User talk:xaosflux
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G7
I completely understand why you'd think that should be declined at first glance.
However, WP:G7 specifically refers to substantial content
. Pretty much every one of the very low portion of edits on that page not made by me was either (1) outright vandalism, soon reverted or (2) general bot-like fixes: spelling/grammar, automatic citation expansion, etc.
Neither of those types of edits is substantial and therefore neither precludes a G7 deletion, so I ask you to please reconsider. Modernponderer (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Modernponderer: with 800+ revisions over many years, what appear to be 2 foreign language forks, and 9 page watchers this is too far outside the "speedy" realm in my opinion. If you think this would be uncontroversial, through a {{prod}} on it and it will go away in about a week. — xaosflux Talk 16:37, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Mass message list
I speak fluent SQL, but am not terribly familiar with the data structure here. Is there any way I could take a swing at the list, since it seems to be giving everyone else grief? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SarekOfVulcan: of course you can. I'm at work right now, but trying to through guesses at quarry and walk the tables. Unless it times out, I suspect this entire thing can be done directly from the database in one big query. — xaosflux Talk 15:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SarekOfVulcan: one challenge is that several attempts have been made, but they all had bad outputs - the query and outputs need to have some quality control checking before it is used. — xaosflux Talk 15:43, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey: I pinged you on the other page, but may want to let Sarek have a swing first. — xaosflux Talk 15:45, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- So, where do I look for the data? Like I said, I'm not terribly familiar with the structure here... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- Never mind, figured it out. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:49, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SarekOfVulcan: mw:Manual:Database_layout has a layout. — xaosflux Talk 15:58, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- And note that many of the sensitive fields have been filtered out of the replication on quarry. — xaosflux Talk 15:59, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- I'm trying some things now. I'm afraid of timeouts, these are large joins... – Train2104 (t • c) 16:00, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- Looks like you're heading in a better direction than I am, Train2104 - I'll back off and let you work. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:14, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- I'm trying some things now. I'm afraid of timeouts, these are large joins... – Train2104 (t • c) 16:00, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- And note that many of the sensitive fields have been filtered out of the replication on quarry. — xaosflux Talk 15:59, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
- So, where do I look for the data? Like I said, I'm not terribly familiar with the structure here... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – December 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.
Technical news
- Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
- A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.
Miscellaneous
- Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
- The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
Hello, Xaosflux. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
- Why were the invitations sent out to prospective voters a week after the election actually started? Stevenmitchell (talk) 05:38, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Stevenmitchell:, ideally these would have been sent out sooner, but there were some technical delays. The elections commission worked with several volunteers (including me) to get this pushed as soon as we could. For more details, please see: Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2017/Coordination#Mass_message. — xaosflux Talk 05:58, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
- Why were the invitations sent out to prospective voters a week after the election actually started? Stevenmitchell (talk) 05:38, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Technical Barnstar |
Awarded for your role in getting the mass message sent out to eligible voters in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections. Thanks for your help in keeping the community informed!  Mz7 (talk) 00:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
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Please comment on Talk:Succession to the British throne
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Succession to the British throne. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Original Barnstar |
| You can guess what this is for - thank you so much for all of your help, it was invaluable. Yunshui 雲水 08:57, 4 December 2017 (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 to upload MP3 files to Commons. Only users with MP3 file upload rights can upload MP3 files. [1]
- You can now use live updates for recent changes if you use the new filters. This feature updates the filtered recent changes every three seconds when you activate it. [2]
- There is an experimental onion service for Wikimedia projects. [3]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 December. It will be on all wikis from 7 December (calendar).- Very old versions of the Opera Web browser are no longer supported. This means that technical development will not be tested to make sure it works with those Opera versions. Use Opera 15 or above or another browser if you have problems. [4]
Almost 170 wikis with no high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. A few larger wikis such as German and Italian Wikipedia will also make this switch. It will happen on 5 December. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [5][6]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 5 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey will decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year. You can vote for wishes on the survey page until 10 December. You can see what has happened to last year's wishes on the 2016 results page.
- The Community Liaisons team at the Wikimedia Foundation is looking for active tech ambassadors. This is to make sure the Wikimedia communities get all the information they need about new features and can be involved in the technical development. [7]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:51, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.100.253.154 (talk) 11:07, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Monopoly (game)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Monopoly (game). Legobot (talk) 04:26, 11 December 2017 (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
- URLs that link to sections on Wikimedia wikis with non-Latin scripts have looked like this:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия#.D0.98.D1.81.D1.82.D0.BE.D1.80.D0.B8.D1.8Finstead ofhttps://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Википедия#История. This has now been fixed on all wikis. Old links will still work. [8] - A new tag marks edits where a redirect was created or removed. This still works when the editor writes something else in the edit summary. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist. [9]
- If you use Chrome on Android, you can now use the print to PDF button to create a PDF of an article. [10]
- Filter by number of edits or filter by time range have been grouped on a same menu on the recent changes page if you use the new filters. The "View new changes since $1" link is now more prominent. [11]
- Some of the web fonts that were provided by the Universal Language Selector extension are being removed. This is to reduce the load time on pages. The web fonts were added many years ago to help users read text in scripts which did not have fonts or had broken fonts. This is not the case any more. You can check the status page for a list of all web fonts and whether they are currently being used and especially for special requirements. [12]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can discuss new or improved blocking tools with the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-Harassment Tools team. They will work on building better blocking tools. Leave comments on the talk page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:58, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Old BRFA's
Can you please expire these old BRFA's? Thanks.
- Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 53
- Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MusikBot 12
- Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PerlegoEditorBot
(I found these by patrolling Category:Open Wikipedia bot requests for approval, which occasionally contain misguided non-bot requests by new users)
– Train2104 (t • c) 16:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Expiration of your bot
Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Inactive_bots_-_December_2017 regarding an inactive bot account of yours. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 00:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
- Are you okay there? Talking to yourself? Maybe you spend too much time surrounded by bots.... :p Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 00:07, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 December 2017
- Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up
- Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017
- In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more
- Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors
- Gallery: Wiki loving
- Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"
- Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech
- Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2018.
Problems
- When you import a page from another wiki the usernames of the users who edited the article on the wiki you imported it from are shown in the article history. This should link to the users on the original wiki. A script to fix this caused problems for Wikidata and German Wikipedia. It also created a large number of SUL accounts on wikis where editors had never edited. [13]
- Some bot owners got email about their bots logging in from a new computer. If this is from one or a couple of wikis, you can turn these messages off in your preferences on those wikis until the problem has been solved. If not, you can report more about the problem in Phabricator.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 December at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Files on Commons will have structured metadata in the future. The developers are now looking for examples of different kinds of metadata to make sure they are aware of them when they build prototypes for structured data on Commons. You can read more and help by giving examples of interesting media files.
