User talk:Xavexgoem/archive8

Deletion discussions

Hello, I'd like to understand better why the article Ancestry of John Seymour of Sawbridgeworth was deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pablocombiano (talk • contribs) 19:35, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There was a broad consensus to delete. If you think it can be salvaged – bearing in mind the worries that other editors expressed – I can move the article to a subpage so you can continue working on it. It won't be on WP proper, but maybe you can improve it to a point where it won't be deleted. Let me know. Xavexgoem (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Sal's Pizza (Dallas) was deleted without any discussion of the suitability of the gayot.com link, which is a non-local source. Pawsplay (talk) 22:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete was the general consensus. I can restore the content to a subpage for you to work on, if you'd like. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Muhammad RFC

Hi Xav, not sure if I showed you already or not, but you may possibly find the format in this RFC useful? Best of luck :-) Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 20:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of, but maybe it's too broad? I believe everyone in the dispute is aware of the policies and the general community consensus. I'm hoping it can be narrowed down more. Xavexgoem (talk) 12:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's really the structure that counts, what's being commented on can be different (doesn't have to be about policy). The key point is that it's different to a normal RFC, which in my opinion has little structure and is comprised on users making statements and others endorsing them. It can really be as narrow or as broad as you want it, you just need to change the section headers to what is being discussed. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 19:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be sure, the RfC will be very structured. In that respect, your RfC is perfect :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 20:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...well, I have the case watchlisted, so poke me if you need anything. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 20:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning page formatting, I suggest that technical RFC pages should have more pronounced warnings using {{ambox}} instead of just bold text; this would help avoid errors like this one when a user confused the intro subpage with subpages for actual discussion. I'm not sure where to discuss this, so I trust you to move this motion forward. Dmitry _{(talk•contibs)} 07:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Co-mediating the Muhammad case

Would you mind getting some help on the case? Paolo Napolitano 18:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like someone with a bit more experience. In particular, I'm worried about "There is no Wiki but Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales is its Prophet" on your user page (which would be ok in almost any other dispute; here, it's a little too cheeky) and this diff. I'm worried that you think its important whether editors in the dispute are Muslim, and that that constitutes a significant COI. Xavexgoem (talk) 12:32, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see that, and I respect your decision. The user page sentence is something I came up with myself, it is not in any way intended to be anti-Islamic. While I am a conservative, I am not anti-Islam in any way, and the question was, ironically, posed to find out if any of the users involved did have personal beliefs that could affect their editing. Any abuse as a result of outing oneself as a Muslim would be a blatant personal attack subject to a lengthy block. Paolo Napolitano 15:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MSU Interview

Dear Xavexgoem,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC) Young June Sah--Yjune.sah (talk) 22:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Card and delays

The statement about Card's contribution leading to the anthology being late is taken from a posting by Marvin Kaye on the Publishers Weekly official blog. DS (talk) 17:38, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Inre Your John Kerry VVAW Controversy Delete Determination

Given the extensive editing I had accomplished in the provision of WP:V, WP:RS sourcing for this article content and the rescission of the prior merge determination at my behest to accommodate a more fully credible closure, your "delete" determination has, quite frankly, left me flabbergasted. I am going to allow some time for proper reflection before deciding on what course of action to pursue inre your closure but, in the interim, I would appreciate access to the existing article content as composed prior to your deletion which, if I understand correctly a discussion above, can be made available. JakeInJoisey (talk) 05:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the provision of access to the deleted article. Having little prior experience in AfD matters, is the prior talk page content/archive (if any) also available? Thank you. JakeInJoisey (talk) 06:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, right. Sorry. Xavexgoem (talk) 06:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. JakeInJoisey (talk) 06:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Campaign for "santorum" neologism RFC close request

Hi Xavexgoem. You volunteered to close Talk:Campaign for "santorum" neologism#RfC - Should spreadingsantorum.com be hyperlinked within the article body and/or "External Links"? at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Campaign for "santorum" neologism RFC close request. I have started a new subsection at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Triumvirate for the closing admins to discuss the close. Thank you for volunteering for this difficult task. I wish you the best of luck. Cunard (talk) 02:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, I've developed my opinion of the consensus and I am ready to discuss when you are.--v/r - T P 13:48, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure thing. Just give me about half a day (sleep) Xavexgoem (talk) 13:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a heads up, we're both ready. Just let us know when you are.--v/r - T P 22:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Xavexgoem. You have new messages at Talk:Campaign_for_"santorum"_neologism/Triumvirate.
Message added 04:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

v/r - T P 04:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Santorum

Just want to make sure that you agree with [1]. T. Canens (talk) 06:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Muhammad

Hi Xavex. I don't know how closely you've been watching the mediation, but there has been some progress, with a subpage set up to compile the RfC. However, there doesn't seem to be a shared understanding of how that should work. My view is that this page should only be edited in line with consensus formed in the mediation. Perhaps you share that view or perhaps you don't, but it would be good to get some guidance. FormerIP (talk) 22:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As an alternate point of view, it's looking like FormerIP started a discussion, declared 48 hours of conversation as "consensus", is now declaring any alternate views as disruptive, and is immediately reverting any changes. So yes, I think having a mediator would be helpful at this point. --El on ka 23:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it. Xavexgoem (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's looking like I'm going to be shouted down, shall I just withdraw from the mediation? I really don't have time for a lengthy discussion, sorry. --El on ka 00:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping there's an easy compromise. I can't guarantee it won't be discussed at length. It's up to you. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll stay in. However, life calls, and I'll be offline for as much as 24 hours. Good luck in the meantime! --El on ka 00:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you wish to collapse anything, I won't object. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Please see the bottom of the mediation page. As this is a question concerning mediation policy, your input is needed. If you have to consult other mediators, that would be fine. If I have to appeal this somewhere let me know. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:25, 9 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi X. If you could do this, it may help:User talk:Alanscottwalker#Civility. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

Thanks for helping out with the RFC. I'm more interested in putting this behind us than I am finding any one 'exact' solution. So it's really good to see people working on this.

I was also very tempted to try a "philosophical" approach to this dispute, and long ago though the better of it. People consense best when they discuss a middleground between the lofty and the mundane. Good work . --HectorMoffet (talk) 03:57, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation Cabal: Case update

Dear Xavexgoem/archive8: Hello, this is to let you know that a Mediation Cabal case that you are involved in, or have some connection with:

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/11 February 2012/Muhammad-images

is currently inactive as it has not been edited in at least a week. If the issues in the case have been resolved, please let us know on our talk page so we can close the case. If there are still issues that need to be addressed, let us know. If your mediator has become inactive, also let us know. The case will be closed in one month if it remains inactive. You can let us know what's going on by sending a message through to your mediator, Xavexgoem, on their talk page. Thanks! MedcabBot (talk) 18:09, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've been inactive from Wikipedia for a week or so but how come this case is inactive rather than closed? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case. I'll close it. Xavexgoem (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite

Hello Xavexgoem. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.

Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.

You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 11:30, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation about T-Square case

Hi, about this case [2]. I filed the case when there was a flurry of changes and little discussion; subsequently the page benefited a lot from the input of uninvolved editors (being the main featured page for the day helped). At the moment there is low-level discussion and some disagreement, but things have died down considerably. Then there are two more things: probably if any mediation is necessary, it should just be between two editors, not the gaggle that I enlisted, two of whom were not really involved. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this appears to be a behavioral issue rather than strictly a content one. So at the moment the whole thing is up in the air. Perhaps we should just put it on ice indefinitely, and see if later on it would be wise to initiate mediation. What do you think? The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:14, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, mediation is not necessary. There's nothing happening on the page and the dispute--such as it was--was a behavioral one and not a content one. Let's cancel the request and allow me to please apologize for the trouble. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 23:04, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick Question

What was the case you were referring to in my MedCom nomination discussion? I'd be happy to open it if you point me in the right direction.

Regards, Lord Roem (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think Sunray is picking it up, but there may be room for more, not sure. You'll get filled in when you're on the list. Edit: Be sure to email WgFinley. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, just emailed him. Lord Roem (talk) 21:36, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Close

Hi. Hope all is well with you. It seems you might be the logical choice to "end" the Muhammad images discussion (by that I mean physically "lock" the RfC on the 19th/20th) (as you opened it) and also find/advertise for the three uninvolved? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably not going to full prot it, but I will recruit the three admins tomorrow. I might not be available when I said I'd end it (I think it's at 23:59?), but I don't think a few hours will hurt anything. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess, I wasn't thinking full prot but the close template, with a temporary note that consensus is being assessed, as was done in the Verifiability RfC. Thanks again for your work on this. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you do anything when someone edits the closed RfC? Someguy1221 (talk) 03:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about it. Xavexgoem (talk) 03:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Muhammad images should be closed, yes? Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:54, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How do I communicate with you privately? Offender9000 (talk) 09:32, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Private

I don't understand what your role is in the dispute about the NZ Corrections Department. How do I communicate with you privately? Offender9000 (talk) 09:35, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Xavexgoem. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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.

A kitten for you!

Thank you for your hard work on the recent mediation case I was involved in.

Stuartyeates (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I watched the mediation process with great interest, and applaud you for your efforts.

I am unsure what if any action to take over recent comments at Talk:Department of Corrections (New Zealand) where the results of the mediation are used to criticise an editor. I feel this breaches your final comments that "anything said here cannot be used in any other fora on WP."-gadfium 08:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is also being used in dispute resolution. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:28, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Xavexgoem (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RFC discussion of User:Offender9000

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Offender9000 (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Offender9000. -- Stuartyeates (talk) 05:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Irean Anders (Renata Bogdanska)

Dear Madam / Sir,

Re: Irena Anders (Renata Bogdanska)

A friend recently researched the life of Mrs Irena Anders who was married to Polish General Wladyslaw Anders (of Battle for Monti Casino, Italy fame). As it turned out she was born to two very nationalistic Ukrainian parents and during the Second World War she decided to become Polish. She and her Polish General husband became 'the' Icons of Polish resistance during the Cold War era. Both her parents were 'hardcore' Ukrainian nationalists which it appears that a contributor to the site about her seems to want to eradicate. The evidence of her past was produced by B.N. of Great Britan and he developed this research into two YouTube clips. Much of the supporting evidence was provided by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Institute of Church History in Lviv, Ukraine which was able to provide ample evidence of her Ukrainian roots. After all, her father was a priest, as was her uncle and many other relatives. Worth noting is that priest in the Eastern Rite (Greek) of the Catholic Church are permited to get married and have children.

I have been slowly changing the web site about Irene Anders to include her 'Ukrainian roots'. As soon as I make the changes, there is a contributor who removes my edits. Clearly, this person does not want the public to know about Mrs Anders Ukrainian roots. Can you please mediate this matter since I would like to greatly expand the profile to include many details about her past which have been posted in these two clips:

Irene Anders / Renata Bogdanska - Ukrainian Dimension http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBLqCiWqQ9M

Irene Anders / Renata Bogdanska - Polish Dimension http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqGTgIMqIV4

Please let me know your thoughts. You can contact me at:

polyfilaman@yahoo.com

Thank you

Michael Brytan (talk) 02:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Michael. Have you talked with the editor on the article's talk page? According to the this edit, it appears that the other editor is deleting the Ukrainian information because it's not supported by the current sources. Do you have a textual source that says she's Ukrainian? Xavexgoem (talk) 02:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request

Hello Xavexgoem, I hope you are well. You may or may not be aware, but there have been recent discussions on WP:Legality of Israeli settlements in one of the IPCOLL pages, with one of the discussions ending in "no consensus" on keeping/removing the sentence, and one of them being an RFC on starting an RFC. Sandstein suggested, in his close of the first and in a follow up question that I asked that a new RFC be set up. In a few comments with No More Mr Nice Guy on that IPCOLL page, and also his talk page, we talked about setting up an RFC and ways to do so. Would you be willing to be one of three admins to help close this RFC? Moonriddengirl has agreed to be one of those three. Please let me know. Thanks, nableezy - 05:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute Resolution IRC office hours.

Hello there. As you expressed interest in hearing updates to my research in the dispute resolution survey that was done a few months ago, I just wanted to let you know that I am hosting an IRC office hours session this coming Saturday, 28th July at 19:00 UTC (approximately 12 hours from now). This will be located in the #wikimedia-office ^connect IRC channel - if you have not participated in an IRC discussion before you can connect to IRC here.

Regards, User:Szhang (WMF) (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DRN volunteer of the week

		DRN volunteer of the week barnstar
		This is for your hard work in rewriting the volunteer page - picking up the slack from me. Thanks again for all your work :-) Szhang (WMF) (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question on bot

See question re Bot in Question on title of the List section in DRN Talk page. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 01:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Replied. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sanity checks

I'm off to bed - see what you can do? Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 13:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PIGS

I don't see any route for agreement with Naumakos. I could throw references at that talk page all day and it would do no good. I've added your suggestion to the article. Thanks for your assistance.

Regards, --RA (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Xavexgoem. You have new messages at Rannpháirtí anaithnid's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

A barnstar for you!

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	You always provide sensible and helpful comments. Your presence is appreciated! Noleander (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 19:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at WP:DNR regarding a dispute on the article PIGS (economics). Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "Talk:PIGS (economics)".The discussion is about the topic PIGS (economics). Thank you! --RA (talk) 08:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DRN needs your help!

Hey there Xavexgoem, I noticed you've listed yourself as a volunteer at the dispute resolution noticeboard but you haven't been very active there lately - I was hoping if you had some spare time if you could take a look there and offer some assistance. Thanks again for your help :-) Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 11:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking a break. You can remove me if you want. Xavexgoem (talk) 23:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

In this issue:

Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
Research: The most recent DR data
Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment at Monty Hall problem RfC

Because of your interest in dispute resolution,, I am inviting you to comment on the following RfC:

Talk:Monty Hall problem#Conditional or Simple solutions for the Monty Hall problem?

This dispute has been going on for over ten years and there have been over 1,300,000 words posted on the article talk page (by comparison, all of the Harry Potter books together total 1,084,170 words). Over the years the dispute has been through multiple noticeboards, mediators, and even the Arbitration Committee without resolving the conflict, so a lot of wisdom is needed here. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Correct word?

Hi. You posted a comment at an RfC today "I'm curious how it appears democratic ...". It looks like perhaps you meant to say "bureaucratic". No big deal, just letting you know. --Noleander (talk) 19:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute Resolution RFC

Hello.As a member of Wikiproject Dispute Resolution I am just letting you know that there is an RFC discussing changes to dispute resolution on Wikipedia. You can find the RFC on this page. If you have already commented there, please disregard this message. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 08:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Thebirdlover

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Thebirdlover, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Thebirdlover and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Thebirdlover during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you.

Request for assistance

Hello. Saw your name at Wikipedia:Editor_assistance. I, along with some other editors, have been having trouble with editor User:GreatOrangePumpkin. My efforts at trying to improve the basic English grammar and point out citations issues on the article Fyodor Dostoevsky have been met with stonewalling and hostile reverts. He appears to have some serious ownership issues and regularly engages in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. If a discussion gets to a point where his response becomes the critical turning point he just ignores the whole issue, hoping for it to go away. Maybe you can sense my frustration in the way I'm telling this but please bear with me. To the point: can you take a look at Talk:Fyodor_Dostoyevsky from the legacy section to the bottom and offer some advice on how I should proceed? I really am at my wits end. Many thanks. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 02:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute resolution volunteer survey

Dispute Resolution – Volunteer Survey Invite

Hello Xavexgoem. To follow up on the first survey in April, I am conducting a second survey to learn more about dispute resolution volunteers - their motivations for resolving disputes, the experiences they've had, and their ideas for the future. I would appreciate your thoughts. I hope that with the results of this survey, we will learn how to increase the amount of active, engaged volunteers, and further improve dispute resolution processes. The survey takes around five to ten minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.

Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.

