last week.
  • The previously announced change of positions of the "Wikidata item" link on all wikis has been rollbacked due to unexpected cache issues. [9]
  • The limit for rollbacks has been increased from 10 to 100 rollbacks per minute. [10]
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (Recent Changes, Watchlist, and Related Changes) now include two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces. However the "All discussions" filter does not include pseudo talk pages, like discussions that are in the Project: or Wikipedia: namespaces. But it will include changes happening on Project talk: or the Wikipedia talk:. [11]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 September. It will be on all wikis from 5 September (calendar).
  • When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if your password is one of the most common passwords in the world. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [12]

Meetings

Future changes

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

09:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

added Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
readded Floquenbeam • Lectonar
removed DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

removed Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

  • Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:List of the Cenozoic life of Washington (state)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of the Cenozoic life of Washington (state). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Help with mass editing

Hello, Xaosflux! I need advice on something related to mass editing.

At my home wiki we're talking about changing some hundreds (if not thousands) articles "at once". Consulting with a dictionary, we found out we've been writing the Albanian term for "References" wrong and we may need to fix it. SqWiki has more than 70 thousand articles at the moment speaking and most of them may require fixing. What may be the best way to achieve this? I tried using JWB but, as far as I saw, I couldn't generate a list of all the articles in the Mainspace (I could only generate category lists, not namespace lists) but maybe I'm wrong. Even if it is possible, the problem with JWB is that it would require me to accept every single change made manually and that thing could be a bit tedious. I've never used AWB before so I don't know if that would be a better way to address it. (JWB has been easier to use and has helped get the job done so I've never bothered to download anything to start using AWB.) I was thinking of having a bot making the change but the problem is that I'm very inexperienced with bots and we don't really have any active bots in the community now (besides IABot and Listeria) so I have none to ask for help from SqWiki in that direction. Any idea of what would be the best approach of solving this? - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:17, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: for a task that large, you may want to deal with custom scripting. You could do this with AWB as well. On sqwiki, bot registration is required, as well as AWB registration. See w:sq:Wikipedia:Botët and w:sq:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. There is no way to make all the edits "at once" unless they are all from a tempalte, even bot processes work as "one edit at a time". For a huge page run, one method is to download the text dump of your entire project, run a scan on that, and use it to generate the list of the pages you would want to edit; then you could feed that list to a program like AWB or a custom script. — xaosflux Talk 12:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
I already knew how bots processed work (that's why I used quotation marks :P ) but I'm a bit more clear about the whole situation in general now. So I must do the scan manually/with a third party application? I was hoping of being able to generate the list automatically from AWB or maybe "borrow" one bot from EnWiki. I'm not sure I can find someone on our community to write a custom script for that. :/
To make myself more clear, we only need to do this change: == Referenca == -> == Referime ==
So all in all, we need a program that scans every article in Mainspace and if it finds one with the text "== Referenca =="" changes it to "== Referime ==". - Klein Muçi (talk) 13:14, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: the AWB application contains a database scanner, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Database Scanner for information; and you can get a database dump here. — xaosflux Talk 13:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I'll try using AWB for the whole task then. Thank you! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:57, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I downloaded AWB and tried using it but I can't log in. :/ I have 2FA enabled. I followed all the instructions about it regarding the bot password but at the end it says I'm not enabled to use AWB because my name is not on the list of EnWiki enabled names. I don't want to use it on EnWiki and I am already on the enabled users list on SqWiki (although I'm an admin there and normally I don't need to be at the list at all). How do I tell AWB I want to use it on SqWiki, not EnWiki? Or is the bot password thing only allowed on EnWiki and you can't log in on other languages if you have 2FA enabled? - Klein Muçi (talk) 02:02, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: (I saw you reverted this but just wanted to make sure it was a clear answer!). If you have 2FA enabled, it is global on your account. To use AWB you will need to use a PER-PROJECT Special:BotPasswords. Some projects require AWB users to be registered on a local check page. Finally, normally to enable "bot" mode on AWB you should be logged in with an account that has the "bot" usergroup/flag on it. Hope that helps! — xaosflux Talk 03:12, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I fixed it. I'm working with it right now. Thank you a lot for your help! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 10:47, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Actions while blocked

I didn't mention anything that wasn't discussed in the remove-unblockself discussion :-) I can imagine other things that are possible, but I know I shouldn't mention them, in case they do work. My point was that you can't perform any blocking/unblocking except the scenarios I mentioned. Nyttend (talk) 01:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Bots without flags

I think I'm being dense and just missing something, but what are the general thoughts/rules regarding bots without a bot flag? Example, User A wants to run ABot on AWB, but is running fully-supervised tasks. To me it wouldn't make sense to grant the bot flag (since it's basically a glorified AWB-specific alt account) but giving it a flag means people won't be crying for it to be blocked. I say that I'm missing something because I have this feeling that {{bot}} (or WP:BOT) mentions this case, but I don't remember where. Primefac (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2019 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

@Primefac: last I checked, AWB doesn't have an option to assert or not assert a bot flag on each edit, if you have bot access it always does and if you don't well it can't. That being said, it would be the same as any other bot framework - so fully automated tasks of any magnitude should be flagged, as they should be running under an approved BRFA task and not flooding watchlists or recent changes. To the larger question, any bot that may ever need to make use of bot permissions should have the bot flag, and any edits that don't require higher scrutiny (as determined by way of getting a BRFA task approved) should assert that flag on edits. If someone were going to run an AWB framework bot that for some reason needed to not flag its edits as bot (e.g. a Report Publishing Bot that would WANT to be seen on watchlists) it would be a reason to not flag it. Does that help? — xaosflux Talk 19:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Sort of. I guess to get more specific I'm wondering about this BRFA, wherein a fully-supervised task for a not-yet-approved bot has been proposed; I suggested just using an "AWB-exclusive" account, but they said they wanted to use the bot-named account. As a bot this falls afoul of CONTEXTBOT, but as a supervised edit it's fine; do we approve a "bad" BRFA for a bot and AGF the creator won't go fully-auto, or do we approve the BRFA and not assign the bot flag, or do we make them create a new "AWB" account?
If you think we've moved to the point where a broader discussion is needed, feel free to move this to the appropriate venue. Primefac (talk) 21:41, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Primefac: regarding that specific BRFA: it is for "thousands" of article edits so the primary factors are: (the usual) is there community support that if these thousands of edits were made by editors they are fine? As for questions about flagging, prime points would be: (a) what is the edit rate (i.e. is there going to be a recent changes or watchlist flooding?) and (b) do these edits warrant usual BRD type scrutiny?