- The Structured Commons team are making sure Commons work with structured data. If you regularly contribute to Commons and Wikidata you can answer a survey that helps the team prioritise the tools that are important for the Commons and Wikidata communities. The survey ends on 22 December. You can read more on Commons. You can also help the team decide on better names for "captions" and "descriptions". This ends on 3 January 2018.
- The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey has now ended. You can see the results. They decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Your draft article, Draft:Gogyōka
Hello, Xaosflux. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Gogyōka".
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.
If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. TKK! bark with me! 18:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
It's that time of the year...
No fancy template Xao, but just but to wish you happy holidays and all the best for 2018. It's probably a lot warmer where I am than where you are 😎
And olive branch & holiday wishes!
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I've caused this year to end on a chord of disappointment for many, but I hope that despite my mistakes and the differences in opinion and perspectives, and regardless of what the outcome is or in what capacity I can still contribute in the coming year, we can continue working together directly or indirectly on this encyclopedic project, whose ideals are surely carried by both of our hearts. I'm hoping I have not fallen in your esteem to the level where "no hard feelings" can no longer ring true, because I highly respect you and your dedication to Wikipedia, and I sincerely wish you and your loved ones all the best for 2018.
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What should I do about this small ambiguity in my edit request
Merry Christmas, Xaosflux. I've now submitted my Smiley edit change request here. Unfortunately there's a minor apparent error in the existing Template which my code fixes, but I'm not sure whether I'm properly authorized to do so, so there's a minor ambiguity about it in point 6 of my edit request which might get my request into trouble as the request is supposed to be unambiguous. So might you have any advice for me about that? (But please don't bother if it's too much hassle, as it will presumably sort itself out eventually, though it might be well into January before that happens, but if necessary I can presumably live with that) Tlhslobus (talk) 10:36, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
- @Tlhslobus: the "unambiguous" part is not so much that, but in looking at your request and the sandbox history I'm not exactly sure which is the version you want loaded. Can you add a one line to the end of your request, something along the lines of (Replace the entire page with Special:PermaLink/816739269 from Template:Smiley/sandbox)? (Assuming there is a complete version ready to go there)? — xaosflux Talk 12:36, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
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If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 11:48, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Seasons' Greetings
...to you and yours, from the Great White North! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Merry Christmas!!!
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Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2018! |
|
Hello Xaosflux, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2018. Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages. |
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:30, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I edit conflicted. Alex Shih (talk) 04:54, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you
Thank you for clarifying the difference between a use and a Wikipedian at Wikipedia: Village pump. My understanding is the same of yours, i.e. I see anyone who merely reads Wikipedia as a user, but a Wikipedian as somebody who edits Wikipedia. Vorbee (talk) 15:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Legobot (talk) 04:48, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – January 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).
Administrator changes
Muboshgu
Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned
None
Bureaucrat changes
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.
Technical news
- The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
- The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.
Arbitration
- Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.
Unable to block a vandal
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi,
While I was lurking at AIV, I came across a vandal. I tried to block him, but it says I can't block that user. Any idea why this is happening? —usernamekiran(talk) 18:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Um... because you're not an admin? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:18, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Floquenbeam: i had an inkling. But it's not fair! Why show all these pretty buttons when I can't use them? I can't even see deleted contribs.
btw, are you the same Floquenbeam who was once mentioned in an RfA question regarding some song? —usernamekiran(talk) 18:27, 4 January 2018 (UTC)- I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that you were joking. Sigh. That was sort of stupid of me, sorry. I don't recall being mentioned in a RFA question, but there aren't very many Floquenbeams here, so if one was mentioned, it was likely me. Unless you mean the sonnet request in my own RFA? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:30, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- It's rather curious though; I don't see that on mobile WP either? I'm always willing to assume a glitch with en.m (read: therfore don't use), but generally these things seem to be across the board. Odd. And no poetry required :p :) >SerialNumber54129...speculates 18:36, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that you were joking. Sigh. That was sort of stupid of me, sorry. I don't recall being mentioned in a RFA question, but there aren't very many Floquenbeams here, so if one was mentioned, it was likely me. Unless you mean the sonnet request in my own RFA? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:30, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Floquenbeam: i had an inkling. But it's not fair! Why show all these pretty buttons when I can't use them? I can't even see deleted contribs.
- There are several places where admin-only functions are "hidden" (using CSS hacks) from people that can't use them, but they are normally in small sections of the page adding a selector to each instance of a mutli-use template may cause some page load delays/page jumping. — xaosflux Talk 18:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Invoked with
class="sysop-show". — xaosflux Talk 18:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)- (edit conflict)@Floquenbeam: Here it is: Please compose and present one Shakespearean form sonnet illuminating something about Floquenbeam in the role of Wikipedia administrator. Was it in your own RfA?
Maybe Xaosflux would be kind enough to let me use the buttons. Pretty please. I promise I will use them responsibly. Pinky promise.
54129 Recently, all the websites are behaving oddly on BlackBerry OS 10's browser. —usernamekiran(talk) 18:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)@Floquenbeam: Here it is: Please compose and present one Shakespearean form sonnet illuminating something about Floquenbeam in the role of Wikipedia administrator. Was it in your own RfA?
- Invoked with
(I can see the buttons for that as well.) —usernamekiran(talk) 19:07, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Failed :( Looks like Special:Makesysop has been deprecated! — xaosflux Talk 19:26, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Dang it! We should try this again in 2019. It might work then. See you around :) —usernamekiran(talk) 19:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: or on April fools I guess :) --Kostas20142 (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Kostas20142: lol. But most of the people would think i am running RfA seriously. Shouldnt do that. I should come up with some harmless largescale prank. :D —usernamekiran(talk) 21:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Wikipe-tan was successful....... IJS. — xaosflux Talk 21:10, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: Be careful, I feel we are going to have a new crat this year XD --Kostas20142 (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- User:Aardvark_Floquenbeam is probably ready. — xaosflux Talk 21:38, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- That reminds me. Since the day I realised about about sys-ops and crats (even before creating an a/c), I was wondering if a non sys-op editor can run directly for RfB. As the requirements are not described, it is also not said "the candidate for an RfB should be an admin." —usernamekiran(talk) 14:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- User:Aardvark_Floquenbeam is probably ready. — xaosflux Talk 21:38, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: Be careful, I feel we are going to have a new crat this year XD --Kostas20142 (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Wikipe-tan was successful....... IJS. — xaosflux Talk 21:10, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Kostas20142: lol. But most of the people would think i am running RfA seriously. Shouldnt do that. I should come up with some harmless largescale prank. :D —usernamekiran(talk) 21:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: or on April fools I guess :) --Kostas20142 (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Dang it! We should try this again in 2019. It might work then. See you around :) —usernamekiran(talk) 19:34, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: policy allows non-admins to run a RfB, and for crats to resign adminship without resigning cratship. The former is pretty much in SNOW territory, the later comes with mostly annoying technical hurdles. — xaosflux Talk 15:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
I was just half of an admin!
