User talk:Philosopher/Archive 12

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Archive 5

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Archive 10

BS

		The Original Barnstar
		Too often great editors like you are overlooked and not given the credit deserved for all their great contributions. So I am awarding you this barnstar to let you know I greatly appreciate all you do for Wikipedia, and please keep up the outstanding work!! CTJF83 chat 03:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Aww... Thanks! I'm putting it on my userpage to show it off! ;) --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

WOOHOO!! :) CTJF83 chat 03:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Did I see an edit-war, or something else?

Hi Philosopher - I see you are an admin., and I have a technical question about something that I've never faced before. I thought I saw was an edit war and stalking going on between two users: MFIreland and 124.179.251.155, as shown here, here, and here. 'Both' in turn responded back stating that they have no idea what I'm talking about and described that here. MFIreland has seen fit to leave a curt tag message with me, rather than communicating at all with 124.179.251.155.

Are they/were they slaking/edit warring, sock-puppetry each other, something else - or am I having a 60's flash back? :) Take care... Dinkytown talk 01:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

– Apparently this issue has been resolved (author struck out his question). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

1st Governor of Iowa

I know you are on a school Wiki break so when you get a chance. I have left a lengthy question request on Talk:Ansel Briggs about the article Ansel Briggs. If you would please give me your input it would be appreciated. I also cc this message to Ctjf83. On another subject somehow in the past I stumbled upon a special page called Changes related to "User:Philosopher/Iowa legislators watchlist" which I just bookmarked, now I want to know how can I make one of these for the List of cities in Iowa ? Also do you have any objections if I start up the division WikiIowa Project/Communities ? One more thing has the {{ Compact election box}} finalized with the removal of the ± column ?
Thanks RifeIdeas Talk 19:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:RifeIdeas/List_of_Cities_in_Iowa feel free to rename or whatever. CTJF83 chat 20:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If you want to start up the Communities workgroup, go for it! I probably won't be participating there much, though. Just be sure to leave a note on the main talk page at WT:IOWA when you create it so that other project members can participate if they want to. I'll take a look at the compact election box again tomorrow or the day after - too many exams to do it atm. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Members of the Iowa Territorial Legislature category

Hi-I started a category for the members of the Iowa Territorial Legislature. I noticed some of the biographies mentioned of being involved in the Iowa Territorial Legislature. I also started similiar categories in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Idaho, and Hawaii. The categories were badly needed. Thanks-RFD (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know - sounds like a good idea! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 09:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Plot summaries versus a whole synopsis.

I'm just curious, I've been thinking a little about this and have always been kind of put off that some articles that have to do with stories or movies or games can have a whole plot synopsis included in the article. Personally I think that a summary of the plot in an article is tasteful, but having the entire plot there can be inconvenient for people who just want to learn about whatever it is they are looking for and aren't looking to have anything either spoiled for them or such. I just wanted to know what you thought and if there was some kind of general reasoning behind this on Wikipedia. If anything I was thinking that as an encyclopedia people are thinking that there should be a comprehensive synopsis but thats all I can come up with. (NuHalo (talk) 04:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC))

Well, we do have Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Plot summaries. Generally, consensus has settled that spoilers are allowed on Wikipedia (because Wikipedia is not censored and because information about plot elements that may "spoil" the story are often important for complete encyclopedic coverage of the work), but I'm not aware of widespread agreement on how much plot summary is too much. If you want to bring this up for discussion, a good "policy page" place to do so might be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). Other pages of interest are Wikipedia:Plot-only description of fictional works (proposed policy - though judging from the age of the comments, it isn't an active proposal any longer) and Wikipedia talk:How to write a plot summary (just an essay, not a guideline or policy). Sorry I can't help more, Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 14:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Iowa/Communities

I know you are on a school wiki break, but if you have time can you either send this notice out to all Project Iowa members by bot or tell me how to. If it has to be sent out manually let me know that also.

GOOD NEWS The division of Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa
called Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Communities
has been activated. --RifeIdeas Talk 18:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

If you register to use WP:AWB (register at the check page), you can use it to make multiple similar edits. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

For that matter, just let me know if you want to use AWB and I'll approve you myself, since you meet the 500 mainspace edit criterion for approval. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 11:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

For future use you can approve me for AWB. In fact if there is any other approvals that you think would be helpful or that you think I am qualified for, approve me, I thank you in advance for expanding the tools available to me. I skimmed the information at AWB and decided to just use the Project Iowa members list and manually placed the new division message on their talk pages yesterday and the day before. If you think of any other groups that should or could be notified, please let me know. The Communities division site is a lot closer to completion, although it is functional. It's scope (unless expanded in the future) as far as a tag, is limited to geographical areas, so far what is included is the state of Iowa, incorporated cities, unincorporated cities, defunct cities (known as ghost towns) townships, and counties. A person joining can declare level of involvement from "1. I am interested in Iowa communities but don't ask me I will help when I want" to "5. I will be active on the project almost every day". I do hope you will join even if it is at a level 1 participation. I know you are busy in school but I do hope you have the time to check out the Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Communities division in detail, expanding the various "hide" boxes to see the details. And check out Wikipedia :WikiProject Iowa/Communities/Priorities also, and again if you have time, give me your feedback.
--RifeIdeas Talk 12:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've approved you for AWB. If you want to know some of the other permissions, you can see WP:RfR, but none of them seem to relate too much to what you've been doing (though I could be wrong). Permissions on Wikipedia tend to work on a "apply as/if you need it" basis, so I'm not going to volunteer you for any, but if you feel like they would be useful, just ask.

I'll take a look at the communities stuff today or tomorrow, and set up the communities parameter and apply it to the cities, etc. sometime in the next week - I've done this before with AWB, so it should be a pretty simple thing to set up again. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 13:17, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

This is the first time I looked at WP:RfR, and the only permission that is applicable to me is as a Rollbacker. In Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Communities#Patrol schedule you can see the two watch links, the one Ctjif83 set up for me, and the more expanded version I set up. I use the all inclusive one all the time. If you look at my Contributions you can see I have a fair amount of "undid" entries. If it is vandalism I have been just using the default message, if it is for some other reason I add that behind the default message. I think this is the correct procedure but I will be reading more about rollback if you grant me permission. The Rollbacker feature would save me time and help with multiple vandalism edits.

On other subjects, I looked again at Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Government and seen the Category:Iowa (government) articles by quality and the Category:Iowa (government) articles by importance. 1) Do you think I should make the same categories for Communities? In the area of Class and Importance I see a difference between Project Iowa and Project Cities. I understand the importance could and should be different, 2) but what about Class? At this time I think they should be the same. Some of our cities have for Project Cities a B-Class while Project Iowa has only a C-Class. 3) Is there a guideline? 4) If not should we make a standard? 5) I know that there are procedures for FA and GA articles where outside projects evaluate them but what are the procedures for A and B-Class? I have also thought about making a subpage just for the Communities tables as the volume of those continues to increase as more tables are made and will also increase with more data entered. 6) Do you think I should?. Again thanks for your input. --RifeIdeas Talk 15:51, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

1) Before you use rollback, please have a look at the instruction page at WP:ROLLBACK. The basic rule is to only use rollback when all edits to be rolled back are blatant vandalism (if the edit could have been good faith, use "undo" instead of "rollback"), note if the several most recent edits are by the same author, the tool will roll all of them back. If you end up doing a lot of vandalism patrols, you may want to check out the warning templates at WP:WARN. ...and... you have rollback now. 2) You don't have to create the categories - they will be created automatically by a bot after I create the template parameter and add it to the pages. The class will generally be the same regardless of project - we do have a checklist for articles before they become B-Class and some other projects don't, but that's the only difference, and a fairly minor one - for the criteria for grading the classes of articles, see Template:WikiProject Iowa#Quality scale. 3) Your project is looking interesting - especially the charts of Iowa's cities. Putting the table data on a subpage could be a good idea, simply because that'll make the page load faster for those with slow browsers or internet access. But I'm afraid I don't have any opinion on whether to just link to it or transclude it onto the original page. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the Iowa Barnstar, I proudly placed it on my userpage as the first image that will show up in a quick view hover. Thanks also for the permissions you have granted me, I have read the links you provided and will use them judiciously. Whenever someone uses the word "interesting" in reference to someone's work I immediately wonder about what their true opinion is as the term is ambiguous enough to cover a wide range of viewpoints. I also have been known to use the descriptive term "interesting". Let me assure you, I will never take offense to constructive criticism. As far as the tables are concerned I can see now that the Class and Importance columns may now be obsolete with the advent of the multiple categories you installed covering this subject. I was unaware of the category possibilities when I started this project, however it will be easy to blank those out and make them a "future" category. I will also take the tables off the main page and just link to them letting the main page load faster.

