User talk:Mz7/March–May 2021
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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. [1]
- Some editors may not be logged in to their accounts automatically in the latest versions of Firefox and Safari. [2]
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).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
Interface administrator changes
- 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.
- 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).
- 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
.
- By motion, the discretionary sanctions originally authorized under the GamerGate case are now authorized under a new Gender and sexuality case, with sanctions
- Following the 2021 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: AmandaNP, Operator873, Stanglavine, Teles, and Wiki13.
Hi
Hello Mz7, I was able to review a few edits during my PCR trial run. I think I can review edits regularly. Can you grant me some more time :) Thanks - Tatupiplu'talk 18:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
Done. Mz7 (talk) 18:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
85.84.33.17
Could you extend the block on Special:contributions/85.84.33.17, part of a recent SPI you checked? They appear determined to disrupt basically every process we have. --- Possibly (talk) 16:35, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
- Possibly, looks like this is already done. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 20:54, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
Possible sockpuppet
Greetings. Need some direction here. Back in November an article was deleted which had been created by a sockpuppet of User:Gleeanon409, LGBTQ Nation. A relatively new user (Chillabit) just recreated the article. When this happens and the page is on my watchlist, I usually check for possible sockpuppetry, and in doing so, came across the SPI you closed in December for another user (SreySros). While there is not a huge amount of overlap between these 3, one thing stuck out in my mind, other than their interest in LGBTQ issues, was that all of them signed up for Wikipedia:Feedback request service. In addition, SreySros and Chillabit also had the same similarity of having 2 early edits, and then not becoming active until right after Gleeanon409 was blocked. Pardon for the long intro, but my question is, in cases where there is a simple suspicion, without any real hard evidence, should an SPI be opened? Thanks. Onel5969 TT me 15:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Onel5969: Generally, in cases where you have a reasonable suspicion that two accounts might be sockpuppets, but you aren't 100% sure, you can go to SPI and request a CheckUser to look into it. I'll go ahead and explain what I think about this particular case. At the December SPI I actually concluded that SreySros was not related to Gleeanon409 based on CheckUser information. Between Gleeanon409 and Chillabit, my feeling at the moment just looking at behavior is that they're also unrelated. If you compare their editing habits [3][4], you can see that Gleeanon409 almost always edited from their phone ("Mobile web edit") and had a particular style for their edit summaries, whereas it looks like Chillabit doesn't edit from their phone, and the edit summary style doesn't quite match. I haven't run any checks yet, but based on this I'm thinking the similarities that you mentioned may be merely coincidental. What do you think? Mz7 (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
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. [5]
- When someone links to a Wikipedia article on Twitter this will now show a preview of the article. [6]
Problems
- Many graphs have JavaScript errors. Graph editors can check their graphs in their browser's developer console after editing. [7]
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. [8]
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. [9][10]
- 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)
TPA
Hello, thank you for blocking this user. You might want to revoke their talk page access since they are abusing it: [11], [12]. --Ashleyyoursmile! 07:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Ashleyyoursmile:
Done, thanks! Mz7 (talk) 07:34, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
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. [13]
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. [14][15]
- 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. [16]
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)
Sandbox
Hey M! How's it going? Question. I want to make my own sandbox to do just some silly stuff haha. For example, to make a list of presidents of Yugoslavia if the country existed today. So my question is, when I make my sandbox, I presume no one can edit it besides me (apart bots who deleted non free images and so on)? And also, I don't need any refs. in my sandbox right? No one's gonna actually like check my sandbox, yes? Haha! I hope to get an answer from you shortly! Bye :) Bakir123 (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
- Bakir123, I apologize for my delay in responding. The purpose of your sandbox is to serve as a testing space. Perhaps you want to experiment with adding an infobox to an article—you can add an infobox to your sandbox as a test. In general, you are given relatively wide latitude regarding what you can write in your sandbox, but some of Wikipedia's rules do still apply. For example, you should not add poorly sourced contentious information about living persons to your sandbox, and you should not use your sandbox to post spam. On the other hand, we are indeed more lax about certain things. We can tolerate a small amount of silliness as long as it's not offensive in nature. Other editors besides you can theoretically edit your personal sandbox (see WP:OWN), but in practice they don't do so unless you are misusing it. I hope this information is helpful. Mz7 (talk) 06:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