So based on that I'd say:

  1. If (a) is fairly low and (b) is yes - it can be an unflagged not-quite-a-bot and use xWB.
  2. If (a) is fairly low and (b) is no - it can be an unflagged not-quite-a-bot and use xWB, or be flagged.
  3. If (a) is high and (b) is no, it should be flagged.
  4. If (a) is high and (b) is yes, it should be denied as-is.
Does that help? — xaosflux Talk 23:02, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
It does, ta. Primefac (talk) 23:50, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Sturmabteilung

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Please comment on Talk:Democrat Party

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You've got mail!

Hello, Xaosflux. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 15:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

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Unbundling edit-protect

Moved to User_talk:Vanamonde93/Main_page_protector#Unbundling_edit-protect
Moved

Hi Xaosflux. Valereee and myself are planning to propose the creation of a new userright to allow main page regulars to work on main page content while it is protected. I know you've participated in some related discussions before (I know we had a conversation about it, though I cannot now find it); would you be interested in collaborating? Also (and irrespective of your answer to the above) would you help me understand your comment at this discussion, where you listed the rights that would have to be unbundled? I was under the impression it was only edit-protected and and protect; am I wrong about that? Best, Vanamonde (Talk) 19:11, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: this is certainly something that you should workshop up before throwing to the wolves at VPP! I'd be open to consulting on it, in general I'm open to unbundling (though it's not really UN bundling, it is just creating an additional lesser-included group - you are not really trying to remove access from admins). There are several technical hurdles that would need to be dealt with depending on how you want to go about accomplishing the change. Once those are determined, there will be the usual pile of "community" hurdles, but all good things in time. So first things first: our main page is "cascade protected", which means it has "full protection" and anything transcluded on it (including nested transclusions) is also protected. A side affect of this is that you can add protection to any page by adding them to a transclusion. From a pure mediawiki perspective, there is one primary "permission" that allows this type of editing right now: (protect) which allows access to Change protection levels and edit cascade-protected pages. At the very least this would require developers to create a new permission such as "(editcascadeprotected)". Then a group could be used to assign both the existing "editprotected" and this new permission - allowing people to edit all those pages. It would also allow editing of things such as a protected template that was used in a system message (which normally required editinterface) so we'd have to at the least decide on what the "rules" were and accept that risk that someone could break the rules. Depending on what "rules" we make and how you want to go about implementing this I may be more or less supportive - but I'm still generally supportive of letting the proposal get a fair chance to be evaluated by the community at large. There are also a couple of "cheap" (in terms of developer time) ways to do this, though they have their own risks and may not get much community support:
  1. Lower main page protection, at least by uncascading protecting it and using less protected transclusions for primary "content" sections controlled with existing groups (e.g. templateeditor or extendedconfirmed). This is how the Romanian Wikipedia (rowiki) does it for example.
  2. Allow for "limited admins". This would give people access to the full admin tool set, but they would have a rule that "limits" them to specific things, breaking the rule could result in loss of access or other sanctions. This is an option at meta-wiki for example (c.f. meta:Meta:Requests_for_adminship#Other_access).
  3. Create a new usergroup that adds existing mediawiki permissions of (protect) and (editprotected), along with rules for what they may be used for. (Like limited admin above, but with more tech controls - this is a very minor tech change unlikely to get developer pushback). Rules could be like "you may not use action=protect", "you may not edit pages transcluded to mediawiki space", etc. Such a group could possibly be used to do normal protected editing, such as processing approved edit requests on articles - or not, depending on what rules you want to use.
Does that help? — xaosflux Talk 19:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Ping also to Valereee. — xaosflux Talk 19:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: yes, that's very helpful, thank you. I'm glad to see my technically ignorant self was not entirely wrong on most of it. My intent was to follow option 3. Option 1 has been shot down before, and has people yelling "security!". Option 2 is possible, but it a) seems complex and b) is going to give access to viewing deleted content, which isn't logged, and therefore cannot be monitored, and which the WMF won't give out without an RFA-like process, and so cannot be handed out without such a process without monitoring...so I think it's less likely to get anywhere. If it's okay with you, I will copy this discussion over to the user subpage I just made, so we can continue discussion in a single location. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: oh sure that's fine. Option 3 above is about as easy to do as creating some of the other more recent groups such as extendedmover and Wikipedia_talk:Page_mover/Archive_1#RFC_-_Proposed:_"Page_mover"_permission_to_be_created is a fairly decent framework you may be able to reuse. It is a good idea to start with a clear definition of the problem, and a proposed technical solution - possibly even ruling out why other not-yet-existing tech solutions are not a good idea. Leaving a lot of the "rules" open to comment helps encourage people to contribute (e.g. the "criteria for granting", "criteria for revoking" sections). As well as if you want it to "be more" (e.g. not just limit it to one problem). — xaosflux Talk 20:08, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Welcome bot

Hello, Xaosflux! :)

