This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks. [1][2]
Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the SiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page. [3]
Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services. [4]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar). [5][6]
When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs". [7]
Hey, came across this draft at CopyPatrol. While I agree that they displayed the CC BY-SA icon and have a compatible version of the "You are free to:" and "Under the following terms:" text, they also have the following, which gives me pause: These can be used for personal or non-commercial purpose only) by giving due attribution with the following mentioned terms and conditions, otherwise, it will still be categorized as copyright violation. Right above that section, they talk about reserving "the full rights" on "commercial posting". So there's conflicting information. Thoughts? Maybe they don't get that there are different Creative Commons licenses? DanCherek (talk) 23:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
@DanCherek, reading through the legal text, my understanding that the personal or non-commercial purpose is applicable on their trademark. Where the Trademark shall be used only in connection to the contents which are created by us, any individual user of the said Trademark/ Logo, or in connection with any other contents or company shall be treated as Infringement. These can be used for personal or non-commercial purpose only
There is no modification to the CC BY-SA to the text in their articles to my understanding of the legal text on their site. – robertsky (talk) 05:10, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Hello User:Robertsky: I see you worked on the Grove Collaborative article back in 2022. I requested some corrections and updates to the article on March 6, and added them to the COI requested edits list
. I was wondering if you might have time to review the suggested edits? As a COI editor, I am committed to following the rules and best practices. Thank you and best. RJZGroveCo (talk) 19:36, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Not done for now: Please use the COI Edit request template on the talk page of the article concerned, not on a user talk page. If you are requesting the owner of the user talk page to do something, you shouldn't have to use a template since it will most likely notify them that an edit has been made to their user talk page even without a template. Shadow311 (talk) 22:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
I use Wikipedia regularly and have helped with funding. I discovered today that a colleague of mine had a page and thought I should have one too. I checked and there is no Derek Peat page, so before I attempt to create one, I obviously need to do a lot of "how to" reading. I'd like to ensure noone else starts a page about me. Can you tell me how to do this.
Cheers,
Derek --Derek G Peat (talk) 00:44, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
@Derek G Peat, if you are not notable according to WP:GNG and WP:ANYBIO, you should be fine. However, if you have prolonged exposure in the media and/or other expertise based publications, i.e. scientific journals, it is likely that you maybe written. – robertsky (talk) 03:40, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Hello, When i try edit one source its getting like this {{Reflist|2}} ? I am not understanding how to edit. Can you please help me with this? --Shivacruz (talk) 05:28, 9 May 2024 (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
On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word __EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list. [9]
If you use the user-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page. [10]
Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the alt= attribute. This is identical in usage to the alt= attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive. [11]
The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people. [12]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar). [13][14]
The Special:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure. [15]
Future changes
In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more. [16]
Two columns of the pagelinks database table (pl_namespace and pl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new linktarget table instead (lt_namespace and lt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
Replace JOIN pagelinks with JOIN linktarget and pl_ with lt_ in the ON statement
Below that add JOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id
I love football and consider myself a good football player. I emulate you. My dream is to see you up close, I don't think this dream will come true. I want to show you my talent. I live in Bangladesh. --Adnan Anamul (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2024 (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 Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. [19]
New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description. [20][21]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [22][23]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
The page was protected with an edit made only half way. The last line in the list (Exarchate under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America (itself not part of Greek Orthodoxy)) was the header of the Albanian Archdiocese within OCA. Without it, the header could be deleted. I would do it myself, but I am not an editor. THanks. Coquidragon (talk) 00:26, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
@Coquidragon.. and you found yourself able to edit it now. :) I had a longer message about waiting for the protection to lapse, but you had already done it. Hopefully it does not bring about much contention while the discussion is still on ongoing! – robertsky (talk) 17:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
how do you get the motivation to edit actively for multiple years for almost nothing in return, do you have a job? --Jeees777 (talk) 16:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
@Jeees777, glad that you had asked. I have a job, but both do not interfere with each other.
See https://xkcd.com/386/ It sums up perfectly the primary motivation. And the environment here is conducive for discourse to happen.
After awhile, you gain a community here. Or two. Or three. Or on and on and on... Over time you will develop friendships with others here, sharing the same goal of building the repository of open knowledge be it by content, technical or other types of contributions.