And somebody took even that away from me! 
Do you think it was Fluxbot? Would you please join me in the dark alley to beat him up? —usernamekiran(talk) 20:25, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- Yea, no - looks like you still are: Special:UserRights/Usernamekiran. — xaosflux Talk 20:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- I'm getting a strong feeling that you are saying this only because you are afraid to get in a fight with fluxbot.
On a serious note, is there a way to see these options all the time? (I use monobook skin on desktop mode.) —usernamekiran(talk) 18:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC)- Do you mean to not see links you don't want to see on these admin report pages? Short answer: no, we're not going to do that. — xaosflux Talk 18:52, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
- I'm getting a strong feeling that you are saying this only because you are afraid to get in a fight with fluxbot.
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
NPR
Hi Xao. The next election for NPR coords is due to take place in about 3 - 4 weeks. The election pages are being prepared. I'm wondering if you would be prepared to do the honours as 'election commissioner'. It needs someone neutral. The tasks only involve ensuring the candidates are admissible, closing the nominations at the cut-off date, monitoring for dups/socks and striking any other inappropriate votes, and tallying up and announcing the results. I managed the previous one, it's not a lot of work. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:16, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- I can do that, would be good to have a backup as well. — xaosflux Talk 15:25, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'm sill looking. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:02, 12 January 2018 (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 Wikidata, the "save" button when you edit is now called "publish". This means all Wikimedia wikis have now changed from "Save page" to "Publish changes". This is to help new editors understand what it does. [14][15]
- Some edits will get an automatic tag on all wikis. This will happen when making a page a redirect, blanking a page, removing almost all content, undoing an edit, or rolling back an edit. You can see the tags for example in the recent changes feed, article history, user contributions or on your watchlist. Some wikis had already marked edits like these in other ways. [16]
- Special:UnusedFiles shows files that have been uploaded but are not used. It will show a file that is not used on the wiki it has been uploaded to, even if the file is used on another wiki. The new Special:GloballyUnusedFiles page on Commons only shows files that are not used on any wiki. [17]
- Structured discussions now uses the 2017 wikitext editor instead of its old custom one. This will work with your preference for wikitext or visual editor. The documentation has been updated. [18][19]
Problems
- Older versions of the Chrome web browser on mobile devices may see the PDF download button, but it does not work. The developers are looking into the problem. [20]
- With the new filters in the recent changes, "Exclude selected" in "Namespaces" did not work for "Saved filters" between 13 December and 2 January. When you loaded the saved filter all other namespaces were excluded instead. This has now been fixed. If you made any changes to your saved filters between 13 December and 2 January, you need to save your filters with excluded namespaces again. [21]
- The latest version of Google Chrome broke how section links are shown in the address bar. You now see
#R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9instead of#Résuméeven if MediaWiki did not encode it that way. This happened in early December. This problem has been solved. The fix will be in Chrome 64 (23 January) or Chrome 65 (6 March). [22] - Some POST requests to the API took longer than usual in parts of December. This affected the Wikidata UI and some gadgets the most. It has now been fixed. [23]
Changes later this week
- Wikidata will be moved to its own database servers. This is because it is growing and needs more resources. Because of this you will be able to read but not edit Wikidata and the German Wikipedia between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 9 January. You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. This includes editing the language links on other wikis. [24]
- The font size in the editing window will change slightly for some users. It will now look the same on all browsers and operating systems. [25][26]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar).
- WikiEditor's ResourceLoader modules have been simplified to one:
ext.wikiEditor. All the other modules are now deprecated aliases and should be removed. [27]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:19, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Second notification for inactive admins
Noticed you did this manually for the January 2018 admins, checked the crontab... yep, I commented it out at some point because we were going to do a manual run on another date.
My mistake, an unfortunately common one when we mix the automated and manual runs and I myself then get mixed up. There should be an automated run of second notifications for the February 2018 admins on January 25th; let me know if it doesn't go and I'll also try to keep an eye out. Cheers, — madman 14:56, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Regex Escapes
Did I get the regex wrong? I noticed you re-blacklisted the same URL a bit after I did. SQLQuery me! 04:51, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SQL:I reverted mine (had copied from a prior line, but actually was missing an escape) - lots of people working on this at once. — xaosflux Talk 04:52, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 15 January 2018 (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
- Bureaucrats on Wikimedia wikis where the Translate extension is installed can now add and remove the translation administrator permission by default. Administrators of wikis where this extension is enabled can add and remove this permission to or from themselves. Wikis that used a different configuration before have not changed. [28]
- There is a new Discourse test support channel for Wikimedia developers. You can ask questions or answer others questions about MediaWiki and Wikimedia software development. [29]
Problems
- Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a bug that changed non-ASCII characters when a page was edited. [30][31]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 16 January at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- A few hundred wikis with less than ten high-priority errors in Linter categories will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 31 January. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [32][33]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:45, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
Your message
Hello Xaosflux. Thank you for the message! I am no longer inactive (e.g., Special:Diff/820631777), so I would appreciate your removing me from Inactive administrators 2018. -- Jreferee (talk) 20:24, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 16 January 2018
- News and notes: Communication is key
- In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media
- Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics
- Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count
- Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers
- Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018
- Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
You've got mail!
Message added 08:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Kostas20142 (talk) 08:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
Note: All columns in this table are sortable, allowing you to rearrange the table so the articles most interesting to you are shown at the top. All images have mouse-over popups with more information. For more information about the columns and categories, please consult the documentation and please get in touch on SuggestBot's talk page with any questions you might have.
SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 11:47, 21 January 2018 (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
- Filters on Special:RecentChangesLinked will get the new look similar to on the recent changes page. Special:RecentChangesLinked will also get some new features. [34][35]
Problems
- With the new OOUI look menus and popups can open upwards instead of downwards. This was meant to make long dropdown menus easier to use. Sometimes these menus have been overlapped by other things. This is now fixed. [36]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
irc.wikimedia.orgwill be rebooted on 22 February. Some bots use this to get the recent changes feed. They need to be able to reconnect automatically or they will not work until they have been fixed. Most bots can reconnect automatically. [37]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:56, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Kiznaiver
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Kiznaiver. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 27 January 2018 (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.