I've recently wrote to Enterprisey for the same subject but didn't get any response by him and I thought I could try asking you since you've always helped me with the problems I've had in the past. Since I don't wanna bother you too much, long story short is that we need a welcome bot at our community in SqWiki to be able to use WikiLove. I was searching how to make one on Google but all I could find was past discussions on EnWiki Bot Approval Group how you've always voted against them and no other help on how to create one. :P The situation is different on our community. Can you help me with that in any way? If you want to read a bit more thoroughly about what I'm saying, please read the original request on Enterprisey's talk page here. Also feel free to ask me about any other details you might need info on. - Klein Muçi (talk) 15:37, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: wikilove and "welcome bots" shouldn't be dependent on each other, though they could be used in coordination. Depending on your goals you would need to write a bot to read the new user creation log, and then send talk messages; if you want it to happen right away the bot would need to always be running - so you would need somewhere to host it. I suggest you talk to someone that is running a welcome bot somewhere for some background. A quick search shows w:it:Utente:GnuBotmarcoo running on itwiki by w:it:Utente:.avgas. — xaosflux Talk 16:17, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
Now that I think of it, maybe we don't need it to use WikiLove. We use the extension to easily give the template manually but the bot can just put {{Tung}} (the welcoming template in our community) automatically without any help needed from the extension. I was also going to ask about the time thing. I've always wondered how is it possible that some bots run all the time and are run by different people simultaneously. Apparently you've answered that too. Do you think I should ask him for help on how to create a new bot dedicated to our community or just to lend us their bot? Also, on a side note, since bots are an integral part of Wikipedia work these days, don't you think we should have some information somewhere on how to run one? Or some scripts readily made for the most wanted types of bots? Like, the welcoming one, maybe one to fight common vandalism and stuff like that? I've learned many things regarding the extensions and gadgets by seeing the code behind them on other projects or reading help pages dedicated to them. With bots that is impossible. :/ - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:47, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: for the most part "bots" are not part of core functionality - they are aids for individual users. Some bot operators choose to publish their bot code, some don't. Some very common functions have been rolled in to core or extensions though - for example "welcomes" have an integrated pop-up at certain milestone edits. Additionally the mw:Extension:NewUserMessage extension is available and may be what is best for sqwiki since you don't have a large bot operator collective. You can request it at phabricator, see phab:T209432 for an example of it being enabled at tcywiki. Anti-vandalism is also being improved with mw:ORES across projects. — xaosflux Talk 17:23, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
I understand but so is the case with gadgets and they are treated with way more "respect" than bots. :P I'm not saying to force people to publish their code but it would be nice to have some help pages describing the most common details about bot operating (like hosting and stuff) and some information about Python or PHP basic scripts. Somewhere "to grab" if you want to start learning how to deal with them. That would help a lot of people that don't come with programming backgrounds (like me). Also there are many times that, like gadgets, many bots evolve beyond aiding only individual users. Like IA Bot, Sinebot or Listeria Bot. Making the technical side more accessible to the common public would increase the number of cases like these. Again, not talking here about making their specific code public.
The extension you mention does indeed look like a better option than having a bot for that. It's exactly what I was searching for. I'll make a request at the Phabricator. Thank you! :) I'm sorry I always bother you with my requests but I've tried asking other people and my attempts haven't been very successful, as you've seen. :P Thank you again! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 02:33, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Question: Is there any extension that does the same job as the SineBot? Some days ago I wrote to its creator to make the bot work in our community too but since you gave me a better solution in the welcoming situation, I was wondering... - Klein Muçi (talk) 04:53, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: none that I know of, well I suppose mw:Structured Discussions - but that isn't available for any more testing right now and has been known to be very contentious with certain editing communities. — xaosflux Talk 11:32, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I see... Well, let's hope Slakr answers my post then. :P Thank you! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: keep in mind that effectively running a "missed signature bot" requires a lot of resources (much more than a "welcome bot", not as much as a "vandalism bot") because it has to review every single edit (at least to certain namespaces), and to be useful needs to do it fairly quickly - not to mention continuously. — xaosflux Talk 13:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I understand. I was hoping to not run it myself, to be honest. Maybe something similar with SuggestBot and IA Bot could be done with it. - Klein Muçi (talk) 13:35, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
So that leaves you with a few directional options to chase:
  1. Try to get an extension made for something you want
  2. Try to get the meta:Community Tech team to do it
  3. Encourage bot operators to step forward from your community
  4. Try to get other communities to do it for you
Of those, 1 and 2 are slow processes, but may result in a solution (like the welcome extension I mentioned above) - a good way to engage these groups is via the annual meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2019 (the 2020 will get advertised around when it is coming out). #3 requires people, commitment, and resources; #4 is a "good luck" situation, you might get someone from somewhere to help out, but they could always stop abruptly in the future. Best wishes, — xaosflux Talk 13:41, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I like the idea of asking for an extension. It's not a big deal on our community so we can wait for it and it may offer as a definitive solution. How do I do it? I ask at the Phabricator? - Klein Muçi (talk) 14:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Best way to get traction: put it on the next wishlist survey and lobby for people to support it. — xaosflux Talk 14:20, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't a phab-task be an easier and faster way? Just asking. I'm not much familiar with Phabricator. - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:14, 1 October 2019 (UTC) @Klein Muçi: you're welcome to make a "feature request" as a phabricator task but it probably won't go anywhere - it is literally asking for some unknown person to invent something. Having a task, and getting support at the wishlist survey are good idea, but like I said they are not quick. Using a phab task to do things like "add approved extension to our project" or "tweak thing thing" or "x is a bug" are usually quicker turn-arounds. — xaosflux Talk 17:10, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I understand now. Okay then. I'll be on the lookout for the wishlist survey. :P Thank you, as always. - Klein Muçi (talk) 18:09, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:07, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-40

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

  • Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be fixed. [17]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 October. It will be on all wikis from 3 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

16:51, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Template editor

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Template editor. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-41

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

Problems

  • There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [20]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
  • The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page would be https://www.wikidata.org/ instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
  • There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
  • Advanced item Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

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

15:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions

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Precious anniversary

Precious
Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42

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

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [22]
  • In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

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

23:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters

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Happy First Edit Day!

Hey, Xaosflux. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! PATH SLOPU 15:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 23:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Event status

Thanks for that, appreciate that due to the short notice. JarrahTree 11:46, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

We try to keep WP:PERM quick! — xaosflux Talk 11:49, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

2019 Arbitration Committee pre-election RfC

A request for comment is now open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. You are receiving this message because you were listed as a user who would like to be notified when the 2019 RfC begins. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:52, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