Hey, Robert, I hope you are well. I recently discovered the NPP school. There is a lot of information available on that page, except for one thing that I also want to know: What will happen after completing the school? Will the graduate be granted NPP rights? GrabUp - Talk09:19, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
@Grabup, not sure. I didn't go through it. I went through the rough and tumble of AFC first before doing NPP. But looking at those who were previously trained, the graduates are typically granted the right if there are no further issues found by the reviewing admin. Of course, at the very least, the minimum conditions of granting the rights are still applicable. One should not use NPP school as a shortcut into getting the rights. – robertsky (talk) 09:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the information, I am also going throught AfC reviewing, till now I have reviewed 280 articles and thank you for granting me Rollback rights. I am actively countering vandalism with AntiVandal. GrabUp - Talk09:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
I am working to add new articles for journalists covering Southeast Asia. I have just added a first, but I spent several days preparing it. It is for France 24 journalist Matt Hunt, the regional correspondent. I am sure I made the page properly, but I want to check with you for guidance. Will keep editing in the meantime.
I have gone back and added the required notability pieces you pointed out - stories from indpendent sources about the journalist's work. Bio, text, etc, the same. Journowatch (talk) 04:57, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
@Grabup I have gone back and added the required notability pieces you pointed out - stories from independent sources about the journalist's work. Bio, text, etc, the same. Thank you Journowatch (talk) 04:59, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
@Journowatch: As I said, it requires multiple “in-depth” coverages from independent, reliable sources. The sources you recently added are just passing mentions and can’t really establish notability. Read WP:SIGCOV to learn what in-depth means! GrabUp - Talk06:24, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
@Grabup cut the page down, including all non-related sources per the guidelines sent. Added more links to fuller coverage of his work from independent sources. Now, I cannot "resubmit" as it's still pending, but I have saved/published the changes. Journowatch (talk) 06:58, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Hi, I noticed this article states that the Milwaukee Bucks do not have a basketball in their logo. However, in the antlers there is an outline of a basketball. I am not sure if that counts as having one or not, so I don't want to edit unless it fits the exact defition. Thanks! --Jrckepler (talk) 18:11, 25 May 2024 (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
Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: .collapsible, .multicol, .reflist, .coordinates, .topicon. Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar). [24][25]
When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules. [26]
@Africa Judge and Jurists Forum the article as it is will be deleted or moved to draft space if moved to the mainspace or even to your main userpage. Please read WP:COI, WP:YFA, and WP:PROMO. I am also dropping you a talk page message to advise you to change your username. Your account will be blocked if you do not change your username. – robertsky (talk) 15:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
Hi Robert, in your most recent question at RfA, #17, you wrote you realised that a recently closed RfC that introduced new guidelines to the article title in question. I think this sentence is missing something. Maybe "you realise that a recently closed RfC introduced new guidelines..." is better? Best, Toadspike[Talk]15:56, 1 June 2024 (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
It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [27]
The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [28]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [30][31]
Future changes
Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.
On 22 May 2024, you officially renamed/shifted Maratha Empire page to Maratha Confederacy (Log for this action - [32]) based on a sham consensus debate.
Have you investigated the profiles which actually voted for this malicious move (an attempt to discredit status of Maratha State), 2 of them are made in 2023, and 2 of them were sockpuppets of the same person who is banned now. And all 5-6 voters are Muslims who voted for this move against a HinduEmpire. These nuances get easily overlooked by foreign editors like yourself despite your vast knowledge and understanding. Calling Maratha Empire a "confederacy" is an attempt to delegitimize the Maratha state's real status and aggrandize the Mughals (an Islamic state) who were subjugated by the Marathas. I have opened up a Talk page topic drawing attention to the misinformation that has been mainstreamed due to this move. DeccanFlood (talk) 18:10, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
This award is given in recognition to Robertsky for accumulating at least 10 points during the May 2024 NPP backlog drive. Your contributions helped play a part in the 14,452 reviews completed during the drive. Thank you so much for taking part and contributing to help reduce the backlog! Hey man im josh (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for your assistance at RFPP. Four minutes after I had made the first anon-proof revert, Emperorpenguin20160923 reverted that exact edit, so I believe some users may have been editing logged-out. I will take this up in other channels, but just wanted to say thankyou for moving this to the next stage. Buckshot06(talk)20:59, 8 June 2024 (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 software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering. [33]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [34]
Problems
There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed. [35]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [36][37]
The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [38]
On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [39]
I noticed you closed this contention move without giving any sort explanation beside "Per consensus". How did you come to this conclusion? VR(Please ping on reply)02:57, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
@Vice regent, among those supported a move, it is more consistently stated that the proposed title is in consistency with other similar articles and neutrally worded as well. – robertsky (talk) 01:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree with you on consistency but disagree on neutrality. Here were the arguments made during the RM, and who made them:
This looks like a clear consensus to me. Is there a reason you ignored this? VR(Please ping on reply)08:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
@Vice regent, urgh. I guess a previous massage didn't go through...
