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Tech News: 2018-21

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

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 May. It will be on all wikis from 24 May (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • It could become easier to reference different pages of a book in an article. You can give feedback. The last day for feedback is 27 May.

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

17:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.11 25 May 2018

Hello Nick Moyes, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!
Notability
General notability guideline
Subject-specific guidelines
See also

ACTRIAL:

  • WP:ACREQ has been implemented. The flow at the feed has dropped back to the levels during the trial. However, the backlog is on the rise again so please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day; a backlog approaching 5,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.

Deletion tags

  • Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders. They require your further verification.

Backlog drive:

  • A backlog drive will take place from 10 through 20 June. Check out our talk page at WT:NPR for more details. NOTE: It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing. Despite our goal of reducing the backlog as much as possible, please do not rush while reviewing.

Editathons

  • There will be a large increase in the number of editathons in June. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

Paid editing - new policy

  • Now that ACTRIAL is ACREQ, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. There is a new global WMF policy that requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

  • The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
  • Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves with the new version of the notability guidelines for organisations and companies.

Not English

  • A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, tag as required, then move to draft if they do have potential.

News

  • Development is underway by the WMF on upgrades to the New Pages Feed, in particular ORES features that will help to identify COPYVIOs, and more granular options for selecting articles to review.
  • The next issue of The Signpost has been published. The newspaper is one of the best ways to stay up to date with news and new developments. between our newsletters.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, I missed one...

There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report

Enjoy.

P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined!    — The Transhumanist   01:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Requesting

Hello Nick Moyes, I apologize for disturbing you. This is the subject of the page Majid Rafizadeh. I am not sure who and how to reach to the appropriate person for my serious concern. Based on the following from Wikipedia site, I have read that "Biographies of living persons, where the subject is of marginal notability, may be deleted by any administrator if the subject of the biography requests deletion" and "Where the subject of a BLP has requested deletion, the deletion policy says: "Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete." It also adds that "the BLP may be speedy deleted". The page is also subjected to excessive socket puppetry. As a result, I am writing to request if possible please, the deletion of the page. If you'd like to confirm that I am who I am please feel free to call me or email me. http://iaccouncil.org/contact/ Mr198013 (talk) 03:18, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
Your new user handout is wonderful. Describes creating new pages perfectly. Legacypac (talk) 17:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

For Context: User:Nick Moyes/editathon/handout1

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
For your welcome message to me Adam Song 00:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for your guidance on my raised question. I really appreciate. Rahulbtrivedi (talk) 19:04, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Thanks for telling me about Wikipedia:Signature tutorial! I got to change it! ―YoloMaxi ☎ (contribs) 01:46, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Thanks for that, for help you've got it Sincerely Jhoven Sulla (talk) 03:18, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I have unreviewed a page you curated

Hi, I'm Onel5969. I wanted to let you know that I saw the page you reviewed, The Child (Doctor Who audio), and have un-reviewed it again. If you have any questions, please ask them on my talk page. Thank you.

Onel5969 TT me 23:42, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


Portals WikiProject update, 25 May 2018

We have grown to 79 members.

Please provide a warm welcome to our latest additions, Wpgbrown, Cactus.man, JLJ001, and Wumbolo.

A lot is going on, much of it on the WikiProject's talk page, so be sure to go there and join in on any of the many discussions taking place there.

Elsewhere around the portal project, or related to portals, the following is happening...

New news template ready for testing

Evad37 has created a new template, with supporting lua module, to handle news in portals...

{{Transclude selected current events}} is ready to be tested in some actual portals. Let Evad37 know if you need help with the search patterns.

Noyster commented that "This is the best portal innovation since sliced bread!"

See the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Alternative to Wikinews.

Thank you, Evad.

Coming soon: Automatic article alerts (but there is a glitch)

Our WikiProject is now subscribed to the bot that makes automatic article alerts, but the subpage where they are posted has not been added to our WikiProject page yet because of a weird problem...

Featured portal nominations from two years ago keep popping up on there.

Please check Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Article alerts to see if you can figure out how to fix this.

Once that is remedied, it will be posted on our WikiProject page.

Thank you.

Note that, this will only track base pages, because to track the rest, we'd have to create over 140,000 talk pages for the subpages, and that just isn't worthwhile (as we're trying to remove the subpages anyways). Therefore, any alerts for subpages will still need to be posted manually.

New portal, still needs work

Drafting a new portals guideline

Your input/editing is welcome on the draft-in-progress of a new guideline for portals.

See or work on the draft at User:Cesdeva/sandbox11.

See also the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines#RfC on new portal guidelines

RfC on new TOC layout for main portal list

There is a proposal to change the look of the table of contents at Portal:Contents/Portals.

See: Portal talk:Contents/Portals#RFC on layout update.

Deletion discussion survivors

Thank you to those who have participated in portal deletion discussions. There are still some editors out there who despise portals, and this comes across in their argumentation style. Wow. Such negativity. But, there is some good news...

Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page.

Portal space clean up

While portal detractors are trying to get rid of portals via MfD, we have deleted many of them via speedy deletion (per {{Db-p1}} or {{Db-p2}}). Essentially, they were bare skeletons, with maybe a little meat on them. The plus here is that speedy deletion is without prejudice to re-creating the portals. They can easily be restarted from scratch without getting approval, or be undeleted by request by someone willing to work on them. We have kept track of these, for when someone wants to rebuild them. They are listed at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

We are also removing subpages, the functions of which have been migrated to portal base pages. To see which ones have been removed, look for the redlinks in our watchlist.

There is also an MfD concerning some of these at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Redundant subpages of the Cornwall portal.

For subpages that need to be deleted, you can conveniently place this speedy deletion template at the top of each of them:

{{Db-g6|rationale=of subpage clean up – this subpage's function has been migrated to the portal base page and is no longer needed}}

Then an admin will come along and delete them.

Please help list the unlisted portals!

There are still 100 existing portals not yet presented on the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals. There were 400, so we've come a long way. Thank you! But we are not done yet...

Please list a couple of them. Every little bit helps. If each member of this project listed one more, it would almost all be done. Many hands make light work.

The list of missings, and instructions, are to be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

I hope to see you there!

Wrapping up

These developments make up just the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to report in the next update, soon.    — The Transhumanist   00:32, 25 May 2018 (UTC)


MAY

Many thanks for your message, let me know if I mess up?! Thanks --Dymchurch (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

@Dymchurch: You're welcome. My only advice is not to rush into reverting and warning editors for vandalism unless you're absolutely sure of it. You can get 'templated', as we call it, for leaving inappropriate templates yourself! But any questions - I'm happy to help here or at the Teahouse. Two little things I could point out is that you only need to use two equal marks either side of a word to create a new topic header, not three. Using three either side creates a sub-heading of the last topic. Oh, and maybe I'd suggest avoiding using the name of the month unless you are actually leaving a warning to another editor. In those circumstances, seeing the name of the month is quite helpful as we can all see which warnings have been given recently (we can ignore the older ones, as we 'assume good faith' that a poor editor in the past has now improved). One little tip which took me years to appreciate was that if you type "WP:keyword" in the normal Wkipedia search box (where keyword is a logical help topic word that you need assistance on, and without any quotemarks), you get offered one of our many pages on guidance and policies. You can see these 'shortcuts' shown at the top right of any guidance page, and they're usually very logical and mostly memorable. May I offer you best wishes at the start of your Wikipedia journey. I hope you enjoy contributing here as much as I have done! Nick Moyes (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Cambridgea foliata

Hi thanks very much for your message on the Cambridgea foliata article regarding citations for stridulatory organs. I've added the citation you suggested and also re-used a book citation but included the page number which states that this species doesn't have stridulatory organs. Still new to this so please let me know if more is needed. Thanks! Lanipai (talk) 02:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Honister Crag and its SSSI

Thank you for your comments on how these subjects should be covered. I was wondering how Fleetwith Pike should be mentioned and I will follow up your suggestions. --Thoughtfortheday (talk) 10:56, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

It's time: the Portals WikiProject AWBers are needed for a task...

I'm contacting you because you indicated on the Portals WikiProject's members list that you use AWB.

We are now working on a task that requires your help.

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#AWB team please tackle maintenance run on intro sections.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   22:37, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-22

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 use global preferences on most wikis. This means you can set preferences for all wikis at the same time. Before this you had to change them on each individual wiki. Global preferences will come to the Wikipedias later this week. [1][2]
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked. [3]
  • Wikidata now supports lexicographical data. This helps describe words.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups. [4]
  • Some rare invisible Unicode characters have recently been banned from page titles. This includes soft hyphens (U+00AD) and left-to-right (U+2066) and right-to-left (U+2067) isolate markers. Existing pages with these characters will soon be moved by a script. [5]
  • Advanced item There's a new Wikimedia Foundation team to support the Wikimedia technical communities. It's called the Technical Engagement team. Most of the team members did similar work in other teams before this. [6]

Problems

  • Some translatable pages are showing old translations instead of latest ones. The cause of this issue has been fixed. We will update all pages automatically to show the latest translations. [7]

Changes later this week

  • There will be a new special page named PasswordPolicies. This page gives information about the password rules for each user group on that wiki. [8]
  • A new way to see moved paragraphs in diffs is coming to most wikis. This is to make it easier to find the moved paragraphs and the changes in them. [9]
  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 May. It will be on all wikis from 31 May (calendar).
  • Advanced item Wikis can enable Citoid to provide automatic reference look-up in the visual editor and the 2017 wikitext editor. This is complex. The tool will now disable itself if the configuration isn't correct. It has warned about this in the JavaScript console since February. Check that your wiki is configured correctly. You can ask for help if you need it. [10]

Meetings

  • Recurrent item 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 29 May at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • Content Translation drafts which have not been updated in over a year will be removed. This allows other users to translate those articles. [11]
  • A survey is collecting information on what users think about how Wikimedia wiki pages are loaded. This information could be used in future development. [12]
  • Advanced item Some wikis will switch to use the Remex parsing library. This is to replace Tidy. It will happen on 30 May and 13 June. Wikis with fewer than 100 linter issues in the main namespace in all high-priority linter categories will switch. This includes Wikidata. Tidy will probably be removed on all wikis in the first week of July. [13][14]

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

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Women in Red June Editathons

Welcome to Women in Red's June 2018 worldwide online editathons.



New: WiR Loves Pride

New: Singers and Songwriters

New: Women in GLAM

New: Geofocus: Russia/USSR


Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:15, 29 May 2018 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Portals WikiProject update #007, 31 May 2018

We have grown to 89 members.

This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.

Welcome

A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...

Our new members include:

Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.

The portal set has shrunk

There were 1515 portals, but now we have 1475, because we speedy deleted a bunch of incompleted portals that had been sitting around for ages, that were empty shells or had very little content. Because they were speedied, they can be rebuilt from scratch without acquiring approval from WP:DRV.

Maintenance runs on the portals set have begun

This is what we have been gearing up for: upgrading the portals en masse, using AWB.

More than half of the Associated Wikimedia sections have been converted to no longer use a subpage. This chore will probably be completed over the next week or two. Many thanks to the WikiGnome Squad, who have added an Associated Wikimedia section to the many geography-related portals that lacked one. The rest of the subjects await. :)

The next maintenance drive will be on the intro sections. Notices have gone out to the WikiProjects for which one or more portals fall within their subject scope. Once enough time has elapsed for them to respond (1 week), AWB processing of intro sections will begin.

Thank you, you

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your part in the RfC. I went back and reread much of it. I believe your enthusiasm played a major part in turning the tide on there. I'm proud of all of you.

Why reread that mess, you ask?

To harvest ideas, and to keep the problems that need to be fixed firmly in mind. But, also to keep in touch. See below...

Thank yous all around

I've contacted all of the other opposers of the RfC proposal to delete portals, to thank them for their support, and to assure them that their decision was not made in vain. I updated them on our activities, provided the link to the interviews about this project in the Signpost, pointed out our newsletter archive so they can keep up-to-date with what we are doing, and I invited them all to come and have a look-see at our operations (on our talk page).

Sockpuppet, and reverting his work

It so happened that one of our members was a sockpuppet: JLJ001. According to the admin who blocked him, he was a particularly tricky long term abuser. This is a weird situation, since the user was quite helpful. He will be missed.

This has been somewhat disruptive, because admins are doing routine deletions of the pages (portals, templates, etc.) he created, and reversion of his edits (I don't know if they will be reverting all of them). Please bear with them, as they are only doing what is best in the long run.

The following pages have been deleted by the admins so far, that I know of:

Automation so far, section by section...

Automatic article alerts is up and running

Automatic article alerts are now featured on the project page.

Some super out-of-date entries kept showing up on there, so posting it on the Project page was delayed. Thanks to Evad37 and AfroThundr for providing solutions on this one. Evad37 adjusted the workflow settings per Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing#Choosing workflows, to make sure only the appropriate page types show up. AfroThundr removed the tags from the old entries that caused them to keep showing up in the article alerts.

Other things that could use some automation

Noyster pointed out that it would be nice to automate the updating of the portals section at the Community bulletin board.

Another major component of the portal system is the main list of portals, at Portal:Contents/Portals. How would we go about automating the updating of that?

Please post your ideas on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.

Deletion discussion survivors

Keep in mind that we have already speedy deleted almost all of the nearly empty portals, which can be rebuilt without approval whenever it is convenient to do so. Other portals should be completed if at all possible rather than delete them through MfD (which requires approval from Deletion review to rebuild).

(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).

Portals needing repair

Wrapping up

There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.

Until then, see ya around the project.    — The Transhumanist   12:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Cake

Kpgjhpjm (talk) has given you a WikiCake! WikiCakes promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a cake, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Bon appetit!


Spread the tastiness of cakes by adding {{subst:GiveCake}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Kpgjhpjm (talk) 03:05, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

  • A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task (eom)

Thank you for the cookies!

Hello, you had answered a question I had asked in the Teahouse (about Jessica Jung) but since I had gone for an overseas trip, I was unable to respond to it sooner. Thank you for being so helpful and welcoming! Jesstan01 (talk) 10:25, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jesstan01: You're very welcome. I'm afraid it's terribly easy for new editors to be upset when someone else makes a change to their contributions. And we can often be too terse in the way we do it, which doesn't help, of course, even if we don't mean it. Regards Nick Moyes (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Teahouse logo

Hi Nick Moyes! You created a thread called AFC: Dhruv Prashant Patel at Wikipedia:Teahouse, but it has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please create a new thread.

Archival by User:Lowercase sigmabot III, notification delivery by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} (ban this bot) or {{nobots}} (ban all bots) on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:08, 2 June 2018 (UTC)


A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
I think almost a year since you encouraged me on that first dyk. Thank you...I've had an amazing year Whispyhistory (talk) 23:45, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Hey, Whispyhistory. Thank you so much; it's really great to hear from you. Yes, I've watched your commitment and contributions to Wikipedia skyrocket since this time last year. (If I'm honest, I take a little pride in feeling I've helped you a tiny bit along the start of that route.) It is fantastic to see a new editor like you become a competent and increasingly productive contributor here. Wow, so many DYKs since that first one, too! Brilliant stuff.

Last year I took early retirement, and since then I've found myself more and more fascinated and involve in the maintenance of the encyclopaedia. So my own productivity in articles has rather fallen somewhat. I've also dabbled with adopting another less experienced editors, and when I have time I would quite like to see if it's possible to turn WP:AAU around into supporting committed new editors, rather than those who come for just a few weeks to create one article, as many have, before leaving. Recently, I've been pondering whether to put myself forward to be considered as an admin, but still feel after all this time I have a lot more yet to learn. I found assisting at the Teahouse a very rewarding way to share editing skills with newcomers who have questions, whilst also learning from others when I can't answer something myself. Maybe you might find that of interest, too, someday? Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:13, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you have the perfect attitude and intelligence for administration. The learning curve is never-ending. Keep in touch. Whispyhistory (talk) 05:35, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Recent Geology Article Reviews

Zircon 2 (talk)16:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC) Nick, Thank you so much for taking the time to review some of my recent geology articles. You have a very fascinating career between your curator and climbing endeavors and I appreciate the time you've taken to read over these articles. Stay tuned! More to come on US, European and Asian geology as well as expansions on at least some of the existing articles with new source material I'm finding.

Also a technical question that I also posed to Justlettersandnumbers. Is there something I can do with SEO or categories to make sure that the Wiki articles I started on African and North American geo topics turn up in general web searches?

Hi Zircon 2. Or is it Zircon? (you seem to have set the wrong username in your signature. I think you need to fix that). You're welcome - it's a pleasure seeing interesting, technical articles being created. I don't have huge geological knowledge myself (though I did create this hands-on display on my county's geology some years ago.) As for SEO -I'm not sure what problem you're seeing. What I see is a top ranking return for Wikipedia pages that you've started and that have been reviewed at WP:NPP -e.g.  Geology of Sudan. (currently ranking 2nd and 3rd). I'm sure you know that unreviewed pages don't get indexed by Google unless they've gone unreviewed for something like 3 months. You should also give search engines time to find newly reviewed pages, too. Perhaps you might like to read WP:SEO for some of the problems editors encounter when trying to improve rankings. Feel free to suggest page names that you're bothered about (WRT SEO) and I'll take a look at them for you. Any way - keep up the good work! Regards from the Mercia Mudstone of the English Midlands. Nick Moyes (talk) 01:20, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


Future of portals

Hi Nick,

I noticed your interest in the philosophical side of the portal endeavor.

Forecasting the future of portals can be posed as answering the following question...

What will portals become?

Based on the direction we're heading, it looks like the portals of the not-so-distant future will likely include the following features:

  1. Introduction *
  2. Selected article section(s) *
  3. Selected picture section(s) *
  4. In the news *
  5. Did you know... *
  6. Anniversaries / On this day...
  7. Quotes
  8. Categories *
  9. Things to do *
  10. Topics *
  11. Quality content (list)
  12. New content (list)
  13. Related portals *
  14. Associated Wikimedia *

Those marked with asterisks are already included as standard, on the Template:Box portal skeleton.

Of those in the list above, 3 have been automated so far, directly upon the Template:Box portal skeleton, and 2 have been semi-automated. It looks highly likely that all the features listed will become automated. By "automated", I mean it works right out of the box — as soon as you substitute the template onto the portal page.

We are heading in that direction, fairly rapidly.

Thoughts?    — The Transhumanist   20:50, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Thank you for the notification. You really have done an amazing job with all this. The one thing I find hard to support is the idea of "Things to do" being part of Portals, moving forward. I think 'things to do' ought really to be the domain of WikiProjects, or at the very least found only the Portal Talk Pages. If portals are indeed, 'topic tasters' for newcomers to any subject, I have to wonder why we need to so visibly identify tasks we want to undertake. But maybe others feel differently, and that's fine, of course. Keep up the great work! Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:05, 3 June 2018 (UTC).
Once automated, the to do list would be a copy of whatever was on the associated WikiProject page. Originating tasks on the portal page does seem awkward, as it competes with that function on the WikiProject page, creating a second center of management. What if those 2 centers work at cross-purposes? Can you think of any other arguments for or against?    — The Transhumanist   22:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@The Transhumanist: I confess to being a little out of my depth in how you're getting automation to work. (have been rather preoccupied with real world matters recently) But if there's a genuine need to mirror a 'to do' list that a WikiProject manages, can't it simply be transcluded as a section of a Portal's Talk Page? Should Portals be managing 'to do' lists at all? I can see the value of giving users the opportunity to contribute at WikiProjects, but it's just hard to see 'to do' lists as the best way to achieving this. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Templates are a form of automation. You can further automate templates using lua modules, to turn templates into programs. As for to-do lists in portals, I'm neutral. They were included in portal design as they were seen as a bridge between reading and editing, and between the encyclopedia and its editing community. We need to convert readers into editors, and portals were designed to help with that, and thus were allowed to have both encyclopedic and project space content. I'm not sure turning portals into an exclusive extension of article space is a good idea. Convince me.    — The Transhumanist   22:58, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Goodness, The Transhumanist, there's a challenge! Searching for an analogy. . . OK, got it. See Wikipedia like a department store... full of interesting things (articles). People can go straight to those things if they know they want them, and our search tools assist them in that task. But people like to window-shop, don't they? They browse, and they make impulse purchases. Portals are (or should be) like the big, attractive, open window displays, attracting the attention of passers-by and those proverbial 'window shoppers'. See WikiProjects like the store management team. These guys know their goods. They plan, coordinate and encourage staff to improve the stock the hold. They meet and they plan what new stock to buy, and decide how best to display it. Crucially, they decide what stock is selected and shown and how it is displayed in the shop front windows. It's these displays that attract casual passers-by to come in and make spontaneous purchases. Now, imagine your shop window display is bright, vibrant and exciting - full of tempting items. It's only a sample of the stock held by the store, but the design quality draws people in. They'll buy stuff, for sure. Now, imagine in one corner of that window display you see a list of things the management team intend to get around to doing or stocking. It's in the window, but do you feel it belongs there? How does seeing that list of unfinished tasks make you feel about that store? Do you think, "hey, these guys are on the job", or do you feel, "oh dear, they've not really got this window display sorted yet, have they?" Showing 'to do' lists on portals is a bit like that. It displays all our weaknesses and does nothing to present the quality of our stock. Leave 'to do' lists out of the window display! It's probably because Portals weren't delivering high quality window displays that we nearly lost them all. Shop window displays, like Portals, should show off what's in the store - they shouldn't be recruitment areas for new staff. I can't accept that it was ever a good idea for Portals to be tools to convert readers into editors (shoppers into store staff). I think that's actually quite a foolish notion. They should be places where experienced staff show passers-by (readers) the wonder of the goods on offer, and draw them into the store to sample their wares. Convinced? Nick Moyes (talk) 23:29, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, you've convinced me. The Main page, that portals are based on, doesn't showcase Wikipedia's shortcomings. It puts our best foot forward. How did that get lost on portals?    — The Transhumanist   02:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Which, leaves us with the problem of what to replace it with. It's typically a half-column component. See that section in User:The Transhumanist/Sandbox/Sample portal.    — The Transhumanist   02:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)


Adjusted, the features list might look like this:

  1. Introduction *
  2. Selected article section(s) *
  3. Selected picture section(s) *
  4. In the news *
  5. Did you know... *
  6. Selected anniversary
  7. Selected quotation
  8. Categories *
  9. Get involved
  10. Topics *
  11. Quality content (list)
  12. Related portals *
  13. Associated Wikimedia *

See potential configuration using these here: User:The Transhumanist/Sandbox/Portal design objectives    — The Transhumanist   08:02, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: I can be quite happy with that. Thanks for listening to my point of view. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
The more I think about it, the more I realize why it is an optional feature. Not every subject has a WikiProject, which is where to-do lists come from. No WikiProject, no to-do list. To make a to-do list in a portal when there isn't a WikiProject turns the portal into a WikiProject, which is not a purpose of portals. The idea was for portals to be a bridge to editing, not coordination centers (that's what WikiProjects are for).    — The Transhumanist   05:55, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
@The Transhumanist: Well, I'd agree with that. If others feel that displaying a 'to do' list is still needed, then we still have the Portal talk page for that. (One could simply add a footnote to the effect of: "To help develop or maintain articles relevant to this Portal, see WikiProject name/Portal Talk Page. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:56, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
I just built Portal:Sacramento, California to test out some of the new features. {{Transclude random excerpt}} seems to work great. I loaded a hell of a lot of article names as parameters in there, and it didn't hiccup once. I'm interested in your comments in general, but especially about how we might improve the picture slideshow. Be sure to try that out.    — The Transhumanist   08:09, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-23

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 MonoBook skin has been optimised for mobile devices. It now looks different. [15]
  • Planet Wikimedia collects blogs about Wikimedia. It will now use the Rawdog feed aggregator to do this instead of Planet. [16][17]
  • Redirect links in Special:WhatLinksHere now link to the original page and not the target page. This was done earlier and changed the used messages on some pages. This was a problem for wikis that customized the message. A new change fixed this by using the old messages with one more parameter for customization. Wikis that already changed their customized messages will have to move the customization back again. [18]

Problems

  • You will not be able to edit some wikis between 06:00 and 06:30 UTC on 13 June. You can see if your wiki is one of them.
  • MassMessage did not work 24–28 May. This is also why last week's Tech News was late. [19]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 June. It will be on all wikis from 7 June (calendar).

Meetings

  • Recurrent item 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 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Did i leve a notice on Orcinus Meyris page?

I am not sure — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubblesorg (talk • contribs)

Me neither. Let me know if you need assistance with Orcinus meyeri. And dont forget to sign your posts, please. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Mailyne Andrieux

I see that you have proposed the article I created at Mailyne Andrieux for deletion. Seeing as this article passes WP:NTENNIS Ausmor627 (talk) 04:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This article passes WP:NTENNIS because any player who has competed in the main draw of a Grand Slam is considered notable. Ausmor627 (talk) 04:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ausmor627: That may well be the case. But what I left was a WP:BLPPROD notice. This is for biographies of living people that contain no references at all. Because you have now added some, you are now allowed to remove that PROD notice. In future please ensure every article you create contains at least one reference right from the start. Please now just add a proper References section heading, followed by a {{reflist}} template. Many thanks. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 06:58, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Skandha (disambiguation)

Hi Nick, