User talk:Philosopher/Archive 20

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The Signpost: 24 September 2012

Thanks

Thanks-for editing the info box at the Charles Crosby article. I had difficulties trying to edit info boxes.RFD (talk) 12:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

Müdigkeit

Copied from my talk page.

I've adjusted your block of User:Müdigkeit, as discussed at User talk:Müdigkeit#Blocked. While I normally have a great deal of respect for your decisions, I wonder if you haven't taken this a bit personally? Because an indef-block of an established user, where there was no warning given locally, is more than a bit ... extreme. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 13:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, Philosopher. You've violated the blocking policy and administrator policy in order to substitute your decision for mine. You have not, prior to changing the block, consulted me as the blocking administrator. You've not taken it to an administrative noticeboard (at which time you would be required to notify me). You've failed to understand that an indefinite block is not the same thing as a permanent block. The indefinite block was applied to prevent further disruption by an account that has now become a cross-wiki disruptive account. Do you have any experience with cross-wiki disruptive accounts? Do you understand that the user has demonstrated escalating disruptive behaviour on German Wikipedia, and then started behaving disruptively and ignoring longstanding community practice on this project within three weeks of coming here? You're not responding in any way to an unblock request. Do you have any reason to expect that I would not have responded favourably to an unblock request from the user that undertook to refrain from attempting draconian action to alter community practices without even discussing these practices with the community? I suggest the following: reinstate the block that was in place, which was intended to be indefinite (and not permanent), and then take it to the admin noticeboard for discussion. I am going to copy this over to your talk page and to the user's talk page as well. Risker (talk) 15:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
To avoid the continued replication of this thread, I'm replying at that user's talk page. Multiple duplicate threads ... get confusing fast. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly, your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!

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The Signpost: 15 October 2012

VPT

Thanks for clarifying, and thanks for your help. Much appreciated. GiantSnowman 11:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

David J. Strachman: OTRS can help direct the person to who should handle the issue, and what evidence is needed

The Afd discussion was pointless, since the nom wasn't asking for a deletion based on notability. If nom has legal backing for the request (I don't know if Strachman has), the right people to check with would be OTRS, who would know where to forward the req. to. Churn and change (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the closure - the nomination was definitely premature, since the request should have been forwarded to OTRS, but unless the WMF was willing to step in with an WP:OFFICE action, the place to forward the request would be right back to AfD (which doesn't only deal with notability issues). --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
If WMF isn't willing to delete, I don't think there is anything much to it; there isn't any policy/guideline which says subjects have a special right over their articles. There is a second deletion nomination open now, by somebody who is not involved with Strachman, questioning notability. Churn and change (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Well then, I guess we agree. And yeah, I suppose I might as well take a look at the new AfD. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist removals

I just removed 2,436 items from my watchlist, including everything in article-space. I'm adding a few back, but not everything! Hopefully this will make it a little easier to manage, though I wish there was an easy way to leave the redirects and redlinks on the watchlist. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

Thank you!

Thanks for accepting my AWB request. I submitted the comment just after you at WP:VP(P)#Complex articles, went to check whether the request was accepted and got surprised that the request was accepted by you just before the comment was posted. It's amazing! :) ···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 00:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. That is an interesting coincidence! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
And today, I saw you at the Simple talk. Its amazing! (I had switched my home page from enwp to simplewp a few days before due to slow loading of enwp so that I can login from there and then come here. I felt the Simple as a very peaceful place)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Contacting you re: your deletion of "Stevie Vann" page.

Discussing this page in [the talk page for Stevie Vann.]

I invite you to contribute to that page rather than discuss it on your talk page. It's not you I want to discuss but re-creating a wikipedia page for "Stevie Vann" but the system seems to be pointing me to contact you and I don't know how to do that other than create an entry on your talk page. Sorry if this is the wrong move just let us know and I will create an entry in the "Requests for undeletion" page. Thanks. Peter Dow (talk) 05:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Below copied from the now-deleted Talk:Stevie Vann. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I was looking for her entry in Wikipedia and only found a reference to a deleted page for "Stevie Vann" and I want to discuss creating a page which doesn't get deleted.
The woman singer "Stevie Vann" is discussed in this source Last Fm - Stevie Vann.
In what appears to be her "official" website, she is named as "Stevie Vann Lange".
She speaks about her singing career in this video - Stevie Lange, Tell us your story!
I know her singing from the TV advert jingles she sung in the 1980s / 90s. One advert jingle in particular, the "Whoah ... Bodyform" is so famous that people of my generation have it hard-wired into our brains and is almost part of British culture. The jingle has recently been mentioned in a viral video on YouTube with more than 3,000,000 views - Bodyform - the Truth.
Anyway, does Wikipedia want to stay in denial about this singer with her ultra-famous voice? I trust not.


As an aside, the instructions given on the talk page for the deleted page (on a red background) attempting to explain whether or not to proceed to talk about a deleted page didn't make much sense to me. What did the deleted page contain? I presume my content above must be different from the deleted page. I have given sources certainly and the reasons given for deletion seem to be that no sources were given so I am reasonably sure my content must be different from the deleted page. But how can anyone, however different their comments, be 100% sure that their comment is different if the page has been deleted? The instructions in red read somewhat like a catch-22 rule to prevent anyone reviving a deleted page that someone from the Wikipedia High Command has deleted.
Anyway, I thought Wikipedia ought to have a page for this singer and I am surprised there isn't and think it is about time someone authored a page though I am not sure that I am the best person to write it but I will if no-one else does and that's OK with the editors.
Peter Dow (talk) 05:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
First, you were right to come here to discuss it, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, by the way. Second, there is no "Wikipedia High Command," as I'm sure you know. However, we can't make the content of deleted pages generally available since many of them appear to contain copyright violations or slander/libel and are thus in violation or potential violation of the law. Which is where "asking an admin" comes in, since we can look at the deleted pages and check them.
Stevie Vann looks like it was probably an okay article, except that it had no reliable sources. There were sources, mind you, but they were either completely unreliable - like the Geocities page - or were primary sources (sources connected to the subject of the article) - like the artist's website.
So the question is: Do you have enough sources for what you think the article should say? Can you verify the content with sources other than the artist herself? (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles, books, maybe mentions by other artists) Note particularly that claims that the artist is notable and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia must be supported by reliable secondary sources and so must controversy about her. If so, you have two choices: I can undelete the old article, which had some useful formatting and structure, or you can create your own version of the article.
Sorry for all of the hassle. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
P.S. If you think an instructional page should be clarified, you can either let me know which one and how and I'll do it or you can just be WP:BOLD and do it yourself. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I wish to quote a comment I made on Gogo Dodo's talk page as regards his deletion of my talk page.

My objection to Gogo Dodo deleting "Talk: Stevie Vann" page
Talk: Stevie Vann page I re-created because I wanted to discuss a previous deletion of the subject "Stevie Vann" page and the singer Stevie Vann herself, with a view to restoring or creating a new "Stevie Vann" page.
The criterion you quoted for a speedy deletion, G8, "21:17, 29 October 2012 Gogo Dodo (talk | contribs) deleted page Talk:Stevie Vann (G8: Talk page of a nonexistent or deleted page)" may not apply because an exclusion for talk pages without a corresponding subject page is given in Wikipedia's Criteria for speedy deletion, G8, to quote -
"This excludes any page that is useful to Wikipedia, and in particular deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere".
So "G8" may not be a valid criterion for a speedy deletion of a deletion discussion; your speedy deletion was particularly invalid I suggest because you seem to have exhibited a demonstrable disregard for the need to log the discussion elsewhere. Tut, tut.
It appears that Philosopher, with knowledge of your summary deletion of that talk page I started, it, has dug out my deleted text using his administrator abilities and pasted it into his talk page here.
So my thanks are due to Philosopher for logging my content but no thanks to you, Gogo Dodo, as you seem to have disregarded the deletion discussion I was attempting. So I object to your summary deletion but if you now restore the Talk: Stevie Vann page you deleted, perhaps suggesting why you think it ought to be deleted then we can take the discussion from there on that page, where it belongs. If you insist and refuse to reverse your deletion I intend to request elsewhere that my Talk: Steve Vann page be restored, overruling your inappropriate, invalid, heavy-handed and contemptuous abuse of administration powers.
Peter Dow (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


As regards the subject page, I'd be curious to read the content of the original deleted page and until I do so I could not even guess whether or not there might be sources for that original content. Would not the original author be the best person to offer sources for his / her own content? Who was the original author of the deleted page? I offered sources in my talk page content only for why I believed the singer Stevie Vann Lange is a notable person worthy of a subject page in Wikipedia. I haven't yet given any thought as to what I would write if I was the one left to author a new Stevie Vann subject page; that's not my priority right now.

No need to be sorry for the delay. I just wish administrators on Wikipedia would rather delay deleting subject pages I would have liked to read or talk pages I would like to have added to.

I'd suggest - restore the original Stevie Vann page and let all those with an interest in Stevie Vann (rather than an interest in Wikipedia administrators) discuss possible sources (and edits to remove content which can't be sourced) in the correct place for such a discussion - in the Talk: Stevie Vann page. Peter Dow (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've restored the original article (and, incidentally, its talk page). Please be aware, though, that until/unless adequate sources are added, it is going to be at some risk for deletion. As for your other comments, can I suggest that you assume good faith here? The admins are volunteers who want to build an encyclopedia, just as you are. Happy editing! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ian Jackson

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Re: Recognition

Thanks very much for the barnstar! I'm planning an entire Midwestern series, so Michigan is up next. I see you've signed up for the 2013 Wikicup. Good luck! Ruby 2010/2013 04:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), our 2012 champion! Cwmhiraeth joins our exclusive club of previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009), Sturmvogel 66 (2010) and Hurricanehink (2011). Our final standings were as follows:

  1. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
  2. Canada Sasata (submissions)
  3. Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions)
  4. Scotland Casliber (submissions)
  5. New York City Muboshgu (submissions)
  6. Wisconsin Miyagawa (submissions)
  7. Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions)
  8. Michigan Dana Boomer (submissions)

Prizes for first, second, third and fourth will be awarded, as will prizes for all those who reached the final eight. Every participant who scored in the competition will receive a ribbon of participation. In addition to the prizes based on placement, the following special prizes will be awarded based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, the prize is awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round.

Awards will be handed out in the coming days; please bear with us! This year's competition also saw fantastic contributions in all rounds, from newer Wikipedians contributing their first good or featured articles, right up to highly experienced Wikipedians chasing high scores and contributing to topics outside of their usual comfort zones. It would be impossible to name all of the participants who have achieved things to be proud of, but well done to all of you, and thanks! Wikipedia has certainly benefited from the work of this year's WikiCup participants.

Next year's WikiCup will begin in January. Currently, discussions and polls are open, and all contributions are welcome. You can also sign up for next year's competition. There will be no further newsletters this year, although brief notes may be sent out in December to remind everyone about the upcoming competition. It's been a pleasure to work with you all, and we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

New intractable COI draft

I've put up a new draft. I know your concerns were of a general nature and not over specific wording, but consider that the goal of this is to elevate the discussion on COI to more refined terminology. One goal of mine is to reduce the knee-jerk stigma of COI, and its hard association with "paid advocacy". Editors should realize that most everyone has a COI in some area or another, and refining our terms by getting rid of pejorative jargon like "COI editing" is a step toward that. I know this proposal doesn't outright do that, but by introducing better terminology based on relationships and obligations, I think it's a step in that direction. Gigs (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice/comment; replied there. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from September 2012

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for September 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
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Talkback

Hello, Philosopher. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of current members of the Iowa Senate/archive1.
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Administrators' newsletter – September 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2023).

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open regarding amending the paid-contribution disclosure policy to add the following text: Any administrator soliciting clients for paid Wikipedia-related consulting or advising services not covered by other paid-contribution rules must disclose all clients on their userpage.

Technical news

  • Administrators can now choose to add the user's user page to their watchlist when changing the usergroups for a user. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. (T272294)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:41, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-41

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

Recent changes

  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Fon (w:fon:) [1]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).
  • Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Swahili Wikipedia, Walloon Wikipedia, Waray Wikipedia, Wolof Wikipedia, Kalmyk Wikipedia, Xhosa Wikipedia, Mingrelian Wikipedia, Yiddish Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, Zhuang Wikipedia, Zeelandic Wikipedia, Min Nan Wikipedia, Zulu Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [2]
  • At some wikis, newcomers are suggested images from Commons to add to articles without any images. Starting on Tuesday, newcomers at these wikis will be able to add images to unillustrated article sections. The specific wikis are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table. You can learn more about this feature. [3]
  • In the mobile web skin (Minerva) the CSS ID #page-actions will be replaced with #p-views. This change is to make it consistent with other skins and to improve support for gadgets and extensions in the mobile skin. A few gadgets may need to be updated; there are details and search-links in the task.

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MediaWiki message delivery 14:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-42

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

Recent changes

  • The Unified login system's edge login should now be fixed for some browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera). This means that if you visit a new sister project wiki, you should be logged in automatically without the need to click "Log in" or reload the page. Feedback on whether it's working for you is welcome. [4]
  • Edit notices are now available within the MobileFrontend/Minerva skin. This feature was inspired by the gadget on English Wikipedia. See more details in T316178.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Future changes

  • In 3 weeks, in the Vector 2022 skin, code related to addPortletLink and #p-namespaces that was deprecated one year ago will be removed. If you notice tools that should appear next to the "Discussion" tab are then missing, please tell the gadget's maintainers to see instructions in the Phabricator task.

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-43

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

Recent changes

  • There is a new Language and internationalization newsletter, written quarterly. It contains updates on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects, and related support work.
  • Source map support has been enabled on all wikis. When you open the debugger in your browser's developer tools, you should be able to see the unminified JavaScript source code. [5]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 October. It will be on all wikis from 26 October (calendar).

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-44

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).
  • Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 2 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for many languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [6][7]
  • Starting November 1, the impact module (Special:Impact) will be upgraded by the Growth team. The new impact module shows newcomers more data regarding their impact on the wiki. It was tested by a few wikis during the last few months. [8]

Future changes

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 November newsletter

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, Delaware BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

  • Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
  • England Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
  • Delaware BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
  • Berkelland LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
  • Ukraine Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

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Tech News: 2023-45

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

Recent changes

  • In the Vector 2022 skin, the default font-size of a number of navigational elements (tagline, tools menu, navigational links, and more) has been increased slightly to match the font size used in page content. [9]

Problems

  • Last week, there was a problem displaying some recent edits on a few wikis, for 1-6 hours. The edits were saved but not immediately shown. This was due to a database problem. [10]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).
  • The Growth team will reassign newcomers from former mentors to the currently active mentors. They have also changed the notification language to be more user-friendly. [11][12]

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MediaWiki message delivery 21:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

added 0xDeadbeef
readded Tamzin
removed Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

added Pppery
removed

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
  • Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
  • Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
  • Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
  • Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
  • Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
  • An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-46

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

Recent changes

Problems

  • Last week, users who previously visited Meta-Wiki or Wikimedia Commons and then became logged out on those wikis could not log in again. The problem is now resolved. [17]
  • Last week, some pop-up dialogs and menus were shown with the wrong font size. The problem is now resolved. [18]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 November. It will be on all wikis from 16 November (calendar).

Future changes

  • Reference Previews are coming to many wikis as a default feature. They are popups for references, similar to the PagePreviews feature. You can opt out of seeing them. If you are using the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews. Deployment is planned for November 22, 2023.
  • Canary (also known as heartbeat) events will be produced into Wikimedia event streams from December 11. Streams users are advised to filter out these events, by discarding all events where meta.domain == "canary". Updates to Pywikibot or wikimedia-streams will discard these events by default. [19]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-47

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

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [20][21]
  • Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Quechua Wikipedia, Romansh Wikipedia, Romani Wikipedia, Rundi Wikipedia, Aromanian Wikipedia, Tarandíne Wikipedia, Rusyn Wikipedia, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sakha Wikipedia, Santali Wikipedia, Sardinian Wikipedia, Sicilian Wikipedia, Scots Wikipedia, Sindhi Wikipedia, Northern Sami Wikipedia, Sango Wikipedia, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, Sinhala Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Slovenian Wikipedia, Samoan Wikipedia, Somali Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Serbian Wikipedia, Sranan Tongo Wikipedia, Swati Wikipedia, Southern Sotho Wikipedia, Saterland Frisian Wikipedia, Sundanese Wikipedia, Silesian Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Tulu Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Tetum Wikipedia, Tajik Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia, Tagalog Wikipedia, Tswana Wikipedia, Tongan Wikipedia, Tok Pisin Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Tatar Wikipedia, Twi Wikipedia, Tahitian Wikipedia, Tuvinian Wikipedia, Udmurt Wikipedia, Uyghur Wikipedia, Uzbek Wikipedia, Venda Wikipedia, Venetian Wikipedia, Veps Wikipedia, West Flemish Wikipedia, Volapük Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [22][23][24]
  • The Vector 2022 skin will have some minor visual changes to drop-down menus, column widths, and more. These changes were added to four Wikipedias last week. If no issues are found, these changes will proceed to all wikis this week. These changes will make it possible to add new menus for readability and dark mode. Learn more. [25]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-48

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

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 November. It will be on all wikis from 30 November (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [26][27]
  • MediaWiki's JavaScript system will now allow async/await syntax in gadgets and user scripts. Gadget authors should remember that users' browsers may not support it, so it should be used appropriately. [28]
  • The deployment of "Add a link" announced last week was postponed. It will resume this week.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 December 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-49

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

Recent changes

  • The spacing between paragraphs on Vector 2022 has been changed from 7px to 14px to match the size of the text. This will make it easier to distinguish paragraphs from sentences. [29]
  • The "Sort this page by default as" feature in VisualEditor is working again. You no longer need to switch to source editing to edit {{DEFAULTSORT:...}} keywords. [30]

Changes later this week

Future changes

Events

  • Registration & Scholarship applications are now open for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024 that will take place from 3–5 May in Tallinn, Estonia. Scholarship applications are open until 5 January 2024.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
  • The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
  • Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-50

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

  • On Wikimedia Commons, there are some minor user-interface improvements for the "choosing own vs not own work" step in the UploadWizard. This is part of the Structured Content team's project of improving UploadWizard on Commons. [34][35]

Problems

  • There was a problem showing the Newcomer homepage feature with the "impact module" and their page-view graphs, for a few days in early December. This has now been fixed. [36][37]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar). [38][39]

Future changes

  • The 2023 Developer Satisfaction Survey is seeking the opinions of the Wikimedia developer community. Please take the survey if you have any role in developing software for the Wikimedia ecosystem. The survey is open until 5 January 2024, and has an associated privacy statement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-51

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

Tech News

  • The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2024 because of the holidays.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 December. It will be on all wikis from 21 December (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [40][41]
  • Starting December 18, it won't be possible to activate Structured Discussions on a user's own talk page using the Beta feature. The Beta feature option remains available for users who want to deactivate Structured Discussions. This is part of Structured Discussions' deprecation work. [42]
  • There will be full support for redirects in the Module namespace. The "Move Page" feature will leave an appropriate redirect behind, and such redirects will be appropriately recognized by the software (e.g. hidden from Special:UnconnectedPages). There will also be support for manual redirects. [43]

Future changes

  • The MediaWiki JavaScript documentation is moving to a new format. During the move, you can read the old docs using version 1.41. Feedback about the new site is welcome on the project talk page.
  • The Wishathon is a new initiative that encourages collaboration across the Wikimedia community to develop solutions for wishes collected through the Community Wishlist Survey. The first community Wishathon will take place from 15–17 March. If you are interested in a project proposal as a user, developer, designer, or product lead, you can register for the event and read more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2024 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. 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 ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-02

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

  • mediawiki2latex is a tool that converts wiki content into the formats of LaTeX, PDF, ODT, and EPUB. The code now runs many times faster due to recent improvements. There is also an optional Docker container you can install on your local machine.
  • The way that Random pages are selected has been updated. This will slowly reduce the problem of some pages having a lower chance of appearing. [44]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar). [45][46]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

"CAT:LIP" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect CAT:LIP has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 January 12 § CAT:LIP until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 18:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-03

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

Recent changes

  • Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. [47]
  • Gadgets and personal user scripts may now use JavaScript syntax introduced in ES6 (also known as "ES2015") and ES7 ("ES2016"). MediaWiki validates the source code to protect other site functionality from syntax errors, and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers. Previously, Gadgets could use the requiresES6 option. This option is no longer needed and will be removed in the future. [48]
  • Bot passwords and owner-only OAuth consumers can now be restricted to allow editing only specific pages. [49]
  • You can now thank edits made by bots. [50]
  • An update on the status of the Community Wishlist Survey for 2024 has been published. Please read and give your feedback.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar). [51][52]
  • Starting on January 17, it will not be possible to login to Wikimedia wikis from some specific old versions of the Chrome browser (versions 51–66, released between 2016 and 2018). Additionally, users of iOS 12, or Safari on Mac OS 10.14, may need to login to each wiki separately. [53]
  • The jquery.cookie module was deprecated and replaced with the mediawiki.cookie module last year. A script has now been run to replace any remaining uses, and this week the temporary alias will be removed. [54]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

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