"Impact is more neutral than damage"
Nope, didn't discard the opposing views. Rather, I took into account of Lightburst's comment to decide the consensus. I note that you also had proposed for either manner.
"Impact is more consistent".
In agreement with this.
We should replace "Israel-Hamas war" with "Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip".
I have a different assessment on this despite the vote count. Changing to what you and the rest have asked here is a breakaway from the title used in the parent article, and rightly brought up by Gruznov, and also as to what RoySmith stated in their statement in "Suggested rename" that spawned the There's no need to say "in the Gaza Strip" in the title; that's where the war is, so it's obvious that's where the damage is. Also, this would be more in line with other existing titles. I have to note that the other existing titles that used "X invasion in Y" or "X something-ion of Y" is a result of the respective parent articles. – robertsky (talk) 01:52, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
"Nope, didn't discard the opposing views. Rather, I took into account of Lightburst's comment to decide the consensus. I note that you also had proposed for either manner."
Can you explain? I'm still not seeing your neutrality argument. If you didn't discard the !votes, then 3 or and 3 against doesn't make consensus.
"Changing to what you and the rest have asked here is a breakaway from the title used in the parent article"
Can you re-add the RM notice to the article and list at WP:RM? Or maybe tell me how to do it and I can do it myself?VR(Please ping on reply)22:22, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
@Vice regent oh yeah... I keep forgetting that the bot doesn't re-add the notice after some time. Will do so if it is not done yet. As for the WP:RM I will check it out, it should have been listed automatically. – robertsky (talk) 06:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-25
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
People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details. [40]
The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page. [43]
Problems
Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center. [44]
Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here. [45]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar). [46][47]
Starting June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable. [48]
Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software. [49]
I just released a draft of a page, Rafael de Soto to put on the Spider (magazine) page, and I just wanted to ask, what are some things my page could be denied for? --SkittlezRS (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
@SkittlezRS it is as what the reviewer stated, it needs more reliable sources. Out of the four sources you used, only one is a maybe usable source, the pulpartists one. You will need to find other sources to back the article up. The standards of writing biographies on Wikipedia has risen over time. The type of sources you will need are third-party, independent, and reliable sources (WP:SOURCES). It needs not necessarily be online sources, offline will do as well, as long as it can be reasonably be verified by another editor. Another point to note is that, although it may not be necessary for biographies for long-dead persons, it is still best to have the citations done in line so that it is easy for others to verify (see WP:ILC). – robertsky (talk) 00:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
The problem with that is i checked a lot of websites and only that one had a biography about him. I'll check more, but I do not think I'll make much progress SkittlezRS (talk) 16:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Hello,
Could you please explain to me how to change the xfx logo on the xfx wikipedia page because it is old?
Thanks --Byrnez (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
Hi! Thank you for fixing the moving errors I made while trying to move the pages. If you don't mind, could you explain how exactly we move the pages like this? I thought I'd figured it out from looking at others, but I guess not. Lunar-akaunto/talk07:28, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
@Lunar-akaunto What you tried to do is a round-robin move, which requires an advanced permission that only page movers and administrators have (and as admins, if the target page is just history of redirections being made, we have the option to have the page outright deleted). – robertsky (talk) 07:35, 23 June 2024 (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
Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage. [50]
The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode. [51]
Problems
You can copy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp. This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug. [52]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [53][54]
Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [55]
Regarding requested move Terence Trent D'arby to Sananda Maitreya
I notice you closed my move request "per consensus". As you'll see from my subsquent post (Requested move 23 June 2024) I feel strongly that we are failing to apply WP:NAMECHANGES guidelines in this case and have provided plenty of followup reliable sources that indicate an incorrect consensus decision was reached.