- Note that your sandbox is not a free webhost. Firestar464 (talk) 06:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
- Right, to add to this, per WP:NOTWEBHOST you should avoid using your sandbox to host projects that aren't related to Wikipedia's goals. Its purpose is to provide a testing space, not a free web page you can use to write anything. Mz7 (talk) 06:50, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
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. [17]
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. [18][19]
Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015 this was moved from
wg*
tomw.config
.wg*
will soon no longer work. [20]
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)
F1 former IP editor
Back again with another variation on Gareth and 2000. There is already a SPI in progress at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Rowde; I'm pretty sure it's him though. Cheers. Eagleash (talk) 21:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
- Ah... not to worry; he's blocked... again. Thanks anyway. Eagleash (talk) 01:17, 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
- 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
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. [21]
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. [22]
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. [23]
- 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. [24][25]
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)
Salt
Hi Mz7. Thanks for helping out at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NasirRanjhyWala. Could I also ask you to salt Nasir Ranjhy Wala in the article space too? The socks created it 5 times as well. I'm just worried that a new crop of socks might try to do it again. Thanks. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 14:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
- @Drm310:
Done, thanks! Mz7 (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
- Perfect - thank you! --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 14:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS
- Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
- Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the
delete-redirect
userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.
- When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
- Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)
- A community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure is open until April 25.
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
- Editors can collapse part of an article so you have to click on it to see it. When you click a link to a section inside collapsed content it will now expand to show the section. The browser will scroll down to the section. Previously such links didn't work unless you manually expanded the content first. [26]
Changes later this week
The citoid API will use for example
2010-12-XX
instead of2010-12
for dates with a month but no days. This is because2010-12
could be confused with2010-2012
instead ofDecember 2010
. This is called level 1 instead of level 0 in the Extended Date/Time Format. [27]The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 April. It will be on all wikis from 8 April (calendar).
Future changes
PAWS can now connect to the new Wiki Replicas. Cross-database
JOINS
will no longer work from 28 April. There is a new way to connect to the databases. Until 28 April both ways to connect to the databases will work. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:38, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Request for revision deletion
- Revision: Special:Diff/1012844609, Special:Diff/1014562873, Special:Diff/1015298621
- Reason: WP:RD3, edited by LTA 冏.
- Thanks. --SCP-2000 05:12, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- @SCP-2000:
Done, thanks. Mz7 (talk) 05:15, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- @SCP-2000:
- Revision: 1 2 3 4 5
- Reason: Per above. Thanks. --SCP-2000 13:32, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
Done. Mz7 (talk) 18:49, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
- Revision: 1 2
- Reason: Per above. Thanks. --SCP-2000 22:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
Done Mz7 (talk) 17:45, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
- Revision: Special:diff/927172534
- Reason: Per above. Thanks. --SCP-2000 17:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
Done this time, but as a tip for the future, I don't think we need to redact instances that are more than a year old, since they are already relatively obscure. Trying to redact them again today would likely draw more attention to the edits than if we had left them alone. Mz7 (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
- SCP-2000,
Disruptive suspected sock
Dear Mz7, I recently reported a new suspected sock in a case where you already confirmed 14 older ones. Since this concerns a possible block evasion (Vandalism-only account) and since CU has been used before in this case, I requested CU. However, the suspected user is also editing disruptively, which means that all of their edits need careful checking, and it would be good if something can be done about this. Is the CU request perhaps causing some delay, and if so, is it possible (and desirable) to retract the CU request? Or should I report the user to ANI? Any advice would be appreciated, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 22:42, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Hi, Apaugasma. I haven't looked too closely at your case yet, but I can say that the reason for the delay is probably not because of the CU request, but because we have a severe backlog of cases at WP:SPI. Simply put, we have a large volume of open cases at the moment, and it may take some time for us to get to your case. Mz7 (talk) 23:03, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for your expediency. This was enormously helpful, and very much appreciated. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 23:21, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