You are receiving this invitation because you have either listed yourself as a volunteer at a dispute resolution forum, or are a member of a dispute resolution committee. For more information, please see the page that describes my fellowship work which can be found here. Szhang (WMF) (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DRN Regarding Syrian Civil War

Hey Xavexgoem, thought you might be interested in an active DRN case on the Syrian civil war considering your involvement in the RfM. You can find it here WP:DRN#Syrian civil war. Cabe 6403 ^{(Talk•Sign)} 08:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) characters

Hi, Xavexgoem, I appreciate your feedback at Talk:List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) characters. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:01, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mediate

As a participant in WikiProject Alternative Views I invite you to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sorcha Faal (2nd nomination)[3]. For an entity such as this who has gained global noterity to even be considered for deletion is beyond my understanding.Kmt885 (talk) 09:02, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DRN organisers

Hello. I am just letting you know that I've made a proposal to create a rotating DRN organiser-style role that would help with the day-to-day running of DRN. As you are a listed volunteer at DRN, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this, and the other open proposals at DRN. You can read more about it here. Thanks! Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 00:18, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interac_(Japan)

I could use some help with Interac_(Japan) since I'm finding it hard to move ahead. Please see my notes on the Talk page.61.120.17.197 (talk) 02:13, 30 April 2013 (UTC)61.120.17.197 (talk) 02:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

Foundation elections: Trustee candidates speak about Board structure, China, gender, global south, endowment

WikiProject report: Classical Greece and Rome

News and notes: Spanish Wikipedia leaps past one million articles

In the media: Qworty incident continues

Featured content: Up in the air

Ancient history

Hi there. Sorry to waste your time with ancient history but in relation to this edit: [4] Offender is still referencing the failed mediation in a manner which other people can't counter because of being bound by the privileged nature of mediation. Instead of yet another telling-off, is there any chance that privilege can be vacated from that proceeding (and that proceeding only) so that the argument can be countered? Not a huge issue if it can't be, but thought it might be worth checking to see. Thanks for your time. Daveosaurus (talk) 07:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

He's been indef blocked. I don't see the need, and it's probably best to just walk away. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:11, 30 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

News and notes: First-ever community election for FDC positions

In the media: Pagans complain about Qworty's anti-Pagan editing

Foundation elections: Candidates talk about the Meta problem, the nation-based chapter model, world languages, and value for money

WikiProject report: WikiProject Geographical Coordinates

Featured content: Life of 2π

Recent research: Motivations on the Persian Wikipedia; is science eight times more popular on the Spanish Wikipedia than the English Wikipedia?

Technology report: Amsterdam hackathon: continuity, change, and stroopwafels

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

From the editor: Signpost developments

Featured content: A week of portraits

Discussion report: Return of the Discussion report

News and notes: "Cease and desist", World Trade Organization says to Wikivoyage; Could WikiLang be the next WMF project?

In the media: China blocks secure version of Wikipedia

WikiProject report: Operation Normandy

Technology report: Developers accused of making Toolserver fight 'pointless'

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

News and notes: How Wikimedia affiliates are spending $8.4 million; PRISM scandal

Featured content: Mixing Bowl Interchange

In the media: VisualEditor will "change world history"

Op-ed: The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons

Discussion report: VisualEditor, elections, bots, and more

Traffic report: Who holds the throne?

Arbitration report: Two cases suspended; proposed decision posted in Argentine History

WikiProject report: Processing WikiProject Computing

Tech News: 2013-25

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf7) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 13. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 17, and on all Wikipedias on June 20. [5]
The Narayam and WebFonts extensions were successfully replaced by Universal Language Selector on June 11. [6]
VisualEditor news:
- VisualEditor was temporarily disabled on Wikipedia sites on June 14 due to an issue that inserted a lot of HTML code. The issue is now fixed and VisualEditor works as before.
- Users can now use VisualEditor to add images and other media items from their local wikis and Wikimedia Commons. [7].
- VisualEditor also allows editing references. [8]
The new Disambiguator extension, which was previously part of MediaWiki itself, was enabled on test wikis. It adds the magic word __DISAMBIG__ to mark disambiguation pages. [9]
The newly enabled Campaigns extension allows Wikimedia Foundation data analysts to track account creations that result from a specific outreach campaign.

Future software changes

Universal Language Selector will be added to the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias on June 18. [10]
Starting on June 18, VisualEditor will be randomly enabled by default for half of newly created accounts on the English Wikipedia to test stability, performance and features. [11]
Two new webfonts (UnifrakturMaguntia and Linux Libertine) will be added to wikis that use Universal Language Selector. [12] [13]
It will now be possible to hide the sidebar while using the Translate extension to reduce distractions (bug #45836). [14]
A patrolling link will now be visible for un-patrolled pages, even if users don't visit it from Special:NewPages or Special:RecentChanges (bug #49123). [15]
A request for comments on enabling a new search engine for MediaWiki was started.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Unsubscribe. 00:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 June 2013

Op-ed: Two responses to the 'Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons'

Traffic report: Most popular Wikipedia articles of the last week

In the media: South African learners want Wikipedia; Editing of Israel topics

WikiProject report: The Volunteer State: WikiProject Tennessee

News and notes: Swedish Wikipedia's millionth article leads to protests; WMF elections—where are all the voters?

Featured content: Cheaper by the dozen

Discussion report: Citations, non-free content, and a MediaWiki meeting

Technology report: May engineering report published

Arbitration report: The Farmbrough amendment request—automation and arbitration enforcement

Tech news: 2013-26

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on June 20. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on June 24, and on all Wikipedias on June 27. [16]
Universal Language Selector was successfully enabled on the Catalan (ca), Cebuano (ceb), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), Norwegian Bokmål (no), Portuguese (pt), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Waray-Waray (war) and Chinese (zh) Wikipedias. [17]
The new interface for account creation and log–in is now the default on all Wikimedia wikis. The old look is no longer available (bug #46333). [18]
The TimedMediaHandler extension now supports native FLAC files. A discussion to allow this file type is taking place on Commons (bug #49505). [19]
After a test period, the Disambiguator extension was enabled on the English Wikipedia on June 18. [20]
VisualEditor news:
- A VisualEditor bug temporarily made all new accounts unusable. The issue is now fixed and account creation works as before (bug #49727).
- A high importance file insertion bug has been fixed, but the feature does not work perfectly yet. [21]
It is now possible to synchronise local CSS and JavaScript files with the beta cluster. This should make it easier to test software features before they are enabled on live wikis. [22]

Future software changes

The default link to a help page on editing, visible below the editing window, will change on almost 600 Wikimedia wikis and will now link to MediaWiki.org (bug #45977). [23]
Universal Language Selector will be enabled on wikis without language versions (such as Wikisource and Wikispecies) on June 25. [24]
The AbuseFilter extension will allow filtering links and HTML code for page creations. [25]
The related changes special page will now include upload log entries. [26]
It will soon be possible to choose the language of SVG files that contain translations. [27]
MediaWiki will now allow converting audio files from one format to another. [28]
The Wikidata technical team has started a discussion about how Wikidata can support Wiktionary. [29]
The search feature on Wikimedia sites is planned to be modified to use Solr on all wikis by the end of 2013. [30]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:06, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week

In the media: Daily Dot on Commons and porn; Jimmy Wales accused of breaking Wikipedia rules in hunt for Snowden

Recent research: Most controversial Wikipedia topics, automatic detection of sockpuppets

News and notes: Election results released

Discussion report: Privacy policy, X!'s edit counter, old rangeblocks, and the Article Incubator

Featured content: Wikipedia in black + Adam Cuerden

WikiProject report: WikiProject Fashion

Arbitration report: Argentine History closed; two cases remain suspended

Tech news: 2013-27

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes: (Not all changes will affect you.)

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf9) was added to test wikis on June 27. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 8, and on all Wikipedias on July 11.
On Wikisource, the canonical names of the "Index" and "Page" namespaces in the Proofread Page extension are no longer localized (bug #47596). Please check scripts that depend on $wgCanonicalNamespace. [31]
A JavaScript problem caused the "View history" and "New section" tabs in the Vector skin to be moved into the drop-down menu on right-to-left wikis. The issue is now fixed and links are visible as before (bug #50196). [32]
There was a short site outage on June 28.
The automated Category:Pages with missing files now includes broken file links inserted inside the <gallery /> tag (bug #50119). [33]
The Nearby feature is now enabled on Commons and shows images in a user's area. [34]
There is now a special page listing disambiguation pages for wikis that use the Disambiguator extension (bug #44040). [35]
The old version of the Article feedback tool (version 4) was removed from wikis that still used it. [36]
VisualEditor news:
- Many bugs that caused text to be removed or damaged have been fixed, including one related to copy-paste (bug #49816).
- VisualEditor now offers a visual interface to edit references.
- In preparation for enabling the VisualEditor on a wider scale, new documentation has been created, including a list of frequently-asked questions and a user guide with many images. Please help with translations.
- Several problems related to overlapping of elements with the VisualEditor toolbar have been fixed (bug #50096, #50159, #50324).
- TemplateData information is now displayed for templates that are added to a page (bug #49778).
- Section edit links now show links to both VisualEditor and the old (source) editor (bug #49666).
- Images are now loaded securely when using HTTPS (bug #43015). [37]

Future software changes

VisualEditor will be enabled for all logged-in English Wikipedia users on July 1, and for all users on July 8.
From July 8, it will be possible to upload WAV and native FLAC files to Commons, and use them directly on wiki pages ([[<tvar|bug-49505>bugzilla:49505</>|bug #49505]]). [38]
The Universal Language Selector will be added to the English Wikipedia on July 2, and to remaining wikis on July 9. [39]

Erratum

Tech news #26 incorrectly reported that audio transcoding was added to TimedMediaHandler; it was actually statistics about audio transcoding that were added. [40]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

14:21, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 July 2013

In the media: Jimmy Wales is not an Internet billionaire; a mass shooter's alleged Wikipedia editing

Featured content: Queen of France

WikiProject report: Puppies!