  • Hi, I find the RfC mightily confusing. My questions:
    • Usually an RfC has a nominator, initiator, whatever. Does this one?
    • I understand I can endorse as many statements as I wish. I don't see that I have the right to oppose? If so, why not?
    • What does this mean: "Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse."
  • I have the feeling this is not an ordinary RfC and that these "statements" are more like recommendations to the current Committee to change their procedures for the upcoming election. Is that true? If not, maybe you could give me the big picture here. Thanks very much.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:27, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
    @Bbb23: Hi there! This isn't a "usual" RfC. One very important response to your points above: the current arbitration committee does not have any special influence on this RfC - and in fact most will abstain from it. The ArbCom elections are very specifically not run by ArbCom, they are run by "the community" - so these become hard rules and are certainly not suggestions that the current committee gets control over. Anyone can volunteer to help "coordinate" the election parts, and there will be a formal commission as well. In general, the arbcom election "rules" are maintained from year-to-year, unless otherwise amended in these annual RfC's. Anyone is welcome to add suggestions to change anything. As for the current structure, I think it is good to eliminate conflict (instead of Point 1, and a list of "support"/"oppose"s; it has Subject: Point 1, Point 2, Point n -- where one of the points can be "don't change from the status quo". Does that help? — xaosflux Talk 23:33, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
    Your explanation about the current Committee helps a lot. But who gets to decide whether the rules should be changed? Some uninvolved administrator determines "consensus" on each point (and then changes the rules)? And, if I understand you properly, if someone says change the # of arbitrators from 13 to 15, rather than oppose the change, someone would have to make their own statement that says don't change the number of arbitrators, and the consensus would have to be determined by comparing the number of endorsers for each statement (I assume with all the qualifiers of this is not a vote)? Seems somewhat cumbersome to me, but that's neither here nor there: I'm just trying to understand how this works. I guess I never paid attention in previous years.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:40, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
    @Bbb23: RfC's don't necessarily require administrators to close, I think there is a "closers" sign up at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2019#Closers?. As far as "how is consensus determined" - well that's not something unique to this, but it is normally more than strict "vote counting"; as far as putting "don't change thiss subject" in their own sections - it may be less cumbersome when there are many points that one subject could change to (and only 1 where it is "none of the above"). I added one subject to propose a change to, and also added the "don't" section to make this easy. All that being said, there is no strict rules to how the RfC has to run, so if you want to start a new section and format it different I don't think anyone is going to really stop you. For your # of arbitrators type proposal, I think it would be best set up as something like this:
  1. Change the number of Arbitrators from 13 because of foo bar.
    1. Change to 15
      1. Supporters
    2. Leave at 13
      1. Supporters
    3. Change to n
      1. Supporters
    4. Change to m
      1. Supporters
  • That way each additional "to x" wouldn't need an entirely new section, and anyone who said "leave at 13" wouldn't need to revisit each section with a fresh "oppose". — xaosflux Talk 23:55, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
    Thanks for spending so much time explaining this rather novel system. I'm not sure if I'm going to do anything at all, but at least if I do, I'll have a better grasp of what's going on.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:13, 4 September 2019 (UTC)


2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed

The Arbitration Committee is pleased to welcome the following editors to the functionary team:

The Committee thanks the community and all candidates for helping to bring this process to a successful conclusion.

The Committee also welcomes the following user back to the functionary team:

The Committee also thanks Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for his long history of contributions to the functionary team. Timotheus Canens voluntarily resigned his CheckUser and Oversight permissions in September 2019.

For the Arbitration Committee,

Katietalk 15:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed


Please adjust page protection

Please adjust the page protection settings on the following pages. As discussed at there is clear community consensus that ECP should not apply for "high risk templates" and nothing under WP:ECP supports such protection to this/these template(s) (example: "by request" is insufficient).

Thank you. Buffs (talk) 16:30, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Reviewed

@Buffs: thank you for bringing these up, it is good to periodically review protections and adjust them as conditions change! I've adjusted the protection I placed as noted above for several of these. For the other 2, I'm invoking WP:IAR - which I don't like to do lightly. I hope this addresses your concerns, if you have other questions please let me know. If you think this is unacceptable still, let me know and I'll bump it up to WP:AN (or you certainly can). Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 17:30, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
IMHO, WP:ECP for other reasons or TPROT would be more appropriate. For example, Template:GeoTemplate‎ already has a history of being protected for persistent vandalism. If that's what it's being protected under, simply invoke ECP for it and state as such in the most recent summary so it's clear (no big deal!). For the second, TPROT makes sense and give the 3 people/bots who use it TPROT access. WP:IAR when other options exist seems inappropriate. Buffs (talk) 20:18, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
"Just give editors TPE" is not really a great idea; it makes much more sense to reduce the level of one template rather than give an editor who might otherwise be clueless about templates access to edit any template. Primefac (talk) 20:22, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
^this. Especially as this isn't any sort of normal template. And for the first one, I'll leave a note on its talk page. — xaosflux Talk 20:24, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Could you do that in the edit summary so it's clear there? Buffs (talk) 20:34, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
What more is needed over and above "per request"? Primefac (talk) 20:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:ILIKEIT is not a valid rationale for ECP per WP:ECP. Buffs (talk) 21:02, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Last I checked, we were still the encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit... Buffs (talk) 21:04, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
I never said that any of us made the protection change because someone "liked" it. Additionally, no articles are made "off-limits" (which is really the meaning behind "anyone can edit") by limiting the amount of damage a vandal can do to potentially millions of pages with just a single edit. I'm not saying that your request has zero merit, but rather saying there will always be exceptions. Primefac (talk) 21:08, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
No, my point is that applying ECP just because someone requested it is inappropriate. "Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption.... Additionally, "Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred..." No where in ECP's definition does it permit what you're advocating. Likewise, the community has rejected ECP for templates just because they are high visibility. Buffs (talk) 21:21, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:IWANTIT links to the same as WP:ILIKEIT. Requesting page protection should not result in blanket approval solely because it was requested. Buffs (talk) 22:12, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
As I noted above, this is an exceptional edge-case - not any sort of blanketing case. — xaosflux Talk 23:03, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
My point being that the rationale provided is based solely on "I want it" (a.k.a. "I request it"). If the rationale was due to persistent vandalism or other disruption, so be it. Just put that in the summary. Dozens of templates fit that standard and I haven't asked anyone to reduce that; I'm just assuming admins had good reason in those instances and the fact that there's a valid reason for ECP is good enough for me. I also recognize WP:IAR has its place and that reasonable people can reasonably disagree. I appreciate the civil discussion. Buffs (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm somewhat relieved to know I wasn't the only one called out about this. It is true that some templates had regular contributors who did not have template editing rights, so we needed to find a compromise if we were going to protect en masse. Several editors also came forth and asked to lower from template protection, hence the "per request". Again, the RfC you point to I believe predates this affair, and templates continue to be put under ECP (it appears), just as normal pages were before ECP was even approved for general use. It's about judgement and the philosophy of taking the least restrictive but effective administrative action. I'd much rather permit good editors then prevent them. I can't speak for all of the admins you pinged, but in regards to the mass protections, specifically, I hope it's at least clear we were intentionally deviating from the letter of the law, and that you trust we knew what we were doing. Fortunately this vandalism trend seems to have largely died off, thanks to the prompt action and the new bot, so I have no issue with lowering protections, but I respect this is tedious work to go through all of them one by one to reverse what seemed like a very valid IAR move. I think a new RfC is in order, if anyone has the stomach for it. — MusikAnimal talk 22:44, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal Several editors also came forth and asked to lower from template protection Ok. That's fine. By definition, that next level down should be semi-protection, not ECP.
Additionally, if templates need protection and editing, they need to have template editing privileges. It's baffling to think that you'd trust someone to edit a template, but at the same time you think they're going to go rogue and screw up other templates (even though there's no evidence that they'd do so)? If they do, it's a simple fix:
  • Revoke access
  • Undo changes
  • If such attempts persist, block them.
It's literally the same way we handle any other user/pages.
If you want a new RfC, fine by me. I'll abide by whatever that comes up with, but until then, we should go by established consensus. Buffs (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43