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Foundation is working on how to get less unmaintained code on Wikimedia wikis. This could be by finding maintainers or removing unmaintained features. They are now looking for feedback on what do do with AbuseFilter, the IRC RecentChanges feed, the RelatedSites extension and TimedMediaHandler. You can leave feedback on the linked talk pages. [38]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:07, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
KolbertBot / Template Editor
Hello there. I was wondering if you would know the proper process for KolbertBot to get Template Editor permissions, I made a request recently because there was some issues with editnotices killing the bot and forcing a manual restart. Thank you. Jon Kolbert (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Jon Kolbert: I don't think this is needed because your bot is crashing - that is something you should deal with on the operator side. As you are not a template editor, it would be a privileged escalation to give your alternate account that access as well. What is the volume of these edits you want to update? — xaosflux Talk 17:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
- There has been a phabricator task for the issue here, but really there's no tracking mechanism in place for the template-protected pages that are skipped. Adjusting the pywikibot code will just result in these pages being skipped rather than having the HTTPS replacements performed. I'd estimate there are a few hundred templates that would be affected, given that the library of links KolbertBot uses has expanded since the initial TE request back in 2017. Jon Kolbert (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Jon Kolbert: OK, just file a new WP:BRFA task with the specification to extend your other task to template-protected pages. If it passes we can add the flag. — xaosflux Talk 17:53, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
- There has been a phabricator task for the issue here, but really there's no tracking mechanism in place for the template-protected pages that are skipped. Adjusting the pywikibot code will just result in these pages being skipped rather than having the HTTPS replacements performed. I'd estimate there are a few hundred templates that would be affected, given that the library of links KolbertBot uses has expanded since the initial TE request back in 2017. Jon Kolbert (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
bot flag
Hi.
Through my other account, I have been doing some "general fixes" using AWB. As it is very unlikely that AWB would make mistakes during that task, would it be possible to get that account a bot flag? If granted the flag, or required to get the flag, I will not make any other edits automatically. Kindly let me know your thoughts about this, and formal process to do this if you think it should be done. Also pinging Primefac. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:31, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Usernamekiran: bot flags are for accounts that have well defined tasks that can be repeated. If you were to run a bot, I'd suggest you create a dedicated userid just for bot tasks (e.g. usernamekiranbot) or something like that. To apply for bot authorization, post at WP:BRFA. — xaosflux Talk 19:53, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- hmm. If I were to create one more account, then I will have more socks on enwiki than I have in my cloth cabinet. Can "general fixes in mainspace" be considered as a well defined task? I can do the rest of semi-auto tasks through my Usernamekiran (AWB) sock. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see a task to just generally fix things ever getting approved. Read over the Wikipedia:Bot policy for more information about what bots are for. — xaosflux Talk 21:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- I have already gone through bot policy, and WP:FDB. I made a request after that. So far, it doesnt look good lol. But I hope i get it. —usernamekiran(talk) 03:20, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
- I know you're already getting piled on at the BRFA, usernamekiran, but it really sounds like what you're currently using your "AWB" account for is more than suitable - if you're going to be reviewing the edits anyway you might as well do it on a non-bot account. Primefac (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
- hitting save button every-time, and skimming through all your edits before logging out are very different things.
—usernamekiran(talk) 21:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
- hitting save button every-time, and skimming through all your edits before logging out are very different things.
- I know you're already getting piled on at the BRFA, usernamekiran, but it really sounds like what you're currently using your "AWB" account for is more than suitable - if you're going to be reviewing the edits anyway you might as well do it on a non-bot account. Primefac (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
- I have already gone through bot policy, and WP:FDB. I made a request after that. So far, it doesnt look good lol. But I hope i get it. —usernamekiran(talk) 03:20, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see a task to just generally fix things ever getting approved. Read over the Wikipedia:Bot policy for more information about what bots are for. — xaosflux Talk 21:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
- hmm. If I were to create one more account, then I will have more socks on enwiki than I have in my cloth cabinet. Can "general fixes in mainspace" be considered as a well defined task? I can do the rest of semi-auto tasks through my Usernamekiran (AWB) sock. —usernamekiran(talk) 20:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – February 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018).
Administrator changes
- None
- Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
- Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.
Technical news
- A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Legobot (talk) 04:35, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 5 February 2018
- Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible
- Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles
- Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative
- Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues
- In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations
- Humour: You really are in Wonderland
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
- Bureaucrats can now add and remove the accountcreator permission by default. This means the user can help create a large number of accounts, for example for an editathon. Wikis can change this if they want to. [39]
- The Wikidata vandalism dashboard is a new tool to monitor vandalism on Wikidata labels and descriptions. It is filtered by language. [40]
- Info pages for file pages now show the file's SHA1 hash value in the table of basic information. This is so users can see that the file is the same as the one they uploaded. [41]
Problems
- Special:Export has a higher error rate right now. This means that the export does not always work. You should check to make sure your page exports worked. The developers are working on fixing this. [42]
Changes later this week
- When you review an edit made with the visual editor you can check a visual diff of your changes besides the wikitext diff. If you pick one diff type it will remember and show you that in future. The visual diff will now be the type first shown to new users. [43]
- When you use a gallery to show images you can define the size, like
gallery widths="150px". You could useemor%instead ofpxbut it would make no difference. You can now only use150pxor nothing (150). If you write something else, instead of treating it likepx, it will not work. [44] - The wording when you send a thanks message will change. Instead of
YesorNoit will sayThankandCancel. It will also be easier to understand that all thanks are public. [45] - Redirects connected to Wikidata can create double Wikidata items. There will now be a tracking category for this. Wikis that don't want it can disable it. [46]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Education Program extension will be removed on 30 June. It is replaced by the Programs and Events Dashboard. [47][48]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you
thank you !!Fishantena (talk) 22:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks
|
For your help at Village pump (technical) |
| Thanks for your help & explanation at VP. Shearonink (talk) 16:32, 6 February 2018 (UTC) |
Request for revocation of user right
Hello. I've had a bit of thinking, and I'd rather you remove my alternate account, 1174Abroad's extended confirmed permission, on the off chance that that account is compromised, I'd rather it not make any edits to bluelocked pages. Thanks. Zyc1174 chat? what I did 13:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
- I confirm that I am operating this alternate account and I am Zyc1174. 1174Abroad chat? what I did 13:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Zyc1174 chat? what I did 14:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Minor edit request
Hi, could you add
{{pp-protected|small=yes}}to User:Bhadani. I nearly made an RPP until I saw the view source button. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:13, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
- @Bellezzasolo:
Done — xaosflux Talk 22:09, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Noping
Noticed this comment; try {{noping}}. --Izno (talk) 19:15, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
- @Izno: thanks, I was on a tablet or something and didn't want to look it up :D — xaosflux Talk 19:28, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Military Sealift Command
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Military Sealift Command. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 11 February 2018 (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
- TemplateStyles has been deployed to the Swedish Wikipedia. TemplateStyles is a feature to make it easy to add CSS to templates without administrator privileges. This allows for better adaptability to screen sizes, especially on mobile where are half our total page views. If your community would like to be the next to have the feature, please submit a task on Phabricator. [49][50][51]
- Registration pages now collect keyboard/mouse usage information for research on identifying spambots.
Changes later this week
- You can opt in to a new beta feature that lets you use visual diffs on history pages. [52]
- The visual editor shows and lets you edit templates in one way, and reference lists in another. This meant that templates that only contain a fake reference list, like
{{reflist}}, would not get updated as you edited. Now they will update as you edit, but you will no longer be able to visually edit them as templates. [53] - The abuse filter extension has a new feature
contains_allthat you may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string. [54] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 February at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The settings page and beta options for the mobile website are being improved. [55]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:59, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
so sorry
Hi, Xaosflux, i'm so sorry that i cause you so much inconvenience. This wasn't my intention. I asked at the helpdesk before, but noone answered. Kind regards, --Gyanda (talk) 12:00, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:A Wizard of Earthsea
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:A Wizard of Earthsea. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 19 February 2018 (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 explanation of the abbreviations on the recent changes page could overlap with the list of changes. This has been fixed. [56][57]
- You can now see statistics for pageviews per wiki per country. You can see this on maps or in a table. [58]
Problems
- Linter is reporting estimated counts instead of actual counts for some wikis. This is because of performance problems. You might notice a false higher number in linter counts for some categories. This will be fixed as soon as the performance problem has been fixed. [59]
- Last week the way that Visual Editor displays references lists was changed. As a result, the references generated by specific templates like
{{sfn}}are not visible in the references list whilst editing. [60][61]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 February. It will be on all wikis from 22 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The way edit summaries and log comments are stored in the database is being changed. In the future this will make longer comments possible. [62]
- Edit conflicts could be solved in a different way in the future. You can test a new prototype.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 20 February 2018
- News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators
- Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back
- Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases
- Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain
- Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history
- Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks
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If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 15:33, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
account creator
hi - re: [63] - not done bc I didn't reply -- sorry. I just missed the notification, I think. I'm involved in most of the events in greater Boston - this month, the ICA and MIT, plus a private event at a school that isn't listed. But this is a continuous activity - I work with classes in and out of the education program as well as many events. I am a long-time editor, and I think can be trusted to not misuse the flag :) Do you want me to repost the request? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:26, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
- @Phoebe: please just post again at WP:PERM - include the info from above. Thank you. — xaosflux Talk 22:17, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
You win, but only on a technicality
I meant "thanked by them... --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:06, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
Hover highlighting
Hello Xaosflux, thank you for your assistance with templates. I would like your quick opinion on a feature. Please have a look here, in compare to here, to see the behavior difference on hovering over buttons/links. This has been enabled in Greek Wikipedia with this Mediawiki:Common.js code which has been tested for months and works fine there. By your experience, would a request for such an addition have any luck in English Wikipedia? ManosHacker talk 00:10, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
- @ManosHacker: I opened both of those links with a non-logged in browser, on elwiki for the most part hovering over "links" had no difference, and the button highlighting for the most part looked OK. I don't envision getting much support to but this type of styling in to articles (e.g. in collapsing navboxes), but it could have use elsewhere. The way to get this going in a non-push manner is to publish a userscript for it here, build some sample pages - then go float the idea at WP:VPI - if it gets moderate support an "opt-in" gadget could be tried to roll-out first. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 00:29, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
- Hello Xaosflux! Reading again, opt-in gadget is not useful for help tools for newbies, except if it is enabled by default, and the only usefullness as a gadget would be to give the option to disable it on user basis, if it was proven buggy somehow. In order to implement it as proposed, is it better to move it to technical, or proposals village pump? ManosHacker talk 19:31, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:African-American civil rights movement (1954–1968)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:African-American civil rights movement (1954–1968). Legobot (talk) 04:25, 26 February 2018 (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
- Checkusers and stewards can now view private data such as the IP address in the abuse log. This data is removed regularly. [64]
Problems
- Last week's MediaWiki version was rolled back because of a bug. [65][66]
- Since the deployment train last week until late evening on 20 February UTC, when you thanked someone for an edit, the thank went to the latest unthanked edit to that page. It didn't matter which edit you tried to give thanks for. This has been fixed. [67]
- Special:Statistics did not take newly created pages into account since 13 February 2018. Because of this the statistics are recreated. [68][69][70]
Changes later this week
- Users with version 10 of the Internet Explorer browser will no longer get JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis. If you use this browser on your computer, you can try upgrading to a newer version. [71]
- The Wikinews wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 27 February. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [72][73]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 1 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 27 February at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 28 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:52, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
Spaces naming
Hello Xaosflux, I hope you are doing well! I wonder if you can assist me on a technical thing. I need to know where I can find the decleration of main space naming, for use with inputbox, for selective space searching. Spaces can be declared in inputbox to be searched, but I have a difficulty there. Spaces in other languages than English have different names. Main=Κύριος and User=Χρήστης in Greek. The magic word for main space returns returns an empty string, while for other spaces it returns a text. I know the name of main space in Greek and English, but how can I find it for other languages? Thanks in advance. ManosHacker talk 00:14, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- @ManosHacker: namespace 0 (The "main" namespace) doesn't have "prefix" like all the other namespaces (that's why our articles aren't called Main:ArticleName). It does have a translated name for use in control menus (such as the MOVE menu) and you can see that on a project at MediaWiki:Blanknamespace (e.g. w:el:MediaWiki:Blanknamespace returns λήμματα). Is that what you were looking for? — xaosflux Talk 00:42, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
This is the exact code, extracted from one of my project templates. I wish to search, deeper than main space, for a page before starting it. Please click above to understand. Main, User and Draft spaces change from lanuage to language. I would like to know (i.e.) how I can search Draft space in Greek Wikipedia, and Main space together with User space in Italian Wikipedia. ManosHacker talk 01:03, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- When using this code on other projects, do you plan to localize the code for each project? Please notes that some namespaces (e.g. Draft) are custom and do not exist by default. — xaosflux Talk 01:19, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- I know Draft is only in English (for now). But what about searching, via inputbox, in Main and User space in Italian Wikipedia? If you find please leave a message. Yes, I am localizing the project in different languages. Thank you Xaosflux. ManosHacker talk 02:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- @ManosHacker: take a look at w:it:Utente:Xaosflux/Sandbox. There is a hack with the namespace magicword that can be used for everything except the "main" mainspace. This works because the default mw language is english and everything else is just a localization, so you can use english keywords like namespaces on other projects. See if that helps you along? — xaosflux Talk 03:48, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- I know Draft is only in English (for now). But what about searching, via inputbox, in Main and User space in Italian Wikipedia? If you find please leave a message. Yes, I am localizing the project in different languages. Thank you Xaosflux. ManosHacker talk 02:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- Dear Xaosflux, thank you for your hack, I used it to save effort for porting to other languages. You also hinted me that "User" word works in all languages (I thought differently due to the example I was given in Greek), so I keep it as default and only use the Greek and Nepali translations I know (for now). I have also followed your advice in the idealab. Thank you for being so responsive and helpful. Best, ManosHacker talk 09:00, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Need help for Wikipedia page update
Please guide me or update our upcoming Movie Page When obama loved Osama Aliya Pr (talk) 14:59, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
- @Aliyahasan: please see Wikipedia:Article wizard for help getting a new article going. — xaosflux Talk 15:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).
Administrator changes
- Lourdes†
- AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V
- † Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.
Guideline and policy news
- The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
- Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
- A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
- A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.
Technical news
- CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
- The edit filter has a new feature
contains_allthat edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.
Obituaries
- Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.
Humour
I don't know why I missed this. Probably because I'm a day ahead of the US where I am. There was even am oblique reference to our serial oposer. It think it was excellent - and proves that even our 'crats have a sense of humour. I have a sense of humour too (although many would disagree - except all those who know me personally); maybe I should run for 'crat one of the days and help with closures rather than voting. BTW, did you see the WMF's results of ACTRIAL? That's also quite funny because it proves how completely wrong they have been (again). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: that fake-RfA was meant to be funny with a side of truth! I'm not surprised by ACTRIAL at all and think we should leave it on for good. — xaosflux Talk 03:06, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, March 2018
| Bots Newsletter, March 2018 | |
|---|---|
 Greetings! Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include:
We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.
Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
Bot denial
- Ok. No problem :) It was meant more as a bot-account, not an automatic machine. My intention was to fix semi-manual errors like these where you find double words etc. Anyway, if its the comunity choice, so thank you for your time here :) Emptywords (talk) 14:33, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
2FA
Hi Xaosflux, hope you are well. I was just wondering if there were any plans to introduce Two Factor Authentication to the wider community? Many thanks, Nicnotesay hello!contribs 14:53, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Nicnote: yes there are, and it has general overall support (see meta:Requests for comment/Expand two-factor verification as an option for all users on all wikis) - HOWEVER there are many technical and process issues that need to be resolved first - notably that there is no practical way to save people from themselves when they break their 2FA. — xaosflux Talk 22:05, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: This looks very exciting. My thought would have been to implement telephone/text verification as is the case with Google, Facebook, etc. but I imagine that would involve a lot of resources - money being the main one. Stewards seem to be an interesting idea. Nicnotesay hello!contribs 12:59, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Marriage
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Marriage. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 4 March 2018 (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
- You can now make longer edit summaries. [74]
Changes later this week
- You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. [75]
- On Special:AbuseLog you can now choose to list only actions that actually made an edit. Other actions are when the filter warned the editor or blocked the edit from being made. There are also more search options. [76][77]
- Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor, but it is complex. The tool will now warn in the JavaScript console if the configuration isn't correct. Soon Citoid will disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [78]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 March. It will be on all wikis from 8 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- In the future you will be able to use global preferences. This means you could change a preference for all wikis instead of having to change it every time for each wiki. You can now test global preferences and give feedback.
- You can now read about planned works on maps during 2018. This will be done by June. You can give feedback on the planned maps work.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Courses Modules are being deprecated
Hello,
Your account is currently configured with an education program flag. This system (the Courses system) is being deprecated. As such, your account will soon be updated to remove these no longer supported flags. For details on the changes, and how to migrate to using the replacement system (the Programs and Events Dashboard) please see Wikipedia:Education noticeboard#NOTICE: EducationProgram extension is being deprecated.