Now to my questions. Can a bot be used to insert the communities tag into the Project Iowa template using the various established lists like List of cities in Iowa ? (Which I noticed needs some repair which I hope to do today. If the red-links are gone I will of repaired the list). Or by using User:RifeIdeas/List of Cities in Iowa or maybe better yet the total inclusive User:RifeIdeas/All Iowa Communities? Can a bot disregard the red-inks? Otherwise can I use AWB and the list to accomplish the task? With 937 incorporated cities and an unknown number in the unincorporated cities, townships and 99 counties, if a bot could do this it would be a time saver. I have almost no knowledge on what a bot can or can not do. Just a reminder, although I am a quick study (started October 22, 2010) all of this editing, HTML markup, etc. is all new to me. Again thanks for all your help
--RifeIdeas Talk 17:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

		The Helping Hand Barnstar
		Your help explaining the various parts and the how to of Wikipedia has been invaluable. RifeIdeas Talk 17:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem, glad to help when/where I can (and thanks for the barnstar!). As for my use of "interesting," I did not mean it in a pejorative sense, more of in a "that's kinda cool" sense, sorry for the confusion. The tags should be able to be added by AWB - it isn't that hard to do an AWB run over the lists (that's how I put the majority of the banners there in the first place), though it can be quite time-consuming. Speaking of which, your idea for a bot sounds like a good idea, I can ask BAG if they'll approve my bot for that task (it's just an AWB-bot, but being approved means it can run in a fully-automated mode instead of the more time-consuming semi-automated mode that AWB normally runs in). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:34, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I've put in the request for bot approval. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Great news about the bot. I have repaired all of the bad entries in List of cities in Iowa It took a few hours as I started from day one and went through each edit. But maybe my all inclusive watch list Patrolling All Iowa Communities that covers incorporated unincorporated townships and counties. Although some are red linked and it does have a few other links at the top of the page. Check it out User:RifeIdeas/All_Iowa_Communities. Whatever works the best. BTW Ctjf joined up and has given me some critical feedback for improvement.
--RifeIdeas Talk 21:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not know if it would affect the bot but just to let you know I did add the communities parameter to one and only one community Hiawatha, Iowa. --RifeIdeas Talk 02:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

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Portal Directory

I just happened onto the Wikipedia:Portal/Directory and noticed that Portal:Iowa was not listed. When I entered the information into the directory I assumed that portal Iowa is maintained by Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa. If this is wrong please correct it.

And has the political {{Compact election box}} template (for vote counts) been adjusted (or new one made) to eliminate the ± column? I personally now have a good working knowledge of how to collapse tables or any other information now, so I just need the fixed template. Being that the newly elected officials will be taking office in a few days, places like Portal Iowa, current senators, current representatives, succession boxes, and any other related political articles will have to be updated. I will take time off my communities edits to help with this. I just do not know how to (yet) update or make new templates. I have been watching with interest the Bot discussion about the addition of the communities parameter, so I am aware of that progress. I made one attempt (in my sandbox) a while back to make a Class/Importance table like is made for Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Government#Assessment by just replacing government with communities in the code I found at . . . I just seen you must have (or it is automatically created) the page User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Iowa (communities) so do I just transclude that page onto Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa/Communities#Assessment or does it need to be stepped like it is for the Government division?

Check out WP:IA/C as we are up to 4 members and there has been many improvements.
Until next time.--RifeIdeas Talk 16:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if the portal is currently being maintained or not, sorry. If you are going to update it, though, I doubt anyone would object. Thanks for reminding me about the political stuff, I'll be taking a look at the pages for the new members of the Iowa cabinet tonight (I think the cabinet is inaugurated before the legislature - that may have happened already, even) and resume fixing the template, etc. tomorrow.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Philosopher (talk • contribs) January 5, 2011Whoops, forgot to sign! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Here I said I'd look at it and I didn't - the internet at my apartment went down for a while. Back now, I should get a good start tonight or tomorrow morning. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:11, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject United States

Hello, Philosopher/Archive 12! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 20:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you fix your footnotes on Mathew Staver?

Greetings, I ran across your 2008 article Mathew Staver, and the footnotes are done manually vice the usual Wiki way. Any chance you can go back and fix the footnotes? MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Those footnotes were actually added by User:Libertyforall76. But I'll go over the article again in a bit, sure. (Otherwise, you can be bold and do it yourself.) Thanks for letting me know. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:16, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Added template for SuggestBot

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Thanks! --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

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acting presidents of Univ of Iowa

We've crossed paths before, but I can't remember where. Eh, I'm lucky enough to remember to wake up.
Your new Iowa President articles came up on a list of articles without the living parameter. I noticed some of the articles, Duane C. Spriestersbach and Christian W. Slagle for example, are articles to acting presidents. Is that notable enough??? According to notability guidelines, specifically section #6, I don't think they are notable. Bgwhite (talk) 05:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't know much about them besides what I found on the University's history page. Just wanted to create the stubs to encourage people who do know more to fill them out as has already been done with Boyd, etc.'s pages. I've filled out the later ones some, but to get information before the '40s is difficult. I'd guess that they would be independently notable (though I would argue that acting president is notable enough in itself - it may be "acting" but the person is still the president of the University), as all of the more recent acting/interim presidents were. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 07:53, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a couple acting mayors deleted awhile back. Hmm, bring one to AfD and let them decide? Bgwhite (talk) 08:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

For your first point, mayors aren't automatically notable. For your second, I wouldn't - if someone wants to challenge any of them, I suppose that's their decision, though. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

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Revision

Hello Philosopher, how are you. I have seen you were categorizing Adrianni Zanatta Alarcón, but i beg to inform you that the references asserted in the article do not match the given statements. I have reported the situation at es:wiki, but im not too versed over here, so i'd like to ask you if you could check it if possible. Excuse my English. Thank you. Rafax (talk) 04:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! I'll try to check them out - though my Spanish isn't that great. If all else fails, I'll at least leave a note referring people to es:Discusión:Adrianni Zanatta Alarcon. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I put {{cite check}} on the article and left a note on its talk page. Unfortunately, Google Translate wasn't able to help me decipher things enough to actually check out the problem. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of it. Rafax (talk) 09:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Iowa vote counts

Glad to see you back in action! I assumed that school became more time consuming. I see you are adding pictures to our elected officials - great - can you find one for Deborah Berry ? As far as your standardizing the header (which is fine by me) at Talk:Swati Dandekar that was a newbie error on my part.
Reviving an old discussion we had at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iowa/Government#Vote count formats in articles, I contacted the original template author for {{Compact election box}} about making a template that removes the ± column a while back with no results. See User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 023# Compact election box. I took a look at trying to create a new {{Compact election box without ±}} from the {{Compact election box}} but the programming language is still above my understanding (at this time). In the previous discussions about this subject you indicated that the programming would not be complicated (for you). If you have the time can you look into creating the new template? I diverted my attention and editing to the Iowa communities in the last few months, but will return to help with vote counts and politicians when/if this issue is resolved.
--RifeIdeas Talk 15:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome back! Sorry for not getting the template taken care of, as you guessed, life got busy for me (again). It still is rather busy for the next few weeks, so I'm going to try to limit myself to the mini-project of the photos of current Iowa legislators until it's done (1/6 done already!). If I get a big chunk of time free, I'll do the template (it's not hard, but will take a fair chunk of time), but the reason I'm focusing on the photos for now is that I can do them in little bits of time here and there. As for Deborah Berry, I'll get to her sometime this week - I'm doing all the members of the Senate and House in district-number order, starting with the Senate. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:24, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Heh, took me a little longer than I thought, but Deborah Berry now has an image on her page (File:Deborah L. Berry - Official Portrait - 84th GA.jpg). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:44, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Josiah Little Pickard

Hi-I expanded the Josiah Little Pickard article. He was Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin also. Thank you-RFD (talk) 19:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi-I change the lead sentence to include his elective office which is just important as being president of an university. Any comments would be appreciated. Thank you-RFD (talk) 11:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me, thanks for expanding it! I agree that the elective office belongs in the lead. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2020-49

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

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [1][2]
The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [3]

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

17:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

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

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50

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

Recent changes

You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [4][5]

Changes later this week

Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [6][7]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).

Future changes

You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

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

16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-51

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

Recent changes

There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [8]

Changes later this week

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

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

21:33, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52

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

Tech News

Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.

Recent changes

The {{citation needed}} template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [9]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [10]
Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [11]

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

20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 December 2020

News and notes: Year-end legal surprises cause concern, but Public Domain Day is imminent

In the media: Concealment, data journalism, a non-pig farmer, and some Bluetick Hounds

Arbitration report: 2020 election results

Opinion: How to make your factory's safety and labor issues disappear

Featured content: Very nearly ringing in the New Year with "Blank Space" – but we got there in time.

Traffic report: 2020 wraps up

News from the WMF: What Wikipedia saw during election week in the U.S., and what we’re doing next

Recent research: Predicting the next move in Wikipedia discussions

Essay: Subjective importance

Op-Ed: An unforgettable year we might wish to forget

Gallery: Angels in the architecture

Humour: 'Twas the Night Before Wikimas

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:25, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2021 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. We thank Vanamonde93 and Godot13, who have retired as judges, and we thank them for their past dedication. The judges for the WikiCup this year are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

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

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:2001 Illinois elections

A tag has been placed on Category:2001 Illinois elections requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-02

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

Recent changes

You can choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [12]
You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [13]
Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
- The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [14]
- Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [15]
- When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [16]
Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [17]
Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [18]
CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [19]
There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).

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

15:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:List of states with limited recognition on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 14:55, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-03

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

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).

Future changes

The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [20]
MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.

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

16:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-04

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

Problems

You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on 28 January at 09:00 (UTC). [21][22]

Changes later this week

Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [23]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).

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

18:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Biographies request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Kellyanne Conway on a "Biographies" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 23:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2021

News and notes: 1,000,000,000 edits, board elections, virtual Wikimania 2021

Special report: Wiki reporting on the United States insurrection

In focus: From Anarchy to Wikiality, Glaring Bias to Good Cop: Press Coverage of Wikipedia's First Two Decades

Opinion: Wikipedia's war against scientific disinformation

In the media: The world's press says "Happy Birthday!" with a few twists

Technology report: The people who built Wikipedia, technically

Videos and podcasts: Celebrating 20 years

News from the WMF: Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world

Recent research: Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers

Humour: Dr. Seuss's Guide to Wikipedia

Featured content: New Year, same Featured Content report!

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2020

Obituary: Flyer22 Frozen

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:11, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).

Administrator changes

Hog Farm

Mattflaschen • Nandesuka • Savidan • Wangi

CheckUser changes

Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

Someguy1221 • Xeno

Arbitration

The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-05

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

Problems

IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [24]

Changes later this week

You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [25]
Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [26][27]
Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like 1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55 as well as the 1.2.3.4/27 syntax for IP ranges. [28]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).

Future changes

Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [29][30]
Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be 185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.

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

22:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:2020 Ganja missile attacks on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 04:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-06

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

Recent changes

The Wikipedia app for Android now has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [31]

Changes later this week

You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [32]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).

Future changes

When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [33][34]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [35]
Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [36]

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

17:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-07

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

Problems

There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [37][38]
Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [39]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).

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

17:54, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Good article drive notice

This message has been sent to users signed up for the Good articles newsletter. Add or remove your name from the list to subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates. Alternatively, to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page.