News and notes: Wikipedia's medical collaborations gathering pace

Discussion report: Snuggle, mainpage link to Wikinews, 3RR, and more

Technology report: VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series

Traffic report: Yahoo! crushes the competition ... in Wikipedia views

Arbitration report: Tea Party movement reopened, new AUSC appointments

Tech news: 2013-28

Latest [[<tvar|technews>m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News</>|tech news]] from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. [[<tvar|more-transl>m:Special:MyLanguage/Tech/News/2013/28</>|Translations]] are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

VisualEditor news:
- VisualEditor deployment has been delayed by a week. It is now planned to enable the editor for logged–in editors on chosen Wikipedias on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 29.
- A bug that made it impossible to save VisualEditor edits that triggered a CAPTCHA has been fixed. [41]
- Several bugs that occurred on right–to–left wikis have been fixed last week (bug #49416, bug #49613, bug #50543).
Uploading files has been restricted on Meta Wiki to administrators and the newly created uploader group. An exemption doctrine policy is being developed (bug #50287). [42]
Emergency priority CentralNotice banners will always be shown unless users have hidden them, ignoring cookies set for lower priority banners. [43]

Future software changes

MediaWiki will allow choosing a specific page of a PDF document or a thumbnail of a video file to show up inside the

tag (bug #8480). [44]

It will now be possible to create empty MediaWiki: messages, for instance in order to disable them (bug #50124). [45]
The Nearby feature will soon be enabled on Wikivoyage wikis again. [46]
The Notifications extension messages will now include a direct link to diffs on wiki as well as in notification e-mails (bug #48183). [47]
Table of contents will now use the HTML <div /> element instead of <table />, fixing a nine–year–old bug #658. [48]
First mock–ups of a mobile Wikidata application have been published by Pragun Bhutani as part of his Google Summer of Code project. [49]
A discussion on minimum documentation practices in MediaWiki code has been started and awaits comments from the community.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 July 2013

Op-ed: It's time to stop pretending the English-language Wikinews is a viable project

WikiProject report: Not Jimbo: WikiProject Wales

Traffic report: Inflated view counts here, there, and everywhere

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation Board appoints world expert in women's issues, global south

Dispatches: Infoboxes: time for a fresh look?

Featured content: The week of the birds

Discussion report: Featured article process governance, signature templates, and more

DRN needs your help!

Hi there. I've noticed it's been a while since you've been active at DRN, and we could really use your help! DRN is going to undergo some changes soon, so it'd really be great if our backlog is cleared before the start of August and we have as many people on board to help with the changes (they include a move to subpages and the creation of a rotating "co-ordinator" role to help manage things day-to-day. Hope to see you soon! Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 11:46, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 17 July 2013

WikiProject report: WikiProject Square Enix

Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation's new plans announced

Featured content: Documents and sports

Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case opens; July 22 deadline for checkuser and oversight applications

Tech News: 2013-30

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please inform other users about these changes. Translations are available.

Recent software changes (Not all changes will affect you.)

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 18. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 22, and on all Wikipedias on July 25. [50]
A new version of the Flow Prototype can be tested on Wikimedia Labs. [51]
VisualEditor news:
- The schedule to add VisualEditor to non-English Wikipedias has been changed: the new editor will be available for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias on July 24, and for all users on those wikis on July 29. [52]
- A warning is now displayed if an edit made with VisualEditor matches an edit filter (bug #50472).
- SpamBlacklist messages are also supported (bug #50826).
- Users can now edit <nowiki>...</nowiki> blocks (bug #47678).
- When a user types text at the end of a link, the link now expands to that text. [53]
Freely-licensed fonts for the Cree, Inuktitut and Urdu languages were added to Universal Language Selector, fixing bug #42421 and bug #46693.
A Wikidata search plugin for the Firefox web browser was released by Jeroen De Dauw and can be downloaded from the Mozilla add-ons website.

Future software changes

The change of the Wikimedia image scaling system from ImageMagick to VipsScaler (announced in the previous issue) has been postponed until bug #51370 is fixed. [54]
Administrators will no longer see an unblock link for autoblocked IP addresses on the contributions page (bug #46457). [55]
A request for comments on site-wide CSS was started on MediaWiki.org. [56]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

21:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 July 2013

In the media: Wikipedia flamewars

WikiProject report: WikiProject Religion

Discussion report: Partially disambiguated page names, page protection policy, and more

News and notes: Wikivoyage turns ten, but where to now?; Wikipedia Zero expands into India

Traffic report: Gleeless

Featured content: Engineering and the arts

Arbitration report: Infoboxes case opens

Tech News: 2013-31

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

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on July 25. It will be enabled on non–Wikipedia sites on July 29, and on all Wikipedias on August 1. [57]
Wikivoyage was offline for around 40 minutes on July 24. [58]
Pywikipediabot moved their code from SVN to git; bot owners need to update their tools. [59]
The Notifications and Thanks extensions were added to Meta-Wiki on July 26; other wikis will get them soon. [60]
It is now possible to add edit summaries on Wikidata using the API; the feature will be added to user interface soon. [61]
The software that resizes large PNG images on all wikis was changed on July 25. Resizing of PNG files bigger than 35 megapixels should be faster and more reliable now. [62]
Three new webfonts (Gentium, Old Persian and Shapour) will be added to Universal Language Selector. [63], [64], [65]
Special:MIMESearch, which gives a list of files by type, will be enabled on all Wikimedia wikis with MediaWiki version 1.22/wmf12 (bug #13438). [66]
A mailing list to discuss multimedia features was started; users are encouraged to sign up.
VisualEditor news:
- On July 24, VisualEditor was added for logged-in users on the German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv) Wikipedias; it will be added for all users on those wikis on July 29. [67]
- A preference to completely disable VisualEditor while it is in beta phase was added on July 24. [68]
- Many bugs were fixed in right-to-left languages. [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74]
- It is possible again to scroll down in the template editing window (bug #51739).
- VisualEditor now works with the FlaggedRevisions extension. (bug #49699)
- If the user opens VisualEditor using a section edit link, the title of the section is added to the edit summary (bug #50872).
- Invisible templates now can't be deleted by accident or on purpose (bug #51322).

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:44, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2013

Op-ed: The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change

Recent research: Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Srebrenica across cultures, 90% of Wikipedia better than Britannica, WikiSym preview

Traffic report: Bouncing Baby Brouhaha

WikiProject report: Babel Series: Politics on the Turkish Wikipedia

News and notes: Gearing up for Wikimania 2013

Arbitration report: Race and politics case closes

Featured content: Caterpillars, warblers, and frogs—oh my!

Discussion report: Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles

The new face of DRN: Xavexgoem

Recently the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard underwent some changes in how it operates. Part of the change involved a new list of volunteers with a bit of information about the people behind the names.