Wanted to reach out to you before initiating a move review. MzK11 (talk) 21:18, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
@MzK11, your initial nominating statement focused too much on the fact that the catalogue has been reissued under the subject's new name, a point which many in the discussion contested on.
the overwhelming majority of his career to date has been under the name Sananda Maitreya..., but there were no sources in the initial statement. In your followup reply to BarrelProof, it consists of mostly interviews which are considered as primary sources. Out of the four (excluding Spotify and Apple), only [56] may possibly be used as an independent reference. Despite the response by BarrelProof to your followup, I do not see that it had changed their initial stance of leaning oppose much (the initial stance was not struck out).
And given that there was a similar request raised in 2022, and decidedly opposed based on COMMONNAME, what had changed since then? There was no denying of the new name in the discussions then and now, as far as I can tell, but neither was it raised that it should be changed based on NAMECHANGES. Therefore taking the discussion into considerations, the question to contest in the discussion you raised on June 1 is "the new name more commonly known to the public between 2022 and now?" Are their new works as prominently known as their older works?
The reissue of the catalog under the new name may not be a proof that his name name is now more commonly known, a point that was raised repeatedly in various forms, and (now having read into all of the sources used in the article fully) especially not after when it was at the insistence of the subject ([57]). (Anecdotally, streaming services republishing catalogs under another name is more common than you think, especially when there is a change coming from the publisher's end.)
Therefore per consensus, the old name is still the common name. You said that the consensus was based on a faulty premise, but from the looks of it, the initial nominating statement is at fault for starting the discussion on this path, and the followup to BarrelProof did little to steer the discussion into a closure you desire.
From my perspective we never had the opportunity to discuss the issue from the perspective of WP:NAMECHANGE at the time, the topic was derailed from the outset (presumably more experienced) Wikipedia editors who took the conversation off in different directions with their own impossible standards of evidence (e.g. trying to make me find articles that don't mention the old name at all... a completely invented standard) and then the whole conversation was shut down. Yes, a consensus was reached but the topic has not been given a fair shake yet in accordance to Wikipedia guidelines, we're not doing what is best for Wikipedia.
Furthermore, because you closed off that original RM, my subsequent RM has been ALSO shut down without any further discussion, so we've completely denied ourselves any way forward. Again, we have failed to act in the best interests of Wikipedia there. We need to be more willing to apply Wikipedia guidelines with more due dilligence, and less keen to beat each other with beauracracy. I appreciate Wikipedia has its protocol to follow etc but ultimately we're all trying to make the site better and the problem here is that we've been completely denied any path towards doing the right thing.
I am completely happy to accept that the focus on the renaming of the back catalogue has been proven to not the best way to steer the discussion, but hindsight etc. The point there was, this is an unusual situation and merits more nuanced debate, but increasingly the replies were setting their own impossible standards of evidence which are not necessarily aligned with Wikipedia's own guidelines.
The simple fact is there isn't a single reliable source from the past 20+ years which routinely refers to him by his old name. Flipping the direction of the argument is quite revealing I think - you won't find much of anything that refers to the old name except when referring to as a former name. So I think we have a case to dispute both the COMMONNAME assertion and also on grounds of NAMECHANGE. Rather than relitigate the mistakes from that first conversation, I just want the conversation to continue and focus on Wikipedia guidelines and real sources - we must find a way to improve Wikipedia and get it lining up with all reliable media sources, because it's paralysis when attempting to resolve even simple matters like this are leading to some very anachronistic articles.. How can we find a way forward?
Lastly, I don't think we can rule that all interviews are primary sources necessarily. For the more reputable newspapers, magazines, media organisations etc their interviews are subject to the same journalistic standards as any other article, it's just that some of the article may quote or paraphrase direct communication from the subject. But really in the world of music journalism, if you rule out interviews you really don't have many (any?) sources left to work with.