Thank you! Sent by: xaosflux 20:28, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Request for account creator rights
ResolvedHi, Xaosflux. I will be helping to run a Wikipedia editathon in a few minutes. I am hoping to give User:Charamber account creator rights as soon as possible, even temporarily, so event participants can create new accounts upon their arrival. If you happen to be online, might you be able to help? ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:33, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Another Believer: I've added flags for 24 hours to Charamber's account - per your endorsement here. — xaosflux Talk 23:38, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you! I don't see any user rights changes, but I'll assume you have a better understanding of the backend than I do. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:41, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Another Believer: log entry. — xaosflux Talk 23:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks so much! ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:48, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Another Believer: log entry. — xaosflux Talk 23:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you! I don't see any user rights changes, but I'll assume you have a better understanding of the backend than I do. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:41, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
This worked out perfectly. Thanks for your very quick help! ---Another Believer (Talk) 05:02, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
Content model change request
Hi Xaosflux. Please change the content model of User:JJMC89 bot/config/InactiveAdmins to JSON. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:37, 11 March 2018 (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
- 3D models can now be uploaded to Commons. [79]
- Page Previews has been updated to use HTML for previews. This has fixed many issues. An A/B test was done on English and German Wikipedia to measure how it is used. Other changes were also made. [80]
- Some edits have to be checked against too many conditions before they can trigger an abuse filter. If that is the reason no filter is triggered the edit will be tagged for review. [81]
- Auto-saving has been added to the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. Right now it is meant to help if your browser crashes or if you accidentally close a tab. [82]
Problems
- The abuse filter did not tag all edits that should have been tagged after last week's MediaWiki version had come to the wikis. It was fixed on 9 March (UTC). [83]
Changes later this week
- You can notify users in edit summaries. They will get a ping just as if they had been mentioned on a wiki page. This was originally planned to happen last week. [84]
- It is now possible to specify the block parameters for each filter in Special:AbuseFilter. The parameters include block duration and if the user should be blocked from editing their own talk page. The block duration is separate for anonymous and registered users. [85][86]
- A hundred Wikimedia wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 13 and 14 March. Other wikis will be recommended to switch soon when they have fixed the errors that must be fixed. Tidy will be removed in the middle of 2018. [87][88][89]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 March. It will be on all wikis from 15 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 March at 19:30 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 14 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:44, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Your advice
Hi, Xaosflux. I have been thinking about starting a discussion to see if there is consensus to add a additional rule in the process of requesting page mover and template editor, "The discussion will be open at least 3 days", similar to EFH. What do you think about the idea? Do you think an RfC is needed, if so, how should I go about this? Thanks for your advice, Alex Shih (talk) 06:02, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Alex Shih: I don't think its necessary, but that's just me. EFH is a very niche flag, and discussed in a non-standard forum - thus the need for a slight delay period. But if you want, start a discussion at WT:PERM and advertise it at: Wikipedia talk:Template editor, Wikipedia talk:Page mover, and WP:VPR. There are some very obvious
Not done's that hit PERM because it is so big, holding them open for 3 days will just add to the page. What is the problem you want to solve with the change? — xaosflux Talk 12:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
- Personally I don't think there is much of a problem either with the current system, but I have been discussing this with SMcCandlish and I'll invite him to express his thoughts on this. To summarise my thoughts, WP:PERM/PM (95) and WP:PERM/TE (145) aren't really watched by many users. When qualified users are being approved by a single admin quickly without much discussion, usually it's not a problem (since nobody really knows about it) until that user runs into contentious situations. I think having 3 days window (obvious unqualified users should still be declined right away) will be the first step to invite more participants in PERM requests for these two user rights. Alex Shih (talk) 06:45, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
- It seems like a harmless safety valve to me; three days won't create much of a backlog issue, but it's sufficient time for people to raise objections about any RM-related battlegrounding or consensus-thwarting behavior, some of which has gotten pretty shameful. What prompted my involvement in the question is that at least four people have the PM bit who have a history of such behavior, including: taking positions against/for particular moves unmistakably based on who is advocating/opposing rather than on the merits of the case; taking positions pro/con a move explicitly against their own view just to back up a wikiproject's desire to WP:OWN a topic; trying to cut "back-channel" deals to avoid RM discussions and instead get "permission" from a hand-selected group of insiders in a topic to agree to a move without broader discussion; and running what amounted to a private wikiproject-based "anti-RM", using pet admins in the wikiproject to mass-move articles to titles preferred by that project's then-current handful of editors, without RM discussion and against MoS/NC guidelines (eventually had to be settled by RM, MR, and RfC back to back – months of drama – which naturally concluded to follow the guidelines); among other such issues. RM exists to foster site-wide discussion of our article titles and to thwart false consensus by would-be controllers of particular topics, some of whom are remarkably tendentious. The PM bit – which can be used to circumvent RM and for other disruption for a considerable span of time until enough objection is raised to get the bit taken away – should not be made available to people with a penchant for such activities. Yet a quick rubber-stamping process with a low bar for entry has made it so, even if on average the editors granted the bit know what they're doing and aren't problematic. That's the case largely because of increased scrutiny before granting it over the last year or so. So, a small increase in scrutiny, by the community rather than a particular admin, seems like a good idea. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:07, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for the update SMcCandlish. Alex Shih feel free to open a discussion on this, venues listed above. I'm not super supportive of it, but am not opposed personally. (Because making someone wait 3 days is not expected to cause any harm). — xaosflux Talk 17:06, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
- It seems like a harmless safety valve to me; three days won't create much of a backlog issue, but it's sufficient time for people to raise objections about any RM-related battlegrounding or consensus-thwarting behavior, some of which has gotten pretty shameful. What prompted my involvement in the question is that at least four people have the PM bit who have a history of such behavior, including: taking positions against/for particular moves unmistakably based on who is advocating/opposing rather than on the merits of the case; taking positions pro/con a move explicitly against their own view just to back up a wikiproject's desire to WP:OWN a topic; trying to cut "back-channel" deals to avoid RM discussions and instead get "permission" from a hand-selected group of insiders in a topic to agree to a move without broader discussion; and running what amounted to a private wikiproject-based "anti-RM", using pet admins in the wikiproject to mass-move articles to titles preferred by that project's then-current handful of editors, without RM discussion and against MoS/NC guidelines (eventually had to be settled by RM, MR, and RfC back to back – months of drama – which naturally concluded to follow the guidelines); among other such issues. RM exists to foster site-wide discussion of our article titles and to thwart false consensus by would-be controllers of particular topics, some of whom are remarkably tendentious. The PM bit – which can be used to circumvent RM and for other disruption for a considerable span of time until enough objection is raised to get the bit taken away – should not be made available to people with a penchant for such activities. Yet a quick rubber-stamping process with a low bar for entry has made it so, even if on average the editors granted the bit know what they're doing and aren't problematic. That's the case largely because of increased scrutiny before granting it over the last year or so. So, a small increase in scrutiny, by the community rather than a particular admin, seems like a good idea. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:07, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
- Personally I don't think there is much of a problem either with the current system, but I have been discussing this with SMcCandlish and I'll invite him to express his thoughts on this. To summarise my thoughts, WP:PERM/PM (95) and WP:PERM/TE (145) aren't really watched by many users. When qualified users are being approved by a single admin quickly without much discussion, usually it's not a problem (since nobody really knows about it) until that user runs into contentious situations. I think having 3 days window (obvious unqualified users should still be declined right away) will be the first step to invite more participants in PERM requests for these two user rights. Alex Shih (talk) 06:45, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Comedian
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Comedian. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
DeprecatedFixerBot protection request
Could you please extended-confirmed protect the new bot's user page and control panel like you did for TweetCiteBot?
Thank you! --TheSandDoctor (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
- @TheSandDoctor: Done — xaosflux Talk 01:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you! Also hope you don't mind that I used your signature as inspiration for my own (love orange and green). Still trying to get the colours right. Is the green too bright in your opinion? I am thinking of picking a darker shade...