- They're at it again. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 21:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
- And again. Please let me know if you would like me not to notify you of this each time on your talk. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 14:23, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
- They're at it again. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 21:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you so much for your expediency. This was enormously helpful, and very much appreciated. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 23:21, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
User:Sandhya Aryan is an autoconfirmed account also vandalising the page in the same way! Tommi1986 let's talk! 19:28, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Tommi1986: Blocked now. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 19:36, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
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
- Email to the Wikimedia wikis are handled by groups of Wikimedia editors. These volunteer response teams now use Znuny instead of OTRS. The functions and interface remain the same. The volunteer administrators will give more details about the next steps soon. [28][29]
- If you use syntax highlighting, you can see line numbers in the 2010 and 2017 wikitext editors when editing templates. This is to make it easier to see line breaks or talk about specific lines. Line numbers will soon come to all namespaces. [30][31][32]
Because of a technical change there could be problems with gadgets and scripts that have an edit summary area that looks similar to this one. If they look strange they should use
mw.loader.using('mediawiki.action.edit.styles')
to go back to how they looked before. [33]- The latest version of MediaWiki came to the Wikimedia wikis last week. There was no Tech News issue last week.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- The user group
oversight
will be renamedsuppress
. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in two weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:47, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Email reg. UPE user
Hi Mz7, sent you an email a few days ago. We all have a life aside from Wiki, so not sure if you already had a chance to look at it. In case should send it to someone else, please let me know. – NJD-DE (talk) 23:10, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
- Njd-de, ah yes, I remember seeing it. Sorry for the delay. I’ll see if I can take a look later tonight. Mz7 (talk) 23:18, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Hong Kong Adventist Academy
Hong Kong Adventist Academy should not be redirected to Hong Kong Adventist College. They are not managed under one company. The academy leases the space from the college. There are online sources to prove this.
You may visit www.HKAA.edu.hk to find all pertinent information to prove they are operated separately. If need be I’m happy to add more citations, pictures, text to provide users more info. I can imagine this merge is giving wiki users false information that may impact their decision to send their children to school there. Please advise ASAP. Rudi444 (talk) 05:28, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
- Hi, Rudi444. The primary reason that the article was redirected was because it was found not to satisfy our notability guidelines. This means that there was insufficient coverage of the school in reliable sources to justify a standalone article about the subject. It sounds to me from your message that the academy takes place in the same building as the college, but they are managed by separate entities. In that case, I think the best solution might simply be to briefly mention that fact somewhere in the college article, instead of creating a new standalone article for the school again. Mz7 (talk) 14:13, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Hello Mz7, thank you for your fast reply! Let me make it clear. The Academy rents from the college. It is in no way part of the college or operated by the college. The Academy has its own finance department, board of directors, administration team, teachers, faculty, licensing etc. It is incredibly important that this line is drawn because it would be absolutely false for it to be considered part of the college. It would also have a negative impact on the Academy if that was implied in any way. As explained on the Academy website HKAA was founded in 2011 and is a grade 1-12 program, not a college. Two very different things here. The college has its own reputation dating back to 1903. The Academy is making its own reputation and is still in its infancy. To blur the two schools as one would be a disservice to all. If the Academy Wikipedia page is missing citations, pictures, data, links etc I’m happy to upload some and fill out the page a bit. Please advise on how to proceed. Thank you! Rudi444 (talk) 15:16, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
- @Rudi444: As I stated, the issue here is a lack of notability. You mentioned that
The Academy is making its own reputation and is still in its infancy.