You are listed as a volunteer at DRN currently, to update your profile is simple, just click here. Thanks, Cabe 6403^{(Talk•Sign)} 17:28, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

Arbitration report: Fourteen editors proposed for ban in Tea Party movement case

Traffic report: Greetings from the graveyard

News and notes: Chapters Association self-destructs

WikiProject report: WikiProject Freedom of Speech

Featured content: Mysterious case of the grand duchess

Discussion report: CheckUser and Oversighter candidates, and more

The Signpost: 14 August 2013

News and notes: "Beautifully smooth" Wikimania with few hitches

In the media: Chinese censorship

Featured content: Wikipedia takes the cities

Special report: Jimmy Wales: media favors entertainment over raising public awareness

Discussion report: Wikivoyage, reliable sources, music bands, account creators, and OTRS

WikiProject report: For the love of stamps

Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case closes

Tech News: 2013-34;

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

New features

The previous version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 15. It was enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 19, and on all Wikipedias on August 22. [75]
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.22/wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on August 22. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia sites on August 26, and on all Wikipedias on August 29. [76]
You can now use new styles of galleries. Please give feedback to User:Bawolff. [77]
You can now visit a random page in a category, for example Special:RandomInCategory/Science. (25931) [78]
You can now use the <wbr> HTML5 tag to say where a word can be cut. (52468) [79]
Gadget authors: you can now use the wikipage.content hook, so that your scripts are re-run when a page is changed after the document-ready event (for example using Ajax). (30713) [80]

Problems fixed

There was a bug where file redirects didn't work when a file was renamed; it is now fixed. There is still an issue with purging, but it should be fixed soon. (52200)
Maintenance reports provided by special pages will now all be updated on each wiki every six months. This will for example give you recent information on uncategorized pages, unused templates and most wanted pages (see details).
There was a bug that caused false positives for anti-blanking edit filters; it is now fixed. (52077) [81]

VisualEditor news

The "edit" and "edit source" tabs and section edit links can now be changed more easily; for example, some wikis are using "edit source" for wikitext editing, and "edit ^beta" for VisualEditor. You can ask for the same change in bugzilla.
You can now edit references that are added inside a <references> block. (51741)
You can now test on mediawiki.org new basic tools to add and edit struck text (with the button for the <s> tag), lower text ( for <sub>), upper text ( for <sup>), underlined text ( for <u>), computer code ( for <code> and <tt>), math text ( for <math>), Egyptian hieroglyphs ( for <hiero>), and to say that text is in another language ( for lang="ar" dir="rtl"). (51609, 51612, 51611, 51590, 51610, 52352)
You can now use VisualEditor with the Opera browser. [82]

Future

Starting on August 26, you will be able to use data from Wikidata on Wikivoyage sites. [83]
Starting on August 27, you will also get notifications on the mobile site if you're logged in to a wiki using notifications. [84]
Starting on August 28, all users with an account will be using HTTPS to access Wikimedia sites. HTTPS brings better security and improves your privacy. Some countries (like China) will not use HTTPS. If HTTPS causes problems for you, tell us on meta. [85]
Starting on August 29, you will get the code editor interface to edit JavaScript and CSS pages on all wikis. [86]
The plan to use Solr for search in MediaWiki was changed; instead, Elasticsearch is now planned. [87]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:56, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 August 2013

In the media: Chelsea Manning, Box-office predictors, and 'Storming Wikipedia'

Recent research: WikiSym 2013 retrospective

WikiProject report: Loop-the-loop: Amusement Parks

Traffic report: Reddit creep

Featured content: WikiCup update, and the gardens of Finland

News and notes: Looking ahead to Wiki Loves Monuments

Technology report: Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia

The Signpost: 28 August 2013

In the media: Chelsea Manning, Box-office predictors, and 'Storming Wikipedia'

Recent research: WikiSym 2013 retrospective

WikiProject report: Loop-the-loop: Amusement Parks

Traffic report: Reddit creep

Featured content: WikiCup update, and the gardens of Finland

News and notes: Looking ahead to Wiki Loves Monuments

Technology report: Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia

The Signpost: 04 September 2013

In the media: Manning "put back in the closet"; State involvement in Azerbaijani Wikipedia

News and notes: Privacy policy debate gears up

Traffic report: No accounting for the wisdom of crowds

Discussion report: Arbcom election procedures, Wiki Loves Monuments, Privacy policy, FDC, and more

Featured content: Bridging the way to a Peasants' Revolt

WikiProject report: Writing on the frontier: Psychology on Wikipedia

Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute case opens; Tea Party case closes ; Infoboxes nears completion

Technology report: Making Wikipedia more accessible

pl.examinlatestblox[esp.last1

.163.32.125.140 (talk) 06:19, 8 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 11 September 2013

In the media: Lawyer goes to court to discover Wikipedian's identity; Storming Wikipedia; Wikimedia UK Secretary in conflict-of-interest controversy; Does Wikipedia need a "right to reply" box?

WikiProject report: WikiProject Indonesia

Featured content: Tintin goes featured

News and notes: As deadline approaches, Individual Engagement Grants looks for ideas

Traffic report: Syria, celebrities, and association football: oh my!

Arbitration report: Workshop phase opens in Manning naming dispute ; Infoboxes case closes

The Signpost: 18 September 2013

News and notes: Third time's the charm: the FDC's newest round of funding requests

WikiProject report: 18,464 Good Articles on the wall

Featured content: Hurricane Diane and Van Gogh

Technology report: What can Wikidata do for Wikipedia?

Traffic report: Twerking, tragedy and TV

Your involvement with DRN

Hi there, I noticed that you haven't been as active at DRN as you was before. DRN has been a bit backlogged lately and we could use some extra hands. We have updated our volunteer list to a new format, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Volunteers (your name is still there under the old format if you haven't updated it) and are looking into ways to make DRN more effective and more rewarding for volunteers (your input is appreciated!). If you don't have much time to volunteer at the moment, that's fine too, just move your name to the inactive list (you're free to add yourself back to active at any time). Hope to see you again soon :) Steven Zhang (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 25 September 2013

Op-ed: Q&A on Public Relations and Wikipedia

Traffic report: Look on Walter's works

In the media: Fox News: Wikipedia abandons efforts to purge porn from online encyclopedia

News and notes: Last call for Wiki Loves Monuments; Community–WMF tension over VisualEditor

WikiProject report: Babel Series: GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!

Featured content: Wikipedia takes the stage

Recent research: Automatic detection of "infiltrating" Wikipedia admins; Wiki, or 'pedia?

Tech News: 2013-40

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

New features

Special:Listfiles can now display old versions of files a user has uploaded. A new link was also added (Special:AllMyFiles) that gives a list of all files the current user has ever uploaded (that haven't been deleted).
There is now an Android application to contribute to translatewiki.net from mobile devices. [88]

VisualEditor news

VisualEditor now has a new toolbar with drop-down menus for advanced tools. [89]
Many bugs were fixed, some related to copy-and-paste. [90]
You can now move references, list of references, templates and other elements with the mouse ("drag-and-drop"). [91]
You are invited to comment on designs for the interface to add references in VisualEditor.

Future

Developers are looking for ideas of small technical projects that new developers could work on. Please add your ideas. [92]
Developers are looking for wikis who would accept to try using secure links (HTTPS) for all users. [93]
You can join an IRC discussion about "Beta features", a tool to try new features, on October 3. [94]
You can join an IRC discussion about Flow, the new wiki discussion tool, on October 17.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

20:00, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 October 2013

Op-ed: Commons medical diagnostic images under threat from unresolved ownership

Discussion report: References to individuals and groups, merging wikiprojects, portals on the Main page, and more

News and notes: WMF signals new grantmaking priorities

Featured content: Bobby, Ben, Roger and a fantasia

Arbitration report: Infoboxes: After the war

WikiProject report: U2 Too

The Signpost: 09 October 2013

Traffic report: Shutdown shenanigans

WikiProject report: Australian Roads

Featured content: Under the sea

News and notes: Extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed

In the media: College credit for editing Wikipedia

Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute and Ebionites 3 cases continue; third arbitrator resigns

The Signpost: 16 October 2013

News and notes: Vice on Wiki-PR's paid advocacy; Featured list elections begin

Traffic report: Peaceful potpourri

WikiProject report: Heraldry and Vexillology

Featured content: That's a lot of pictures

Arbitration report: Manning naming dispute case closes

Discussion report: Ada Lovelace Day, paid advocacy on Wikipedia, sidebar update, and more

Tech News: 2013-42

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

New features

You can now choose which language to show for SVG files that contain several languages, using the "lang" option, like [[File:Gerrit_patchset_25838_test.svg|lang=de]] for the German layer of File:Gerrit patchset 25838 test.svg.
Developers are looking for wiki communities to try the new search system. [95]

VisualEditor news

You can now create and edit references inside media captions. [96]
You now need to press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image; the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion of infoboxes and similar content. [97]
When you resize images, you will now still see them, and their size will also be seen in the center. [98] [99]

Future

The new notifications system ("Echo") will be added to almost all wikis that don't already have it on October 22. It will notify you of changes and events that affect you. [100]
MediaWiki 1.22wmf22 was added to test wikis on October 17. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 21 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 24 (calendar).
The interface to reset your password will soon be changed. [101]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2013

News and notes: Grantmaking season—rumblings in the German-language community

Traffic report: Your average week ... and a fish

Featured content: Your worst nightmare as a child is now featured on Wikipedia

Discussion report: More discussion of paid advocacy, upcoming arbitrator elections, research hackathon, and more

In the media: The decline of Wikipedia; Sue Gardner releases statement on Wiki-PR; Australian minister relies on Wikipedia

WikiProject report: Elements of the world

Tech News: 2013-43

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

New features

The "Toolbox" section in the site sidebar is now called "Tools" in English. You can do the same in your language by editing the interface text on translatewiki.net. Someone else may have already done it. [102]

VisualEditor news

On wikis with VisualEditor, you can now use it on pages in the File, Help and Category spaces. [103]

Problems

On October 22 (UTC), an error in the site settings caused *.wikimedia.org sites (like Meta-Wiki and Commons) to redirect to wikimediafoundation.org for a few hours. [104]

Future

MediaWiki 1.23wmf1 was added to test wikis on October 24. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 28 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 31 (calendar).
In the next days, servers in San Francisco will start providing (cached) content to users located in Oceania. If you are in that area and notice problems, please tell us. [105]
You will soon be able to test new features easily using the "Beta Features" view. VisualEditor will be in the list on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. Another example is a set of changes in the article text style.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 October 2013

Traffic report: 200 miles in 200 years

In the media: Rand Paul plagiarizes Wikipedia?