If you agree that the WP:NAMECHANGE path seems potentially fruitful and worth exploring further, what's the best way forward in your view, if we want to try and give ourselves a chance of making a better informed / better debated decision? Is it best to reopen the "shut by consensus" RM, or the "shut by association" subsequent RM? Happy to take advice on this. MzK11 (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Hello Robertsky
I am Nelson, and this is a consultaton request I wish to seek from you.
I recently created a new article titled 2023 Orchard Road rioting, where a man was killed during a brawl. I published it after working on it since last year (only a tiny bit actually) and also expanded on it after the first conviction just recently. It was moved to draftspace for some reason of blpcrime issue but I moved it back and also redacted the names of those who are not yet convicted, except for one of the suspects Asvain who is facing a murder charge and shahrulnizam, the friend of the victim who was similarly charged. I not sure if I need more improvement, and if the names of the two other guys Asvain and Shahrulnizam should also be removed but keep the name of the first person convicted. Hope to get some advice from you soon. Thank you and wish you a good night
NelsonLee20042020 (talk) 12:04, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
@NelsonLee20042020: Personally, I would wait until the court case(s) are over before writing up on someone's criminal act if it is the only thing notable about the person. In this case, person(s). It may take awhile for all the cases to be settled, but there's no deadline to writing articles on here. If I may, can I turn your attention to Singapore billion dollar money laundering case, which the related court cases have been settled recently? – robertsky (talk) 11:26, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@Robertsky, I get what you mean. I also prefer this generally, unless if such a case is exceptionally notable, like the 2019 Orchard Towers murder when I created it in January 2022, two years before that last guy Tan Sen Yang was convicted of murder, or the Chin Swee Road child death of 2014, which I created in April 2023, five months before the father was sentenced for culpable homicide. I did observe the coverage of the rioting case and find it plenty to an extent but refrained from continuing to edit for publication until the first suspect was convicted for this case. I took a different approach for the unsolved cases since they may not be over but still notable. NelsonLee20042020 (talk) 11:36, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@NelsonLee20042020 yeah... But since the other persons are not convicted yet, one can also argue that such article may presume one's guilt by association. And unlike other long unresolved cases, this is one that is in process of being closed, given that there has been court proceedings, albeit with a longer duration. – robertsky (talk) 12:34, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@Robertsky, I also want to seek your advice too. I see that for those American shooting incidents, they created the article right after the cases happen and I did not wish to make assumptions of double standard here, but how is it that their cases were published even though no conviction have happened? NelsonLee20042020 (talk) 12:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@NelsonLee20042020 many a time, these cases are perpetrated by individuals whose identity and/or motivations are known by the time they are arrested or shot dead. Frankly, for most of them, going through the legal system is a matter of weighing how much a punishment one will get, not weighing on whether they are innocent even though the system presumes one's innocent. As for this riot case, there is still an opportunity for some involved to be not convicted of a crime like that of Chan of the 7 in the 2019 Orchard Towers murder. – robertsky (talk) 13:05, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@Robertsky Thank you for the helpful advice and things you said. And for the record, I have checked the hearing list website from the Supreme Court and I saw that at least five of them were likely on bail because their court appearances for next few weeks ahead were mainly about bail review or something, plus pre-trial conferences for some of the others (including those who had bail review). I will see how things go first. NelsonLee20042020 (talk) 02:29, 28 June 2024 (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
Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of the top-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information in the latest Web team update. [58]
Logged-in users can now set global preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis. [59]
If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use new CSS features and to send less code to all readers. [60][61]
Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily using Community Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configure Growth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months. [62]
Editors interested in language issues that are related to Unicode standards, can now discuss those topics at a new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now a member of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
Hi Robertsky, I was wondering if I could upload an updated map with new color that I have colored using InkScape to update a country from Visa on Arrival to Visa Free (Timor Leste for Thai Passports).