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

  • Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [23]

Problems

  • There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [24]
  • The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [25]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
  • Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

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14:42, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Robert Walker (actor, born 1918)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Robert Walker (actor, born 1918). Legobot (talk) 04:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Krj373-Cell

I am just confirming that Krj373, Krj373-NR & Krj373-Cell are all my accounts and alt accounts. The request at PERM was made by myself. Krj373*(talk), *(contrib) 00:52, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

A glitch on my page

Hello Xaosflux! There is a "glitch" on my page that my user page (in the userboxes section) is in deletion due to Wikipedia's deletion policy. I did nothing wrong to get that warning. Anyway, cheers! CentralTime301 (talk, contribs) 12:11, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@CentralTime301: you are right, it is a bit of a glitch in Template:mfdx, it's not likely going to get worked on right away unless you want to tackle it. However, your userpage is not under consideration for actual deletion and won't be because of that - it should go away in about a week one way or another. The actual deletion nomination is for a userbox you use: User:JohnnyMrNinja/Lame password. If you want to follow up on that discussion you may at [[Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:JohnnyMrNinja/Lame password (2nd nomination)]. Hope that helps. — xaosflux Talk 12:57, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Gadget-Hide-curationtools

Hey! I was going through the "test" gadgets and saw MediaWiki:Gadget-Hide-curationtools. Is this still needed? You can disable the toolbar by simply hitting the minimize button, then the X button. It will then never show the toolbar again unless you click the "Open Page Curation" link under Tools. — MusikAnimal talk 18:32, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: hmmm - had to go digging on this one, do you know if phab:T206580's resolution fixed the problem in Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_170#How_can_I_permanently_hide_the_page_curation_rightside_toolbar? The problem was that even when closing is with the X, there was a hardcoded control to force it back open everytime you followed a link from the feed. — xaosflux Talk 19:01, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm assuming it did, as I cannot reproduce the issue. I'm a bit confused by phab:T206580#4687640, which says Curation toolbar will be always present when a user navigates to the article form NPP (via clicking on 'Review' or or on the article link). This doesn't seem to be true. In my testing, the toolbar is never shown if you intentionally hid it before, and I think this is the desired behaviour. Are you able to confirm? — MusikAnimal talk 19:20, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: I disabled the gadget, I'm not able to make the old problem occur right now, think it was reverted. It was being done by appending some arguments to the HTTP GET requests on those links before. — xaosflux Talk 20:54, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
After hitting both the minimize button, then the X button, the toolbar does not reappear when 'review' is clicked in the feed, but it will apoear if "Open Page Curation" link under Tools is clicked, On a slightly different note, I'm wondering where the 'Curate this page' link went. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:59, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@Kudpung: think it was just renamed, MediaWiki:Pagetriage-toolbar-linktext is the current text and we are using the default text. Did something different happen with "curate this page"? — xaosflux Talk 21:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes 'curate this page' appears to have been removed. Also the recently added 'add this page to New Pages Feed' has gone again. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:23, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Kudpung: I see "add to the new pages feed" for example in FK Obilić, and "open page curation" for example in Sandy Tithing Office. I think "open page curation" had the same result as "curate this page", just a different label correct? — xaosflux Talk 03:21, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
"add to New Pages Feed' now seems to be working, may be it was a browser issue. However, "open page curation" and "curate this page" are two different things and I'm not seeing either of them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Kudpung: I think it depends on if the page is "new" or not too? Also, what the "open page curation" button does is to open the curation hover bar, if it is already open you won't see it. What are you expecting the "curate this page" tool page link to actually do? — xaosflux Talk 03:42, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
What "curate this page" did was put the curation tool on that page and that page only - not put it back into the feed. Accessing an as yet unpatrolled page from anywhere other than the feed will load it complete with the Curation tool - at least for authorised reviewers, which is what it is supposed to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:17, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Kudpung: not sure if we are going in circles or not here :D If something is broken that I can help with I will try to! In the "tools" link as far as I can tell "curate this page" and "open page curation" are the exact same thing, they cause the curation hoverbar to open if it is not currently open, with no impact to the "feed", "reviewed status" or "patrolled status". Do you expect both of these options to be visible and do different things? It looks like the text for that control just changed. This is completely different from the "add this page to New Pages Feed" control for sure. — xaosflux Talk 14:40, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: the now-disabled gadget was for people that might use some of the feeds occasionally, but don't want to see the hoverbar because they don't use it - this was primarily for admins and is related to phab:T207482 still being open (which perhaps is now solved and can be closed?) NewPagesFeed was forcing "?showcurationtoolbar=1" on to all the links which caused it to open even if it was previously closed. — xaosflux Talk 14:40, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! You are correct about "Open Page Curation" and "Curate this page"; they are one and the same, just different copy. "Add this page to New Pages Feed" is a newer feature, shown only when viewing pages that aren't already in the queue. — MusikAnimal talk 18:00, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: thanks, @Kudpung: that was just a label change per: (1) and (2). — xaosflux Talk 18:14, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox organization

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox organization. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44

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 post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
  • Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [26][27]
  • You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
  • Advanced item OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [28][29]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [30]
  • Advanced item Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

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

16:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Query

Hi,

Wanted to ask an admin query - in the process of handling a legal threat (one on a 2nd party user talk page), should the threat be removed by the admin immediately, or just left to the user to remove when they wish to? Nosebagbear (talk) 10:09, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: that is very broad, it would depend on the nature of the situation, including the experience level of the recipient and the message maker. Keep in mind that reverting or removing anything on a user talk page is likely going to trigger the 'new messages' flag for that page owner, so if you do remove something you may want to do it while leaving them a message - else they may waste time going to their history to find out what you did. — xaosflux Talk 12:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough, cheers Nosebagbear (talk)

The Signpost: 31 October 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Just a salutation

Hello, Xaosflux!