That in itself is the problem: Wikipedia should only cover the subject after it has built up that reputation; the school should not attempt to build up its reputation through Wikipedia. For these reasons, I think the best we can do for now is to simply mention in the college article that it rents its space to a separate academy. Mz7 (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Ok, you are the admin I suppose you know best. Honestly I’m kind of shocked that there isn’t enough notability. We are published all over the web and have been in business for 10 years. That’s nothing to the college’s 100+ years but it’s still notable. I think it would be best if there was nothing said about the academy on the college’s Wikipedia page. I think people will get more accurate information elsewhere on the web that way. I’m not sure how the Academy Wikipedia page was made or where data was pulled from but it was never very accurate and was full of spelling, fact and grammar errors. It’s really confusing for people who search HKAA on google when the 4th listing is the college’s Wikipedia page. I think this diminishes the credibility of Wikipedia. Plus I believe FB has HKAA listed as a “place” rather than a school because of this Wikipedia page. Super annoying/confusing to have two FB pages for the same school. Thank you for all your advice and understanding. I’m sure it’s frustrating for you as well. I really appreciate your patience though. Rudi444 (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 April 2021
- From the editor: A change is gonna come
- Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise
- In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby
- Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct
- Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way
- Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia
- Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles
- Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty
- News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia
The Signpost: 25 April 2021
- From the editor: A change is gonna come
- Disinformation report: Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise
- In the media: Fernando, governance, and rugby
- Opinion: The (Universal) Code of Conduct
- Op-Ed: A Little Fun Goes A Long Way
- Changing the world: The reach of protest images on Wikipedia
- Recent research: Quality of aquatic and anatomical articles
- Traffic report: The verdict is guilty, guilty, guilty
- News from Wiki Education: Encouraging professional physicists to engage in outreach on Wikipedia
Suspected Multiple account owned by the same person
This editors seem to be the same persons and some of the users are doing disruptive edits. 1) Oudi berry 2) AravindShekar9 3) Ihaveabandonedmychild 4) alphajith13 5) xavinanotech Nandivarman (talk) 08:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
- Nandivarman is a sock disrupting caste pages after his old account was topic banned for disruption. Check this Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mamallarnarashimavarman .2409:4072:6381:788D:5131:31:63CC:3371 (talk) 09:39, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
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
- Templates have parameters that can have specific values. It is possible to suggest values for editors with TemplateData. You can soon see them as a drop-down list in the visual editor. This is to help template users find the right values faster. [34][35][36]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 April. It will be on all wikis from 29 April (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:23, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Saff V. SPI report
@Blablubbs and Mz7: I have more evidence about this SPI that links both these accounts to each other. Should I open a new SPI report or just post that evidence here? Barca (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- @BarcrMac: I believe that I have reviewed the behavior of the two accounts thoroughly, and it is my conclusion that the two accounts are most likely different people. I don't doubt that if you search, you will find additional similarities between the users because of their shared editing interests, but in my view, in the absence of truly "smoking gun"-style evidence, you are not likely to succeed in blocking these users again if you file a new SPI. Mz7 (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
- Mz7: Isn't an editor using the term "picking up" to say "remove" a year after a blocked editor used the same peculiar term to also say "remove" smoking gun-style evidence? Neither Saff V. or Ghazaalch answered to my pings on the SPI, and then both file an unblock request the same day after they are blocked. Both users also share the same geolocation using wide range IPs. We could entertain the possibility that this is just a big coincidence where two editors have the exact same POV on the exact same article, but then the use of the exact same peculiar terminology (which isn't used by any other editor)? Barca (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- @BarcrMac: I don't think it is when you consider the behaviors of the two accounts holistically. I recommend reading through Ghazaalch's general style of writing and comparing it to that of Saff V.. I think you will find that Ghazaalch's writing exhibits a much stronger command of the English language compared to Saff V. A few examples I found were [37][38] for Saff V. and [39][40] for Ghazaalch. Ghazaalch said they thought "picking up" was an okay expression in the vein of "lifting information from a source and putting it in another location", rather than just outright removing content, which I can see as a plausible coincidence given the stylistic dissimilarities in their overall writing style. Essentially, the evidence strongly "feels" like two different users to me. Mz7 (talk) 16:40, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
- Mz7: Isn't an editor using the term "picking up" to say "remove" a year after a blocked editor used the same peculiar term to also say "remove" smoking gun-style evidence? Neither Saff V. or Ghazaalch answered to my pings on the SPI, and then both file an unblock request the same day after they are blocked. Both users also share the same geolocation using wide range IPs. We could entertain the possibility that this is just a big coincidence where two editors have the exact same POV on the exact same article, but then the use of the exact same peculiar terminology (which isn't used by any other editor)? Barca (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
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
- Twinkle is a gadget on English Wikipedia. It can help with maintenance and patrolling. It can now be used on other wikis. You can get Twinkle on your wiki using the twinkle-starter GitHub repository.