News and notes: Sex and drug tourism—Wikivoyage's soft underbelly?

Featured content: Wrestling with featured content

Recent research: User influence on site policies: Wikipedia vs. Facebook vs. Youtube

WikiProject report: Special: Lessons from the dead and dying

Tech News: 2013-44

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

New features

The style and colors for warning boxes, error messages, and success messages in all skins of MediaWiki has been changed. [106]

VisualEditor news

You will soon be able to switch from editing in VisualEditor to editing wikitext directly without having to save the page. You can't yet switch from wikitext to VisualEditor but developers hope to make it possible in the future. [107]

Problems

There was a problem on October 31 during the activation of MediaWiki 1.22wmf2 on test wikis. mediawiki.org was also broken, and if you had problems logging in, it was probably because of this as well.

Future

Because of the problem with MediaWiki 1.22wmf2, the calendar has changed. It will be added to mediawiki.org and non-Wikipedia sites on November 4, and all Wikipedia sites on November 7.

JavaScript / Gadget developers

Due to a recent change, gadgets and user scripts that use jQuery UI should explicitly load the appropriate modules, as they may not be loaded by default. [108]
Developers have started to remove long-deprecated methods. You should check the JavaScript console (in debug=true mode) and look for deprecation warnings and their stack trace. [109]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 November 2013

News and notes: Alleged "outing" of editor's personal information leads to Wikipedia ban

Traffic report: Danse Macabre

Featured content: Five years of work leads to 63-article featured topic

WikiProject report: WikiProject Accessibility

Arbitration report: Ebionites 3 case closed

Discussion report: Sockpuppet investigations, VisualEditor, Wikidata's birthday, and more

Tech News: 2013-45

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

New features

You can now use the "Autonym" font of the Universal Language Selector (ULS) to display the name of languages (for example in navigation templates) in their correct script. To do this, add the CSS class "autonym" to the elements that include language names. Note that this font only works for the name of languages, not for any other text. [110]

Problems

There was a problem with Parsoid (the program used by VisualEditor to convert wikitext to annotated HTML) on November 4, between 19:40 and 20:40 (UTC). Encoding issues caused non-ASCII characters (including those with diacritics, like "é") to be broken when converted to wikitext and saved to the page. [111]

Future

The Beta Features tool is now available on Commons and Meta-Wiki. With it, you can test new features before they're added for everyone. The plan is to add this tool to all wikis on November 21. [112]
MediaWiki 1.23wmf3 was added to test wikis on November 7. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on November 12 and all Wikipedia wikis on November 14 (calendar). [113]
The MassMessage tool will be added to all wikis on November 14. It will make it simpler to send messages across wikis. [114]
The button of the Search page will soon be changed to be blue and bigger (see the difference). [115]
You will soon be able to add a page name as parameter for {{REVISIONID}}, {{REVISIONUSER}} and {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} and similar functions, by writing for example {{REVISIONID:Apple}}. [116]
In the future, when you hide a CentralNotice banner on a wiki, it will also be hidden on other Wikimedia sites. [117]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

13:08, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 November 2013

Traffic report: Google Doodlebugs bust the block

Featured content: 1244 Chinese handscroll leads nine-strong picture contingent

Special report: FDC staff raise the benchmarks for activities, impact, planning, and governance

News and notes: Trademark at issue again with the Italian Wikipedia and wikipedia.it

WikiProject report: The world of soap operas

Discussion report: Commas, Draft namespace proposal, education updates, and more

The Signpost: 20 November 2013

From the editor: The Signpost needs your help

Book review: Peter Burke's Social History of Knowledge—ambitious, fascinating, and exhaustive

Featured content: Rockin' the featured pictures

WikiProject report: Score! American football on Wikipedia

News and notes: Foundation to Wiki-PR: cease and desist; Arbitration Committee elections starting

Traffic report: Ill Winds

Arbitration report: WMF opens the door for non-admin arbitrators

Tech News: 2013-47

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

New features

The Beta Features announced before are now available on all Wikimedia wikis. You can test new features easily by changing your Beta preferences. VisualEditor is one of those features on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. There is also a new media viewer and changes in the article text style. [118]
Tools developers can now create tools that use the OAuth protocol to connect to accounts on Wikimedia sites. As a user, you can use those tools to make edits and other changes with your account without giving the tool your password. [119]

Problems

Wikis that are currently testing CirrusSearch had problems with search results on November 18 from 16:00 to 20:00 UTC.

Future

There will be no major code changes on the week of November 25 because many developers will be on holiday for Thanksgiving.
The editing interface of Page: pages on Wikisource (working with the Proofread Page extension) will soon also work without JavaScript. [120]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

06:49, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 December 2013

Traffic report: Kennedy shot Who

Recent research: Reciprocity and reputation motivate contributions to Wikipedia; indigenous knowledge and "cultural imperialism"; how PR people see Wikipedia

Discussion report: Musical scores, diversity conference, Module:Convert, and more

News and notes: One decade of Wikisource; FDC recommendations raise serious questions

WikiProject report: Electronic Apple Pie

Featured content: F*&!

Arbitration report: Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute case opens; New discretionary sanctions draft proposal available for review

Tech News: 2013-49

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

This newsletter is now posted using MediaWiki message delivery.

New features

The CommonsMetadata feature was added to all wikis. It creates metadata information about multimedia files (like their license) that can be read automatically by computer programs. It not only works for Commons, but for all wikis, and you can use it for files on your wiki by editing templates used to describe metadata. [121]
JavaScript code used on Wikimedia sites is now saved locally on your computer to load faster. [122]

VisualEditor

You can now paste formatted content copied from external sources (not just as plain text) into VisualEditor; this includes copy/pasting from other VisualEditor windows. [123]
You can now open VisualEditor by adding ?veaction=edit to the page URL, regardless of your user preferences. [124]
Many bugs have been fixed, and VisualEditor should also look faster, for example when you save a page. [125]

Problems

Due to issues, the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") was recently removed from wikis where it was enabled, then added again. [126]

Future

MediaWiki 1.23wmf6 was added to test wikis on December 5. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 10 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 12 (calendar).
The old Etherpad tool (replaced by a new version) will be removed on December 30, 2013. You can still save old pads before that date using the old address: https://etherpad-old.wikimedia.org. [127]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 December 2013

Traffic report: Deaths of Mandela, Walker top the list

In the media: Edward Snowden a "hero"; German Wikipedia court ruling

News and notes: Wiki Loves Monuments—winners announced

WikiProject report: WikiProject Wine

Interview: Wikipedia's first Featured Article centurion

Featured content: Viewer discretion advised

Technology report: MediaWiki 1.22 released

Tech News: 2013-50

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

New features

You can now see a legend on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist that explains the symbols used. [128]
If your wiki is testing the new search tool ("CirrusSearch"), you can now test it by adding "New search" in your Beta features preferences. [129]

VisualEditor

The toolbar is now simpler; all text styles (bold, italics, underline, subscript, etc.) are in the same menu, and the "More" menu is called "Insert". [130]
You can now use a basic tool to add special characters to your text. You can add more characters (useful in your language) by editing the MediaWiki interface on translatewiki.net.
The tool to add and edit mathematical text is now called "formula". [131]

Problems

There was a problem with the "Create a book" tool (Collection); books could only be exported to PDF format. The change has been undone. [132]
The log-in system for external tools ("OAuth") was broken on wikis that tested the new search tool. It was fixed last week. [133] [134]
Because of a bug, this newsletter is delivered to users using the new MediaWiki message delivery, and to community pages using the old EdwardsBot. [135]