I wanted help with something...




Not really. Just passed by to salute you. 👋 You've helped me many times and I thought I'd write at least once in times of peace and happiness. :P Have a great day! :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 01:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-45

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

  • At Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites. [31]

Changes later this week

  • MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip to set a different default block length for IP editors. [32]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings

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16:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

enwiki inactive special users

Hi. I wanted to make 2 suggestions regarding quarry:query/18989, if you don't mind:

  1. abusefilter-helpter contains a typo
  2. Using GROUP_CONCAT would mean that each user is only listed once, even if they have multiple groups, and that the groups would be shown together

See quarry:query/36593 for the result. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:19, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: thanks, looks good. — xaosflux Talk 12:06, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Email

I sent you an email, but the subject title is more alarming than it's meant to be. Missing some punctuation. –xenotalk 23:34, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: replied to the 10 alarm fire :D — xaosflux Talk 00:02, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-46

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

  • MediaWiki2LaTeX can put different pages from a Wikimedia wiki into a PDF. It can now make a PDF with around 5000 pages. Previously this was 800 pages.

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

Future changes== Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islands ==

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islands. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

This is a test message. You can delete this if you don't see any issues with this statement

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:42, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47

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

Changes later this week

  • You can soon vote on proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

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20:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2019 (UTC)


  • Wikimedia will take part in Google Code-in. This is for young students who want to help with open source software. You can read more. Experienced technical Wikimedians can mentor students.

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22:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

ACE2019

Just wondering if this is still being updated. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:20, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@Kudpung: yes! I should have it caught up again in a few hours! — xaosflux Talk 15:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
@Kubpung:  Done best wishes, — xaosflux Talk 15:43, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:IPhone 11

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:IPhone 11. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-48

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 mobile beta mode will be disabled to have less maintenance. The developers will focus on the desktop improvements project. You can turn on advanced mobile contributions mode if you want to see the categories. You could also jump back to the top. This can instead be done with a gadget or user script. [34]
  • Parsoid is software we use for the visual editor, content translation, Flow and the Android app. This has been rewritten. It will come to the wikis gradually over the next two weeks. It has been tested, but there could be some diffs or previews that don't look right. If you see any you can report them. [35]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 November. It will be on the other wikis next week (calendar). This is because of holidays.

Meetings

Future changes

  • You will switch between the article and the talk page in a new way in the mobile view in the future. It will use tabs. This is more like in the desktop view. [36]

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

16:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Help regarding Google

Hello, Xaosflux! :)

I need guidance regarding a subject related to Wikipedia and Google. These last days I've been asked by some users regarding the indexing process Google does with the Wikipedia's articles. Now I know that the process starts as soon as an article gets reviewed and the Google bots are allowed to crawl into it. But they want to know more about it. One user wanted to know how is the SEO ranking determined in the search results in regard to Wikipedia articles. Some other user showed me that the Google search preview of his article had malfunctioned and showed part of the SqWiki site notice and was wondering how to change that from within the article. Unfortunately my knowledge on this subject ends at what I just described at the beginning of the text and I thought I could try and ask you for help if you can lead me somewhere where I can learn more about it so that I'm able to help them with their requests. - Klein Muçi (talk) 19:17, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: we can't control what third parties like Google show, and we certainly have no control over their results rankings. However a few topics matter:Wikipedia:Controlling search engine indexing goes over the index-ability of pages. Many providers make use of article Wikipedia:Short descriptions, which mostly are stored on wikidata. If a search provider page is out of date, simply editing the page again - especially the first paragraph - usually gets them to update their results. — xaosflux Talk 19:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for the links! I'll read them soon and I'll write to you again if I still have questions or just to thank you for the help. - Klein Muçi (talk) 19:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
I just read everything you gave me. I don't understand quite good what the "short description" is though. :/ - Klein Muçi (talk) 20:31, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: here is an example random page: w:sq:Kantoni Levet, if you look at the page information you can see "Example text". That comes from: wikidata:Q593906, and is used by many search providers. — xaosflux Talk 21:11, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I understand what you mean now. Even though the link to the article doesn't work properly I think. But I got what you meant by the two other links. So this is all there is to be known on the subject? At least as Wikipedia is concerned I mean. Just wanting to be informed in case any more questions do arise on our community about this subject.
And another curiosity question: Why does Google or any other search provider respect (those who do) the index/noindex magic words? Is there any agreement between Wikimedia and them? Is this an universal cultural thing among internet bots? How did it start becoming respected I mean? The first page you gave me went around this subject but didn't exactly explain why putting __NOINDEX__ would make the page not appear on Google search results. - Klein Muçi (talk) 23:42, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
@Klein Muçi: most reputable search providers follow the Robots exclusion standard. Keep in mind as well, that for the most part "noindex/index" on "articles" are normally ignored by WMF projects, who use other factors (such as patrol state, timers) to actually add that the to served page. — xaosflux Talk 23:50, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
I understand now. I didn't know about that standard. One last thing: The "short description" is not what I was referring when I mentioned the "article preview". I tried searching for Abraham Lincoln. The first result, which is the EnWiki article, reads Abraham Lincoln (/ˈliŋkən/; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.. That's not the "short description" but the first sentence of the summary of the article Abraham Lincoln. That's what I meant with "article preview" at the beginning. - Klein Muçi (talk) 00:04, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, Google normally just take the first paragraph for that part. — xaosflux Talk 00:08, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
So changing that should be able to change the preview at Google/other search webpages too and fix any temporarily malfunctions with what is being shown. Thank you! That answers all my requests. :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 00:16, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox person

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The Signpost: 29 November 2019

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).