Hi! On 1 July you blocked 67.83.125.225(talk·contribs·deleted contribs·logs·filter log·block user·block log) for 31 hours for disruptive editing. I just wanted to let you know that since the block expired, the user has resumed making the same kind of disruptive edits. I think a longer block may be warranted. I also want to mention that yesterday I added this information to the ANI report about this user, suggesting that the user has been making these kinds of disruptive edits for several years on a variety of IP addresses, but that section was archived today. CodeTalker (talk) 17:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
Revdel feedback
Hey, Robertsky! Thanks for your recent feedback on my revdel request (and, more importantly, thank you for dealing with it). I know it's more convenient to have the link for the Earwig report. However, sometimes I'm really only able to link to the Copypatrol report. I don't know how it does it, but Turnitin often manages to pull from very shady/usurped websites, or websites that themselves are hosting copyright violations. In this particular case, it was pulling from its own archived version of a now-dead URL with an expired SSL certificate that my computer was not happy I tried to open. I can't link to those on Wikipedia, so the Copypatrol report is the best I can do. Sorry, I know it's a bit inconvenient, and I really try to minimize how often I do it. In this case, there was apparently a few years old webarchive version I was too lazy to search for that Earwig actually could actually read from.(Shocker, I know) I'll put a bit more effort to track those down in the future.
But while I'm here(and I've been meaning to do this for a couple days so I promise it's not toadying!):
On 8 July 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Youn Sung-ho, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the DJ NewJeansNim has been credited with reviving interest in Buddhism among South Korean youths? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Youn Sung-ho. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Youn Sung-ho), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Regarding (although I would utilise the aid of other editors to help update the links via dabsort tool. In my experience when dealing with similar moves that had thousands of links, there would be a minority portion of them wrongly linked in the first place and this would be an opportunity to correct the links), I think in this case there is a better method than having editors manually review 11,000 links.
Because most of these links are in references, it is trivial to check whether they should go to ABC News (United States) or ABC News (Australia); all we need to do is check whether the reference points to abcnews.go.com or abc.net.au. We can then automatically update them. It will miss those in prose, but I don't consider them enough of an issue to justify the time it would take for editors to review that many links.
Before I create a bot to do that, do you see any issues? Additionally, do you know of any other news sources that might need to be disambiguated?
(I also want to improve Move+ with contextual checks to suggest to notify the user if it is likely that a link might be incorrect, but that's a more difficult problem) BilledMammal (talk) 01:55, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
@BilledMammal, while it is logical to conclude in that manner, I suggest that the bot takes care of the links in references, which is what the bulk of 14,000+ links (yeah.. I counted at the start) are, and only work on the references with the relevant domains names in the url parameter, since these are known determinants. Do note that you may also have to consider the affiliated/regional domains names (i.e. ABC7, etc). Have the links in the prose and other references for manual review. – robertsky (talk) 02:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
For the bot I propose here, it will only work on fixing links in references. For Move+, you might be interested in participating in this discussion.
You're right, it would need to consider regional domain names. I'll figure out how to get them.
(FYI, I say 11,000, not 13,000, because 2000 are in namespaces that we typically don't update, such as talk. The real number will actually be slightly less, as it includes articles where the link is in a template, and we don't need to update those)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on your wiki. This extension helps in managing and making events more visible, giving Event organizers the ability to use tools like the Event registration tool. To learn more about the deployment status and how to request this extension for your wiki, visit the CampaignEvents page on Meta-wiki.
Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin, has been fixed.
Future changes
The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introduce temporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team has created documentation explaining how to do the update. Learn more.
Hi, thanks for closing the revdel on 2023 Australian winter. Could you please close the copyright problem I opened, as well? The author of the page rewrote the text, and I subsequently requested the revision deletion of the page history containing the violation, so nothing more needs to be done. The case is logged here Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2024 July 11. Thanks, Broc (talk) 15:45, 11 July 2024 (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.
Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page. [65]
Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.
disambiguates only one extant Wikipedia page and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)" (i.e., there is a primary topic);
disambiguates zero extant Wikipedia pages, regardless of its title; or
is an orphaned redirect with a title ending in "(disambiguation)" that does not target a disambiguation page or page that has a disambiguation-like function.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature News
Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [66]
Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [67]
Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [68]
Project Updates
Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.
Learn more
Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.