- Anyhow, thanks for your help with the BRFA. Hopefully it passes soon so I (rather, it) can get cracking on that backlogged maintenance cat. --All the best, TheSandDoctor Talk 01:17, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
UPE
Hi Xao, could you please check this out. Cheers, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:07, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I saw you reply to an editor at Talk:Colors TV denying a request to create/separate the page after it was merged. Another editor has created a new page on the same topic (I believe) with a different name. I redirected it once to Viacom 18 as was done with the previous article, but an IP editor has reverted my edit. Can you please check if it's the same article and redirect it again and possibly protect. Thanks, MT TrainTalk 13:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Mark the train: looks like someone has already changed it back. My suggestion was that if there is a standalone article that can be built it needs to be built out in draft space and discussed first, since this page has already had deletion discussions, etc. — xaosflux Talk 14:32, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- I tried finding the discussion at several places, but could not. Do you, by any chance, know about it? MT TrainTalk 14:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- It appears to be related to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colors Kannada. If these are all different topics, that are notable they can generally each have an article. — xaosflux Talk 15:28, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- I tried finding the discussion at several places, but could not. Do you, by any chance, know about it? MT TrainTalk 14:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Table on Special:ListGroupRights
I figured I'd just ask you first before going to VPT (or starting Wikipedia_talk:Special:ListGroupRights) but do you know where the table for Special:ListGroupRights comes from? I can't find anything in AllMessages, is it just auto-generated by the software? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:25, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Amorymeltzer: it is from the software, most of the text on the page can be localized in one way or another. Just wondering or is something in need of updating? — xaosflux Talk 20:38, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Amorymeltzer: phab:T29456 is an old WONTFIX for order on that page. They actually ARE alphabetical by canonical name, (e.g. "Edit filter managers" is a localization for the actual group name "abusefilter"). — xaosflux Talk 00:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Useful, thanks. I suppose I'll have to open a new ticket to avoid the differential sort within adding/removing rights lists. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Amorymeltzer: I expect any request to sort this by anything but canonical name will be denied, not it's not about adding/removing groups here - just the current display name of them. We can rename the project local name of the groups whenever we want to. Your request would need to be for something like "sort by displayed name" localized alone isn't enough, because users can change their interface language and that would again require a new sort. — xaosflux Talk 00:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I think I muddled things with that second, throwaway comment. I was asking particularly about the lists of rights 'crats and sysops can add or remove; the sort order of those differ from each other. For example, here's the bureaucrat list:
- Add groups: Account creators, Administrators, Bureaucrats, Bots, Confirmed users and Pending changes reviewers
- Remove groups: IP block exemptions, Administrators, Account creators, Bots, Confirmed users and Pending changes reviewers
- The admin list is worse (EFM/EFH first in add list, Rollbackers and Account Creators first in the remove list, etc.). ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:11, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I think I muddled things with that second, throwaway comment. I was asking particularly about the lists of rights 'crats and sysops can add or remove; the sort order of those differ from each other. For example, here's the bureaucrat list:
- @Amorymeltzer: I expect any request to sort this by anything but canonical name will be denied, not it's not about adding/removing groups here - just the current display name of them. We can rename the project local name of the groups whenever we want to. Your request would need to be for something like "sort by displayed name" localized alone isn't enough, because users can change their interface language and that would again require a new sort. — xaosflux Talk 00:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Useful, thanks. I suppose I'll have to open a new ticket to avoid the differential sort within adding/removing rights lists. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Message to Inactive Admins
I seem to recall that at some previous change in the inactive admin policy (maybe the three year period?), a message was posted on the talk page of affected users. Do you think this can/should be done for those subject to the new five year rule? -- Dolotta (talk) 01:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- I think you have a point here. The details could be added to the message generally posted for inactive administrators; as anyway, the five year rule affects only those inactive administrators who are going to be removed for lack of activity. Lourdes 08:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Dolotta: and @Lourdes:, We have updated the text at {{Inactive admin}} and the email boilerplates, so that handles everyone who gets deactivated now. If you want someone to track down all the already inactivate admins and message them I think you should discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Administrators first. — xaosflux Talk 11:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- No. I think this is perfect. Had missed the udpate. Thanks, Lourdes 12:52, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
- Hi @Dolotta: and @Lourdes:, We have updated the text at {{Inactive admin}} and the email boilerplates, so that handles everyone who gets deactivated now. If you want someone to track down all the already inactivate admins and message them I think you should discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Administrators first. — xaosflux Talk 11:12, 19 March 2018 (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
- On March 12 early morning UTC, the number of 503 error messages increased due to an issue on esams datacenter. It has been fixed. [90]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 March. It will be on all wikis from 22 March (calendar).
Meetings
- There is no Editing team meeting this week.
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 21 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- From April 4, the autopatrol status of edits will only be accessible in the Recent Changes database table, so only for 30 days. [91][92]
- In-Context Help and Onboarding is a new project, aiming to improve retention of new wiki editors. The goal is to give them short tutorials and other training experiences based on their activity. Collaboration team is expecting feedback and comments on the project talk page, especially from people working with newcomers.
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15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Weird not-patrolled thing going on
Hey, I was talking with TonyBallioni about some odd pages I've come across, namely José Angel Figueroa and Quartet Skaz. Both went through AFC, neither are indexed, but neither are marked as patrolled and I can't "un-patrol" them. Other than Vycl1994 editing both of the pages (they're autopatrolled) what could possibly cause this issue? Primefac (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2018 (UTC) (please ping on reply)
- @Primefac: so there was a lot going on with these pages, including some deletions, moves, etc. Lets look at your first problem first,
neither are indexed
. The page information 1 & 2 says indexing is allowed, and a review of the source shows that neither one has the usual nodindex directive (<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/>). Why do you think we are preventing indexing? — xaosflux Talk 22:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
- Regarding
un-patrol
- there is no mechanism for this, patrolling is a one-way action. — xaosflux Talk 23:10, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
- FYI, we are the #1 hit on Google for Quartet Skaz and #4 for Figueroa when I search. — xaosflux Talk 23:14, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
- @Ladsgroup: who is also involved a lot with phab:T184485 may have a little more information. — xaosflux Talk 23:13, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I looked into this and released what's going on, The pages are more than one month old (actually around one year old) and patrol status of pages won't stay more than one month (because they are being stored in the recentchanges table). Ladsgroupoverleg 14:39, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
- I thought the patrol status got reset when it was moved from draft to article, much the same as when a page goes from being a redirect to being an article? Primefac (talk) 16:10, 25 March 2018 (UTC) (please ping on reply)
dome with account creator
I'm done with the account creator flag. You granted it temporarily. For future knowledge, should I just allow time to pass or do I need to contact the admin in question? (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) Chris Troutman (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) The flag will expire automatically at 26 March 23:37, so I think generally it's the former unless if the granting admin forgot to set a expiry date. Alex Shih (talk) 22:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)