Administrator changes

added EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
removed Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes

readded Beeblebrox
removed Deskana

Interface administrator changes

readded Evad37

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-49

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

  • Mix'n'match is a tool to connect Wikidata items to information in other databases. It can be used to find subjects that are missing in a Wikipedia. It now has more than 3000 datasets. Before it was closer to 2000.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 December. It will be on all wikis from 5 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • Advanced item There will be a new schema for XML dumps. Scripts and apps that use them will need to be updated. If they are not updated they will no longer work. [37]
  • Advanced item The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work in the content namespaces. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it returns "" (empty string). When you read a page it returns "-" (dash). In the future this will also affect other namespaces. The next ones are file and category namespaces. [38]

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

16:59, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I dont really know how this works

Hi, so I added this tag that says The article Media bias against Bernie Sanders is currently subject to discretionary sanctions authorized by active arbitration remedies (see WP:ARBAPDS). An administrator has applied the following restrictions to this article:. It says an administrator has applied the restrictions but I thought anyone can add that tag and the article obviously needs a sanction.--SharabSalam (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: I don't get in to arbitration enforcement much - but that appears to be a template for "discretionary" sanctions - which as it says can only be applied by an administrator, so you should remove that. This would be different from some sort of always-present sanction, and there could be a better tag for it. You may try asking at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, admins that frequently work in that area patrol that noticeboard. — xaosflux Talk 23:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux, Thank you for your prompt reply. I have removed the tag. I asked you because I remembered that you applied sanctions on Houthi movement article so I thought you work on this area. Sorry for the misunderstanding.--SharabSalam (talk) 23:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
@SharabSalam: no worries, and there are certainly people that can help on this. I'm more of a "technical" administrator, and my work on that other page was just in processing a request (and that one doesn't seem to be "discretionary" - it was just an informative template that a non-discretionary sanction was applicable). WP:ARE should be able to help you along. Best wishes, — xaosflux Talk 00:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

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It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Pie chart

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Pie chart. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Using Cookies to detect sockpuppets

Hi, using sockpuppets ruins Wikipedia. I have had a massive waste of time arguing with sockpuppets in Talk:Gatestone Institute and they have ruined a RfC. I was wondering if Wikipedia uses cookies and could cookies help CUs detect sockpuppets. I dont know much about cookies and these stuff. I only knew how to use internet in 2016. I think cookies are files that websites put in your device to detect your device the next time you come again to their websites. They are sometimes used for advertising purposes. So does Wikipedia already use cookies to detect sockpuppets? And if not would it be a good idea or a stupid idea to use cookies to detect sockpuppets. Thanks.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@SharabSalam: if you think someone is inappropriate using multiple accounts you can request an investigation at WP:SPI (read the How to open an investigation section first). We do use cookies as part of logon and account blocking, but not specifically for SPI. — xaosflux Talk 20:59, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-50

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

  • Wikimedia projects use Translatewiki to translate the wiki interface. You can now use WatchTranslations to watch projects there. You would get an email if there are missing translations to your language. [39]
  • Advanced item There is a new dataset you can use. It shows the number of editors per country per month for a number of countries. You can read the documentation and download the dataset.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 December. It will be on all wikis from 12 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

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

16:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Hidden things!

sysop-show I want such things to show! –xenotalk 20:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Xeno: couple of ways to do this, first is just make a posting at WP:BN to add sysop to your account, cough cough cough..... the other way is you could copy the lines from MediaWiki:Group-sysop.css to User:Xeno/common.css or a skin-specific css such as User:Xeno/monobook.css. — xaosflux Talk 20:46, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
It’s not even been 90 days! –xenotalk 01:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

MediaWiki pages on testwiki

Hello, xaosflux. Over on testwiki there's a scary editnoice on all MediaWiki pages, which seems to imply some people are blindly copying MediaWiki pages from there over to content wikis. Is this really true? I'd like to try some ideas from WP:VPT#Nonsense from mobile editors, but don't want to break anything. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:22, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@Suffusion of Yellow: so basically you don't want to break some other developers testing. Things that are almost always safe to do there: create new non-default gadgets. As far as the other messages, it is OK to test them - but when you are done your testing (which should be in the same editing session) delete the mediawiki message so that it defaults back to normal. Does that help? — xaosflux Talk 00:15, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, thanks! Shouldn't take more than a few minutes (yes, I know...) to see if it works. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Help needed: Article Review

Hello, Xaosflux! I saw you had bureaucratic privileges in EnWiki and thought you could help me. Not so long ago I made an article about a famous fashion designer in Kosovo. That draft got rejected. I made some changes to it later to address what was written in the reject notice and resubmitted it. I even messaged the user who rejected it but I've got no notice from either place and I'm not sure what to do now. Can you help me with this situation? Here is the article I'm talking about:Draft:Dejzi. Thank you!--Arjanhalili (talk) 21:07, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Arjanhalili: This site is operated by volunteers, you'll have to wait "in line" like all the other articles waiting. Please be patient. - FlightTime Phone (open channel) 21:12, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
User:FlightTime Phone I can do that. The only problem is 1. I'm not sure if the draft got resubmitted. 2. I'm not sure if I should still be waiting for a message from the person who refused it or not, seeing he answered other messages but not mine. Or maybe I should write to him again. Also, I'm not sure how much should I be waiting. The first draft got checked very fast but it's been weeks since I resubmitted it and I've got no answer. That's what made me unsure if the draft got ever resubmitted or not.--Arjanhalili (talk) 21:29, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
@Arjanhalili: The draft has been submitted and as you can see the notice at the bottom of your draft, the waiting period can take up to 4 months. - FlightTime Phone (open channel) 22:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
@Arjanhalili: "bureaucrats" like me are part of the organizational administration system, but we have no special access or privileges as far as the "content" of articles and drafts go. As FlightTime said above, there is a bit of a backlog and someone will eventually get to it. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 23:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
So, it has been resubmitted. I've made the process correctly and now I must wait. That's what I wanted to know. Thank you then!--Arjanhalili (talk) 14:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-51

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 Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. It did not show new changes last week. This was because of an API problem. It is now working again. [41]
  • Special:Watchlist can show the wrong information again. It does not always show which edits are read and which are unread. This is because of a database problem. The developers are working on solving the problem. [42]

Changes later this week

  • You can get email notifications. You can get them immediately, a summary every day or a summary once every week. If you choose a summary you can soon choose not to get notifications you have already marked as read on the wiki. [43]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 December. It will be on all wikis from 19 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • The partial blocks feature is now stable. It will come to most wikis on 6 January. Your wiki can ask to wait. Contact NKohli (WMF) if you don't want it now. [44]

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

00:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2020!

Hello Xaosflux, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2020.
Happy editing,
PATH SLOPU 14:48, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody!!!
Merry Christmas everybody!!!

"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)

Chris Troutman (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas.

This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove.


Spread the cheer by adding {{Subst:Xmas4}} to their talk page with a friendly message.


Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas, Xaosflux!
Or Season's Greetings or Happy Winter Solstice! As the year winds to a close, I would like to take a moment to recognize your hard work and offer heartfelt gratitude for all you do for Wikipedia. And for all the help you've thrown my way over the years. May this Holiday Season bring you nothing but joy, health and prosperity.[[User:CAPTAIN R

Be well at Christmas

Have a WikiChristmas and a PediaNewYear

Be well. Keep well. Have a lovely Christmas. And if it's fixed, why not break it? SilkTork (talk) 17:34, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

IPBE Warns Dec 2019

Tech News: 2019-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 6 January 2020.

Recent changes

  • All mobile site users now have new features. Features include: tabs for page/discussion; an expanded user-menu; direct access to history pages. These features were initially part of the "advanced mode".

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

  • You can use setlang in the URL to change the user interface language. This will no longer happen automatically. When you open the link you will be asked to confirm the language change. This will not happen if Javascript is not working in your browser. [45]

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

20:08, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Hi Xao! All the warmest wishes for this seasonal occasion, whichever you celebrate - or don't, while I swelter at 27℃ (80.6℉), and peace and prosperity for 2020. Seriously hoping that you'll join me for a cool beer in Bangkok in August when it will be even hotter!
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:07, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

MOS namespace

Why haven't we set up MOS: as its own namespace or an alias for the Project: namespace? Reading through the mediawiki documentation it seems like there isn't a risk of breaking anything. If MOS is set up as a namespace, all the pages in article space titled MOS:ABC will become inaccessible (which is what we would want) because the software would automatically resolve the namespace, even from old incoming links. CNRs are a pain and it would be great if there were a way to resolve the MOS issue. Also, happy holidays! Thanks for all the work you do. Wug·a·po·des​ 11:35, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: creating an entire namespace just for links to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style would be huge overkill, namespaces are for very high-level organization of pages that may need high level differences like permissioning, content models, or other special software rules. As far as making "MOS" a namespace alias for "Project", the way it is being used now all those redirects would still be needed as typing MOS: would be the same as typing "Project", and collisions would all need to be removed (e.g. MOS:CO and Project:CO have different targets). — xaosflux Talk 12:36, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Good luck

豊かな十年へようこそ/WELCOME TO THE D20s

Miraclepine wishes you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a prosperous decade of change and fortune.
このミラPはXaosfluxたちのメリークリスマスも新年も変革と幸運の豊かな十年をおめでとうございます！
フレフレ、みんなの未来！/GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE!
ミラP 03:39, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

I know that there was, at best, mixed reaction to the resysop RfCs by the crats. I appreciate that since they've passed that your comments have reflected its outcome. Thanks for that and all you do in your many many hats for Wikipedia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:35, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 December 2019

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AJU|CAPTAIN RAJU]](T) 12:53, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:WikiProject Degrassi members

A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject Degrassi members requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:13, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


Be well at Christmas

Have a WikiChristmas and a PediaNewYear

Be well. Keep well. Have a lovely Christmas. And if it's fixed, why not break it? SilkTork (talk) 17:34, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

IPBE Warns Dec 2019

Tech News: 2019-52

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 6 January 2020.

Recent changes

  • All mobile site users now have new features. Features include: tabs for page/discussion; an expanded user-menu; direct access to history pages. These features were initially part of the "advanced mode".

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

  • You can use setlang in the URL to change the user interface language. This will no longer happen automatically. When you open the link you will be asked to confirm the language change. This will not happen if Javascript is not working in your browser. [46]

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

20:08, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Hi Xao! All the warmest wishes for this seasonal occasion, whichever you celebrate - or don't, while I swelter at 27℃ (80.6℉), and peace and prosperity for 2020. Seriously hoping that you'll join me for a cool beer in Bangkok in August when it will be even hotter!
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:07, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

MOS namespace

Why haven't we set up MOS: as its own namespace or an alias for the Project: namespace? Reading through the mediawiki documentation it seems like there isn't a risk of breaking anything. If MOS is set up as a namespace, all the pages in article space titled MOS:ABC will become inaccessible (which is what we would want) because the software would automatically resolve the namespace, even from old incoming links. CNRs are a pain and it would be great if there were a way to resolve the MOS issue. Also, happy holidays! Thanks for all the work you do. Wug·a·po·des​ 11:35, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: creating an entire namespace just for links to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style would be huge overkill, namespaces are for very high-level organization of pages that may need high level differences like permissioning, content models, or other special software rules. As far as making "MOS" a namespace alias for "Project", the way it is being used now all those redirects would still be needed as typing MOS: would be the same as typing "Project", and collisions would all need to be removed (e.g. MOS:CO and Project:CO have different targets). — xaosflux Talk 12:36, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Good luck

豊かな十年へようこそ/WELCOME TO THE D20s

Miraclepine wishes you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a prosperous decade of change and fortune.
このミラPはXaosfluxたちのメリークリスマスも新年も変革と幸運の豊かな十年をおめでとうございます！
フレフレ、みんなの未来！/GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE!
ミラP 03:39, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

I know that there was, at best, mixed reaction to the resysop RfCs by the crats. I appreciate that since they've passed that your comments have reflected its outcome. Thanks for that and all you do in your many many hats for Wikipedia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:35, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 December 2019

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

HNY

Happy New Year!
Hello Xaosflux:


Did you know ... that back in 1885, Wikipedia editors wrote Good Articles with axes, hammers and chisels?

Thank you for your contributions to this encyclopedia using 21st century technology. I hope you don't get any unnecessary blisters.

CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 01:29, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Happy New Year elves}} to send this message
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