Problems
- The content translation tool did not work for many articles for a little while. This was because of a bug. [41]
- Some things will not work for about a minute on 5 May. This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This will affect the content translation tool and notifications among other things. This is because of an upgrade to avoid crashes. [42]
Changes later this week
- Reference Previews will become a default feature on a number of wikis on 5 May. This is later than planned because of some changes. You can use it without using Page Previews if you want to. The earlier plan was to have the preference to use both or none. [43][44]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 May. It will be on all wikis from 6 May (calendar).
Future changes
The CSS classes
.error
,.warning
and.success
do not work for mobile readers if they have not been specifically defined on your wiki. From June they will not work for desktop readers. This can affect gadgets and templates. The classes can be defined in MediaWiki:Common.css or template styles instead. [45]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
![]() | |
Seven years! |
---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
SPI Case
Please take a look at the SPI Case[[46]] which was opened for nearly 30 days. The guy is still out there in anonymous mode with his PR work also abusing others worthlessly. Thanks Outlander07@talk 14:10, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Request for revdel
[47] has a WP:BLP problem, could you strike it please? Thanks so much. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 21:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
- Theleekycauldron, looks like this is
Already done. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 23:58, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
SPI and its many intricacies
I can’t even thank you enough for the splendid and arduous task you carry out as a sysop and a check user. I came across this comment of yours and it got me thinking, are you saying Kashmorwiki was deliberately evading a block by editing via a different account in December 2020? Or could it be (as they are claim) they simply did not know editing under a different account was against policy? They also did mention that they had lost access (I think password related) to their original account thus making a request for unblock via their original account impossible. Could all this be put in cognizance when reviewing their unblock appeal? But like I implied earlier, you know best and your judgement is one I respect. Celestina007 (talk) 00:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
- @Celestina007: Yes, in my view, Kashmorwiki deliberately used their Kashmorwiki account to evade the block on the Shahoodu account. The claim that they were simply unaware that creating a new account was against policy seems quite improbable to me because of the user's extensive history of block evasion, and if you see [48][49], at one point they used multiple accounts deliberately in order to give the impression that they were multiple people. At User talk:Kashmorwiki#Break, I've written up a timeline that hopefully clarifies this user's extensive history of block evasion on both the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons, as well as some of the factors that might be to their benefit here. Mz7 (talk) 02:11, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
- I read your analysis pedantically and my AGF died instantaneously i saw they abused multiple accounts and used those accounts to communicate with themselves. That’s something I wouldn’t forgive. A similar case happened in Nigeria where the now banned bad faith editor @Oluwa2Chainz created a sock @Obari2Kay to horribly game the system see here (who had like 3-4 sock accounts)in which they used their main account to do constructive work and used their sock @Obari2Kay to perpetuate UPE, in which sometimes they interacted with themselves using their main account to warn @Obari2Kay severally whereas check-user confirmed that they were one and the same person. Even more annoying was @Oluwa2Chainz which as stated earlier was the master sock had a moderately decent command of the English language but whilst they operated under their sock they deliberately wrote poor English in an attempt to fool the community. See Oluwa2Chainz (talk · contribs) & Obari2Kay (talk · contribs) to confirm. That’s almost similar to what @Kashmorwiki did. That’s a horrible bad faith move and such an editor should be globally banned indefinitely, if that were possible and even if were to come back must never hold any pertinent perms. Celestina007 (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
Interface administrator changes
- Following an RfC, consensus was found that third party appeals are allowed but discouraged.
- The 2021 Desysop Policy RfC was closed with no consensus. Consensus was found in a previous RfC for a community based desysop procedure, though the procedure proposed in the 2021 RfC did not gain consensus.
- The user group
oversight
will be renamed tosuppress
. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.
- The user group
- The community consultation on the Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions procedure was closed, and an initial draft based on feedback from the now closed consultation is expected to be released in early June to early July for community review.
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 11 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 May. It will be on all wikis from 13 May (calendar).
Future changes
- You can see what participants plan to work on at the online Wikimedia hackathon 22–23 May.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you
I totally agree with your comment about WP:DENY here, and was encouraged to see it. All this tagging is a sad mistake, IMO. (In cases like Yacqubyyyyyy, at least.) Even apart from the fact that the tagging makes dealing with socks consistently more work for CUs and admins than it is for the vandals to create 'em. Bishonen | tålk 19:46, 11 May 2021 (UTC).
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 toolbar in the Reply tool. It works in the wikitext source mode. You can enable it in your preferences. [50] [51] [52]
- Wikimedia mailing lists are being moved to Mailman 3. This is a newer version. For the character encoding to work it will change from
UTF-8
toutf8mb3
. [53][54] An earlier issue of Tech News said that the citoid API would handle dates with a month but no days in a new way. This has been reverted for now. There needs to be more discussion of how it affects different wikis first. [55]
Changes later this week
MediaWiki:Pageimages-blacklist
will be renamedMediaWiki:Pageimages-denylist
. The list can be copied to the new name. It will happen on 19 May for some wikis and 20 May for some wikis. Most wikis don't use it. It lists images that should never be used as thumbnails for articles. [56]The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 May. It will be on all wikis from 20 May (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
13:48, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
Rollback request
This editor is certainly eager to have the permission, and I don't see any recent red flags. What do you think? All the best, Miniapolis 01:53, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Miniapolis, looks like Anarchyte has granted it as a 1 month trial, which I have no objections to. Mz7 (talk) 18:33, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
- Me neither
. Thanks for the update and all the best, Miniapolis 21:21, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
- Me neither
FYI
Hello M. I noticed that you had to R/D copyvio edits by 172.97.186.125 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). It looks like they have resumed the same editing patterns so your mop and pail skills may be needed again - unless someone else gets to it before you see this. Regards. MarnetteD|Talk 00:02, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
- @MarnetteD:
Done, thanks! Mz7 (talk) 01:12, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
- You are welcome. Enjoy the rest of your week. MarnetteD|Talk 01:38, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
The kid laroi
Hi there. I want to bring The Kid Laroi's article to your attention, as you are the administrator who blocked the editor earlier this month. User:GrantEdwards has returned to removing sourced information from the article and is still not providing any evidence to support their edits. I reverted their initial edit after the block expired, but they undid this revert without even bothering with an edit summary. I don't want to get an edit war over this. What is the best way to move forward with this? Alex (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
- Alexanderlee, I would go with WP:BRD: start a discussion thread yourself on the talk page, pinging them to the thread. If they don’t respond, you can revert again. Mz7 (talk) 18:41, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
- Hi again. User:GrantEdwards has again returned to removing the information (three times today, three were reverted by three different editors) and they are still yet to respond to the thread I started on the article talk page. Alex (talk) 21:21, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
- @Alexanderlee: I've placed an indefinite partial block on the user from editing that article. Mz7 (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Removed Edit
Dear Md7,
I see that you removed my edit on Kingsbury High School. It is a serious matter and I thought it would be good to put it on the first subheading. If you need proof of this incident, let me know. Could you please organise this Wikipedia and add this incident in? WorldNews101 (talk) 18:28, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