-- For the drive co-ordinators, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-08

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

Recent changes

The visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [40]
The syntax highlighter now works with more languages: Futhark, Graphviz/DOT, CDDL and AMDGPU. [41]

Problems

Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [42]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 February. It will be on all wikis from 25 February (calendar).

Future changes

There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.

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

00:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2021

News and notes: Maher stepping down

Disinformation report: A "billionaire battle" on Wikipedia: Sex, lies, and video

Opinion: The call for feedback on community seats is a distraction

In the media: Corporate influence at OSM, Fox watching the hen house

News from the WMF: Who tells your story on Wikipedia

Recent research: Take an AI-generated flashcard quiz about Wikipedia; Wikipedia's anti-feudalism

Featured content: A Love of Knowledge, for Valentine's Day

Traffic report: Does it almost feel like you've been here before?

Gallery: What is Black history and culture?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-09

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

Recent changes

Wikis using the Growth team tools can now show the name of a newcomer's mentor anywhere through a magic word. This can be used for welcome messages or userboxes.
A new version of the VideoCutTool is now available. It enables cropping, trimming, audio disabling, and rotating video content. It is being created as part of the developer outreach programs.

Problems

There was a problem with the job queue. This meant some functions did not save changes and mass messages were delayed. This did not affect wiki edits. [43]
Some editors may not be logged in to their accounts automatically in the latest versions of Firefox and Safari. [44]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 March. It will be on all wikis from 4 March (calendar).

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

19:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).

Administrator changes

TJMSmith

Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is open that proposes a process for the community to revoke administrative permissions. This follows a 2019 RfC in favor of creating one such a policy.
A request for comment is in progress to remove F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a, which covers immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
A request for comment seeks to grant page movers the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target. The full proposal is at Wikipedia:Page mover/delete-redirect.
A request for comment asks if sysops may place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?
There is a discussion in progress concerning automatic protection of each day's featured article with Pending Changes protection.

Technical news

When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people. Sanctions issued under GamerGate are now considered Gender and sexuality sanctions.
The Kurds and Kurdistan case was closed, authorizing standard discretionary sanctions for the topics of Kurds and Kurdistan, broadly construed.

Miscellaneous

Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 March newsletter

Round 1 of the competition has finished; it was a high-scoring round with 21 contestants scoring more than 100 points. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 55 contestants qualifying. You will need to finish among the top thirty-two contestants in Round 2 if you are to qualify for Round 3. Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

Epicgenius led the field with a featured article, nine good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 945 points.
Bloom6132 was close behind with 896 points, largely gained from 71 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
ImaginesTigers, who has been editing Wikipedia for less than a year, was in third place with 711 points, much helped by bringing League of Legends to featured article status, exemplifying how bonus points can boost a contestant's score.
Amakuru came next with 708 points, Kigali being another featured article that scored maximum bonus points.
Ktin, new to the WikiCup, was in fifth place with 523 points, garnered from 15 DYKs and 34 "In the news" items.
The Rambling Man scored 511 points, many from featured article candidate reviews and from football related DYKs.
Gog the Mild, last year's runner-up, came next with 498 points, from a featured article and numerous featured article candidate reviews.
Hog Farm, at 452, scored for a featured article, four good articles and a number of reviews.
Le Panini, another newcomer to the WikiCup, scored 438 for a featured article and three good articles.
Lee Vilenski, last year's champion, scored 332 points, from a featured article and various other sport-related topics.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. In Round 1, contestants achieved eight featured articles, three featured lists and one featured picture, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. They completed 97 good article reviews, nearly double the 52 good articles they claimed. Contestants also claimed for 135 featured article and featured list candidate reviews. There is no longer a requirement to mention your WikiCup participation when undertaking these reviews.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or something else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:27, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-10

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

Recent changes

Section translation now works on Bengali Wikipedia. It helps mobile editors translate sections of articles. It will come to more wikis later. The first focus is active wikis with a smaller number of articles. You can test it and leave feedback.
Flagged revisions now give admins the review right. [45]
When someone links to a Wikipedia article on Twitter this will now show a preview of the article. [46]

Problems

Many graphs have JavaScript errors. Graph editors can check their graphs in their browser's developer console after editing. [47]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 March. It will be on all wikis from 11 March (calendar).
The New Discussion tool will soon be a new discussion tools beta feature for on most Wikipedias. The goal is to make it easier to start new discussions. [48]

Future changes

There will be a number of changes to make it easier to work with templates. Some will come to the first wikis in March. Other changes will come to the first wikis in June. This is both for those who use templates and those who create or maintain them. You can read more.
Reference Previews will become a default feature on some wikis on 17 March. They will share a setting with Page Previews. If you prefer the Reference Tooltips or Navigation-Popups gadget you can keep using them. If so Reference Previews won't be shown. [49][50]
New JavaScript-based functions will not work in Internet Explorer 11. This is because Internet Explorer is an old browser that doesn't work with how JavaScript is written today. Everything that works in Internet Explorer 11 today will continue working in Internet Explorer for now. You can read more.

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

17:50, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-11

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

Recent changes

Wikis that are part of the desktop improvements project can now use a new search function. The desktop improvements and the new search will come to more wikis later. You can also test it early.
Editors who put up banners or change site-wide JavaScript code should use the client error graph to see that their changes has not caused problems. You can read more. [51]

Problems

Due to database issues the Wikimedia Beta Cluster was read-only for over a day.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 March. It will be on all wikis from 18 March (calendar).

Future changes

You can add a newline or carriage return character to a custom signature if you use a template. There is a proposal to not allow them in the future. This is because they can cause formatting problems. [52][53]
You will be able to read but not edit 12 wikis for a short period of time on 23 March at 06:00 (UTC). This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.
You can use Quarry for SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work from 23 March. There will be a new field to specify the database to connect to. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. PAWS and other ways to do SQL queries to the Wiki Replicas will be affected later. [54]

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

23:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Feedback requests from the Feedback Request Service

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment, and at Talk:Gina Carano on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 04:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-12

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

Recent changes

There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. They don't have a touch screen so readers navigate with the phone keys. There is now a simulator so you can see what it looks like.
The reply tool and new discussion tool are now available as the "Discussion tools" beta feature in almost all wikis except German Wikipedia.

Problems

You will be able to read but not edit twelve wikis for a short period of time on 23 March at 06:00 (UTC). This can also affect password changes, logging in to new wikis, global renames and changing or confirming emails. This could take 30 minutes but will probably be much faster.

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 March. It will be on all wikis from 25 March (calendar).
Syntax highlighting colours will change to be easier to read. This will soon come to the first wikis. [55]

Future changes

Flagged revisions will no longer have multiple tags like "tone" or "depth". It will also only have one tier. This was changed because very few wikis used these features and they make the tool difficult to maintain. [56][57]
Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015 this was moved from wg* to mw.config. wg* will soon no longer work. [58]

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

16:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Biographies request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Tom Aikens on a "Biographies" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 11:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 March 2021

News and notes: A future with a for-profit subsidiary?

Gallery: Wiki Loves Monuments

In the media: Wikimedia LLC and disinformation in Japan

News from the WMF: Project Rewrite: Tell the missing stories of women on Wikipedia and beyond

Recent research: 10%-30% of Wikipedia’s contributors have subject-matter expertise

From the archives: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes

Essay: Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia

Obituary: Yoninah

From the editor: What else can we say?

Arbitration report: Open letter to the Board of Trustees

Traffic report: Wanda, Meghan, Liz, Phil and Zack

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-13

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

Recent changes

Some very old web browsers don’t work well with the Wikimedia wikis. Some old code for browsers that used to be supported is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. [59]
IRC recent changes feeds have been moved to a new server. Make sure all tools automatically reconnect to irc.wikimedia.org and not to the name of any specific server. Users should also consider switching to the more modern EventStreams. [60]

Problems

When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split. It might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. [61]
Some translatable pages on Meta could not be edited. This was because of a bug in the translation tool. The new MediaWiki version was delayed because of problems like this. [62][63]

Changes later this week

The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 March. It will be on all wikis from 1 April (calendar).

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

17:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)