Future

MediaWiki 1.23wmf7 was added to test wikis on December 12. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on December 17 and all Wikipedia wikis on December 19 (calendar).
You will soon be able to select the language of SVG images that have translations using a drop-down menu on the image page. (see example) [136]
GLAMToolset, a tool to help GLAM groups (like museums) upload many pictures to Commons, will be added to Commons on December 17. [137]
A Draft namespace will be added to the English Wikipedia to make it easier to create new pages. You will be able to use VisualEditor for drafts if you have enabled it. [138] [139]

Other

You can read the summary of the technical report for November 2013 to learn more about VisualEditor, Mobile and other features. [140]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2013

WikiProject report: Babel Series: Tunisia on the French Wikipedia

Traffic report: Hopper to the top

Discussion report: Usernames, template data and documentation, Main page, and more

News and notes: Nine new arbitrators announced

Featured content: Triangulum, the most boring constellation in the universe

Technology report: Introducing the GLAMWikiToolset

Tech News: 2013-51

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf8) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on December 19. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on December 31 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 2, 2014 (calendar).
You can now test the new search tool ("CirrusSearch") on all Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia chapter wikis hosted on Foundation servers. Enable "New search" in your Beta features preferences. [141]
There was a bug where notifications were not sent when the signature of the user leaving the message linked to a translated namespace. The problem was fixed in the software and will soon be fixed on Wikimedia sites. [142] [143]
You can now use the log-in system for external tools (OAuth) on all Wikimedia wikis that use the unified login. [144]
If your wiki adds stars or other icons to interwiki links for featured articles in other languages, you may need to change the JavaScript code. [145]
You can thank other users for their edits even if your browser does not have JavaScript. [146] [147]
All edits made through Flow, the new discussion system for MediaWiki, are now visible in user's contributions. You can test it on the Flow talk page on MediaWiki.org. [148] [149]
You can test a visual tool that shows edits made to an article over time. It only works for English Wikipedia pages for now and is slow on long articles. [150]
You can test the first version of the new mobile Wikipedia app for Android and iOS. [151]
Translatewiki.net, the site where you can translate the MediaWiki software, now has a new main page for users without an account. [152]

Future software changes

There will be no technical changes this week (December 23 to December 29) due to end-of-year holidays.
When someone deletes, restores, uploads, or moves a file on Commons, pages on all wikis that use that file will be refreshed. [153] [154]
New users will soon have their user and talk pages added to their watchlist as soon as they create an account. [155] [156].
The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will not show the text of versions of a page that have been hidden. [157] [158]
You will soon be able to see the raw HTML created by some wikitext by using the Special:ExpandTemplates tool. [159] [160]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 December 2013

Recent research: Cross-language editors, election predictions, vandalism experiments

Featured content: Drunken birds and treasonous kings

Discussion report: Draft namespace, VisualEditor meetings

WikiProject report: More Great WikiProject Logos

News and notes: IEG round 2 funding rewards diverse ambitions

Technology report: OAuth: future of user designed tools

Tech News: 2014-01

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

Recent software changes

You can now see the text of DjVu and PDF files in search results on wikis testing the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [161] [162]
With the new version of the Wikibase DataModel extension, you can install it outside Wikimedia wikis. [163]

VisualEditor news

Images are now shown inside VisualEditor as HTML5 <figure /> elements. Comments are welcome. [164]
You can now test a basic version of VisualEditor on mobile devices; see this article as an example.

Problems

On December 23, Wikimedia Labs was broken for 4 hours due to an NFS problem. [165]

Future software changes

CirrusSearch will be added as the second search method for Spanish (es), French (fr), Portuguese (pt) and Russian (ru) wikis on December 30. Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies and Wikinews users will also be able to enable it in their Beta Features options.
AbuseFilter log entries will be visible in CheckUser tool reports. [166] [167]
It will soon be possible to search for log entries done by users without an account. [168] [169]
It will no longer be possible to globally hide users with more than 1,000 edits. [170] [171]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 January 2014

Traffic report: A year stuck in traffic

Arbitration report: Examining the Committee's year

In the media: Does Wikipedia need a medical disclaimer?

Book review: Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia

News and notes: The year in review

Discussion report: Article incubator, dates and fractions, medical disclaimer

WikiProject report: Where Are They Now? Fifth Edition

Featured content: 2013—the trends

Technology report: Looking back on 2013

Tech News: 2014-02

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf9) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 2. It will be enabled on non-Wikipedia wikis on January 7 and on all Wikipedia wikis on January 9 (calendar).
The old note-taking site (Etherpad) was removed on December 30, 2013. You can see most of the documents on the new site. [172]

Problems

On January 2, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage projects were broken for 2 hours due to language cache update issues.
On the same day, it was not possible to edit most wikis for about 30 minutes, due to a database replication problem.

Future software changes

The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the default search method for Italian Wikipedia, French Wikisource, Wikidata and all Wikivoyage sites, and as a second search method for the German Wikipedia and all Wikibooks sites on January 6. [173]
Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian Wikipedia users will also be able to enable CirrusSearch in their Beta Features options. [174]
Plural form rules for some languages will be changed. Many translations of the user interface for Belarusian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and other languages will need to be changed. [175] [176] [177]
You will see a warning when you try to delete a page linked to from other pages. [178] [179]
You will be able to hide redirect pages on the list of protected pages. [180] [181]
You will be able to use keyboard shortcuts in the Translate tool, by pressing Alt+1 and similar key groups. [182] [183]
E-mails sent by MediaWiki will include the name of the site in their From: line. You will be able to change this name on your wiki by editing the MediaWiki:Emailsender page. [184] [185]
Images viewed in the Beta Features media viewer will load faster. [186] [187]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 January 2014

Public Domain Day: Why the year 2019 is so significant

Traffic report: Tragedy and television

Technology report: Gearing up for the Architecture Summit

News and notes: WMF employee forced out over "paid advocacy editing"

Op-ed: WikiCup competition beginning a new year

WikiProject report: Jumping into the television universe

Featured content: A portal to the wonderful world of technology

Tech News: 2014-03

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

You can read a recent blog post about how Tech News is put together, translated and sent to you across wikis each week.

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf10) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 9. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 14, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 16 (calendar).
Searching in the File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons may be slow due to a search engine issue. [188]

VisualEditor news

VisualEditor will be added for all users on several Wikipedias on January 13. [189]
You can now add and remove __NOTOC__, __FORCETOC__ and __NOEDITSECTION__ in the page metadata menu. [190] [191] [192]

Problems

For a few hours on January 6, it was not possible to edit pages using the Translate tool on Wikimedia Commons and the Wikimania 2013 wiki, due to a settings error. [193] [194]
For about 20 minutes on January 9, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes

Wikidata will be added to all Wikisource wikis on January 14. [195]
The new search tool (CirrusSearch) will be added as the second search method for the English Wikipedia on January 13. On Wikibooks and the German Wikipedia, you will also be able to test it by adding it in your Beta Features options.
You will soon be able to export page collections into other formats than PDF. [196]
It will soon be possible to upload groups of photos from Flickr using UploadWizard. [197] [198]
The Wikimedia Foundation has shared a multimedia vision for 2016. You are invited to comment. [199]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 January 2014

News and notes: German chapter asks for "reworking" of Funds Dissemination Committee; should MP4 be allowed on Wikimedia sites?

Technology report: Architecture Summit schedule published

Op-ed: Licensed for reuse? Citing open-access sources in Wikipedia articles

In the media: Is Google hurting Wikipedia traffic?; "Wikipedia-Mania" in the New York Times

Traffic report: The Hours are Ours

WikiProject report: WikiProject Sociology

Tech News: 2014-04

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).
You can now see relatively recent results on special pages like Special:DoubleRedirects, Special:UncategorizedPages or Special:WantedCategories. They were disabled before because they were very slow. The results are now updated once a month. [200]
As of January 16, you can make and use guided tours on the Asturian, Farsi and Russian Wikipedias. If you want this tool on your wiki, you need to translate it and ask in Bugzilla. [201] [202]
You can give comments on an idea to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [203]
You can watch a video to learn how to report problems in Bugzilla. [204]

VisualEditor news

In the toolbar, the menu to edit the styles (like bold, italic, etc.) now has a down arrow (). The order of the Insert menu has also changed a little.
You can now edit <gallery /> tags with a very basic tool. [205]
You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu. [206]
When you change categories, you will now see them when you save the page. [207]
When you edit templates, you will now see the parameters in the right order. The ones that you must add have a star (*). [208] [209]
The page will now be saved faster, thanks to a new way of coding the text that sends 40% less text to the servers. [210]
Your wiki can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData. [211]

Problems

There was a problem with search on the English and German Wikipedias between January 6 and January 14. You could not see new pages and changes in search results. [212]
There were "pool timeouts" errors on several wikis on January 13; it was caused by a code change that was made to fix another problem. [213]
On January 17, Bugzilla and Wikimedia Labs were broken for about 20 minutes due to network problems. IRC channels with recent changes (irc.wikimedia.org) were broken for about two hours. [214]

Future software changes

If you have removed JavaScript in your web browser, you will soon be able to see the orange bar saying that you have new messages. If you have changed how the bar looks with a gadget, you may need to change the gadget again. [215] [216]
You will soon be able to add a given Flickr user to a blacklist so that their files can't be uploaded using UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons and other wikis. [217]
You will see a warning when you try to delete a page included in at least one other page. [218]
You will so longer see disambiguation pages in Special:LonelyPages. [219] [220]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:22, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 January 2014

Book review: Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries from Across the Known Multiverse

News and notes: Modification of WMF protection brought to Arbcom

Featured content: Dr. Watson, I presume

Special report: The few who write Wikipedia

Technology report: Architecting the future of MediaWiki

In the media: Wikipedia for robots; Wikipedia—a temperamental teenager

Traffic report: No show for the Globes

Tech News: 2014-05

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

Recent software changes

Pages from Wikimedia sites now load faster in your browser thanks to "module storage", a way for your browser to save data like JavaScript and CSS on your computer to avoid downloading them again. See video. [221]
The code used to show videos has changed. You should be able to play the video on the page, with the play button on top of the video. If you see the play button on the right of the video, or if clicking on the video leads you to the original file, please file a bug or tell User:Bawolff. [222]
The Special:ActiveUsers page will be removed because it's too slow. [223]
The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf11) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 16. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on January 28, and all Wikipedia wikis on January 30 (calendar).

Problems

On January 21, Universal Language Selector was turned off on all Wikimedia sites because it makes pages load slowly. If you want to use web fonts, or write in scripts that aren't on your keyboard, you need to add it as an option in your preferences. It will be turned back on when the issues are resolved. [224]
For about 20 minutes on the same day, there were problems with CSS and JavaScript due to high server load.

Future software changes

You can give comments about the new version of "Winter", a proposal to have a fixed toolbar at the top of wiki pages. [225]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:47, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

Traffic report: Six strikes out

WikiProject report: Special report: Contesting contests

News and notes: Wiki-PR defends itself, condemns Wikipedia's actions

Arbitration report: Kafziel case closed; Kww admonished by motion

Recent research: Translation assignments, weasel words, and Wikipedia's content in its later years

Tech News: 2014-06

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf12) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on January 30. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 4, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 6 (calendar).
Global AbuseFilter rules are now active on all small wikis. [226] [227]
The buttons used in pages like log-in, account creation and search are now using the same colors and styles. [228] [229]
You can now link to diffs using [[Special:Diff/12345]] and similar links. [230]
There is no longer an option to hide tables of contents on all pages. [231]
Searching in the File: namespace on Wikimedia Commons is now faster, after a bug was fixed on January 29. [232]
All Wikimedia wikis now have high-resolution favicons. [233]

VisualEditor news

You can now see a list of keyboard shortcuts by pressing Ctrl+/ inside VisualEditor. [234]

Future software changes

Edits and files hidden with the Oversight tool will be moved to the RevisionDelete system. The Oversight tool will then be removed from Wikimedia wikis. [235] [236] [237]
For languages where not all sister projects exist, you will be able to link to other language projects using double interwikis (:ko:v, :v:ko, etc.). [238]
It will soon be possible to use the GettingStarted tool on other wikis than the English Wikipedia. You can translate it on Translatewiki.net. [239]
You will soon be able to include the Special:Contributions page into other pages. [240]
You will be able to see where a file is used inside MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [241] [242]
It will soon be possible to send MassMessage messages using the API. [243]
You will soon see audio statistics on the Special:TimedMediaHandler page. [244]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 January 2014

Traffic report: Six strikes out

WikiProject report: Special report: Contesting contests

News and notes: Wiki-PR defends itself, condemns Wikipedia's actions

Arbitration report: Kafziel case closed; Kww admonished by motion

Recent research: Translation assignments, weasel words, and Wikipedia's content in its later years

Tech News: 2014-07

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf13) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 6. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 11, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 13 (calendar).
The Vector search box was changed to fix old display and accessibility issues; for example, you can now use full-text search even if you have disabled JavaScript. Please report any problems you see. The option to disable the "simplified search bar" on Vector will also be removed. [245] [246] [247] [248] [249]
You are now notified when someone adds a link to your user page on wikis where it didn't work before (wikis with dates in the year-month-day order, including Hungarian, Japanese, Korean and some variants of Chinese). [250]

VisualEditor news

You can now set media items' alt text and position, and directly set their size, in the media tool. [251] [252]
The gallery tool was improved and several issues were fixed. [253] [254] [255]

Problems

On February 3, all wikis were broken for about an hour due to a traffic balancing issue. [256]
On February 6, some wikis were broken for about half an hour in total due to a problem with the Math extension.

Future software changes

Some methods from Scribunto's mw.message library will be removed after February 18. If you use them in your templates or modules, please check to make sure that things will not break. [257] [258]
You will soon be able to use GettingStarted on 23 new Wikipedias. It helps new users by listing possible tasks and giving help. The new version was also added to the English Wikipedia on February 7th. [259]
You will soon see results from other wikis when you use the new search tool (CirrusSearch). [260] [261]
The WikiLove tool was redesigned and should also load faster. [262]
Edits made with WikiLove or after a GettingStarted suggestion will be tagged. [263] [264]
It will soon no longer be possible to hide section editing links in your preferences. [265]
You will soon be able to use the revision deletion feature via the API. [266]
You will soon be able to choose mobile view on non-mobile devices using a Beta Feature option. [267] [268]
If you have questions about Universal Language Selector, you can join an IRC meeting on February 12 at 17:00 UTC, in the #wikimedia-office channel on Freenode. [269]
Developers are preparing for Google Summer of Code 2014. You can propose ideas. [270]
bugzilla.wikimedia.org will be updated this week. You won't be able to access it from 22:00 UTC on February 12 until 01:00 UTC on February 13 at the latest. [271]
The <poem> tag will be renamed to <lines>. The old tag will still work. [272]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 February 2014

In the media: WikiVIP; Art Feminism; Medical articles; PR manipulation; Azerbaijani Wikipedia

Technology report: Left with no choice

News and notes: WMF bites the bullet on affiliation and FDC funding, elevates Wikimedia user groups

Featured content: Space selfie

Traffic report: Sports Day

WikiProject report: Game Time in Russia

Tech News: 2014-08

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

Recent software changes

The latest version of MediaWiki (1.23wmf14) was added to test wikis and MediaWiki.org on February 13. It will be added to non-Wikipedia wikis on February 18, and all Wikipedia wikis on February 20 (calendar).
You can now use the list of active users again. [273] [274]
The new search tool (CirrusSearch) now gives more importance to content namespaces if you search in several namespaces. [275]
You can now directly link to files viewed with MultimediaViewer, the new tool for viewing media files. [276]
You can read the summary of the Wikimedia technical report for January 2014. [277]

Problems

On February 9, Wikimedia Labs was broken for about 2 hours due to an XFS file system problem. [278]
On February 11, there were problems with VisualEditor for about 20 minutes due to a server logging issue. [279]
On the same day, for about 20 minutes there were issues with page loading due to database problems.
There were issues with page loading between 21:00 UTC on February 13 and 11:00 UTC on February 14 for users in Europe. It was due to a cache server problem.
On February 14, all sites were broken for about 15 minutes for users in Southeast Asia, Oceania and the western part of North America. It was due to problems with cache servers.

VisualEditor news

The link tool now tells you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. [280]
You can now change image display (like thumbnail, frame and frameless) with VisualEditor. [281]
Wikitext warnings will now hide when you remove wikitext from paragraphs you are editing. [282]
You will soon be able to create and edit redirect pages with VisualEditor. [283] [284] [285]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by MediaWiki message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 February 2014

News and notes: Foundation takes aim at undisclosed paid editing; Greek Wikipedia editor faces down legal challenge

Technology report: ULS Comeback

WikiProject report: Countering Systemic Bias

Featured content: Holotype

Traffic report: Chilly Valentines