@Morekiranwiki yeah... The solution is to stop writing promotional stuff or edit with a conflict of interest. If it is notable by Wikipedia's measure, someone else will write about the subject by their own volition. – robertsky (talk) 00:40, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
I was wondering how often this bot updated the Admin Stats report. For a long time, the original bot updated only once a day but that was changed to updating JamesR's page about every 3-4 hours. AdminStatsBot 2 seems more irregular so I just thought I'd inquire. Thanks for setting up this bot so quickly after JamesR's passing and the previous bot's blocking. LizRead!Talk!15:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
@Liz, when I took over the toolforge tool, adminstats, I left the bot settings as they were. As it was configured before, it is supposed to run at every 3 hours, making 8 edits a day. When I tested the script, it took about 1.5 hours to complete its database queries. The actual duration of each run may differ as we are using the analytics replica. There's no output to the error log since I had taken over. The only hypothesis that I can think of for <8 edits a day is replication lag. If there is a replication lag happening across several edits/runs, the subsequent update(s) on the page during the replication lag would effectively be a null edit. What I can do is to put timestamps on the report, when the queries start and end at the very least. If it is observed that it takes more than 3 hours for many of its runs to complete, I will adjust it downwards a longer interval. – robertsky (talk) 04:06, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
@Liz I just did a test edit in the bot's sandbox with the timestamp, but... it hits a edit filter [69]. Weird much. Separately, there are new two entries in the error log stating that the connection to the database was lost midway the query since the last message above. – robertsky (talk) 22:44, 28 July 2024 (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.
Feature news
Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.
Bugs status
Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [70]
Hey there, welcome to the 25th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 1 March 2024. We've got a ton of wonderful editors taking back their pitchforks today. Don't worry, for they come in peace, to forcibly fix and extend existing scripts you use with sheer passion. There's so many, them forks have got what's basically their own column now! gift us with some rows before it's too late Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
To a lesser extent, the same goes for PrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
An easily configurable script to add a link to the #p-vector-user-menu-overflow portlet with a name, target, and icon. This one should be a relatively easier one. I would do it myself, but I'm too busy rotting away on Celeste (video game).
After the RIIJ update, Aaron Liu: Watchlyst Greybar Unsin has a dismiss button that allows you to mark an item as read in one click and cycle to the next Watchlist item.
Lordseriouspig/StatusChangerImproved is just like Enterprisey's script, except you select your status from a dropdown instead of cycling through them with a button. The WMF operates out of car-centric infrastructure anyway. Shame!
Newly maintained scripts
Aaron Liu has created Duplinks from Evad37/duplinks-alt; his fork adds a config variable to automatically highlight duplicate links on the loading of any page where the portlet link would've appeared.
Tired of staring at a bunch of filtering text and waiting for darn filter logs to load? Msz2001/AbuseFilter analyzer can parse abuse filters into a visual syntax tree and evaluate locally on-demand!
Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences finds references with the same link and displays the number of them along with a button to add the {{duplicated citations}} tag under the references section. Being lazy has never been easier!
fastest gun on the net Ponor/really-quick-block really quick add to contribution lists three buttons awesome
Hello, I just wanted to let you know that the page associated with this RM you closed has not yet been moved. Not sure if this is a bug in Move+? Quadrantal (talk) 09:22, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
@Quadrantal thanks. No wonder I kept thinking I had left something undone. I have not been able to move articles using Move+. Have yet to figure out the exact conditions. In the meantime, I am doing the moves the old way. – robertsky (talk) 09:33, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-32
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [71][72]
Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.
Project updates
Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
If you need to find articles like this for other topics, the quickest way is to click on the "Help" link in the "Contribute" section of the sidebar on any Wikipedia page.
That will will take you to the Help:Contents page, where you can type what you are looking for in the Search bar in the top-middle of that page, then press Enter or click the "Search Help" button to load the search results.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.
Thanks for fixing AdminStats by creating a new bot. User:AdminStatsBot 2, to carry out the tasks of AdminStatsBot. But I think this bot was also the source of data that helped create pages like User:Liz/Admin that are transcluded on to many admin User pages. I just noticed that the data in my table is out of date by months. Can these tasks of the old bot also be updated? And if this was handled by a different bot, can you tell me which one so I can contact its operator? Many thanks! LizRead!Talk!20:57, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
Hi im working to make wikipedia pages for late mongolian noble clans but im experiencing problem how to submit page on ios ? :) --TamiraaOdgerel (talk) 11:15, 4 August 2024 (UTC)