- @WorldNews101: No. Wikipedia only depends on information that has been published in reliable sources, such as newspapers, books, or scholarly journals. We cannot accept information, especially if it is controversial information about living persons, if it does not have a citation to a reliable source. Essentially, Wikipedia is not the proper location to tell the world about your school's controversies; consider talking to your local newspaper instead. Mz7 (talk) 18:30, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
It is in the local newspaper and that’s why it should be part of Wikipedia. Why do you even control this? It’s nothing to do with you. WorldNews101 (talk) 16:37, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- @WorldNews101: I suspect you may misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia. Our goal is not to "right great wrongs", but to build a general-purpose encyclopedia, and to that end, we have certain policies that determine how our content should be written. In the past, our project has been misused to spread misinformation and defamation about living people, so adding the information that you did without any references to reliable sources is not going to be acceptable. Mz7 (talk) 16:49, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
I’ve added reliable resources. WorldNews101 (talk) 17:14, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Gege akutami gender.
It has already been confirmed that gege akutami is a man, it was confirmed during his interview with kendo kobayashi. Please stop changing the gender to unknown, when it has already been confirmed. The jujutsu fandom wiki also talks about the author. From there you can get information about him. Horikoshi (author of boku no hero academy) also referred to gege akutami as a man in one of his weekly comments of the shonen jump. Also in the information of the Japanese volumes, gege talked about his childhood and his family, talked about him, his brother and his father. There is enough information to know that gege akutami is man. SebaaVidal06 (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
- SebaaVidal06, because of Wikipedia's policies, we need a direct citation to a reliable source that verifies this information. Just saying, "I found it on the fandom wiki" is not sufficient, nor is saying that you found it in an interview without actually linking to the same interview. Mz7 (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
And I didn't link because Wikipedia didn't let me edit it with the link I dont know why. But there you go. I gave you the links SebaaVidal06 (talk) 18:40, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
- @SebaaVidal06: Hmm, I still don't see any link to the source you are citing. I will reiterate that in order to stay in line with Wikipedia's policies, I would say we should hold back on stating the author's gender in the article until a truly reliable source such as a reputable newspaper or news website reports on the author's gender identity. We should not make conjectures based on incomplete information. Mz7 (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
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 Wikimedia movement has been using IRC on a network called Freenode. There have been changes around who is in control of the network. The Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts have decided to move to the new Libera Chat network instead. This is not a formal decision for the movement to move all channels but most Wikimedia IRC channels will probably leave Freenode. There is a migration guide and ongoing Wikimedia discussions about this.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 May. It will be on all wikis from 27 May (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I noticed you nominated A Quiet Place (franchise) for deletion/move to draft space. It is not clear to me why it not still in Draft space. There are only 2 films in the series not 3 films like the guidelines say there should be. Are people ignoring the rules again or was is there some special exception I'm not seeing? -- 109.79.86.215 (talk) 01:51, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
- Looks like it's back in draft space now. Mz7 (talk) 06:07, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
A Barnstar for you!
![]() |
The Checkuser's Barnstar | |
Thank you for the role you played in the sockpuppet investigation |
Dam222 🌋 (talk) 06:41, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
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 was an issue on the Vector skin with the text size of categories and notices under the page title. It was fixed last Monday. [57]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:04, 31 May 2021 (UTC)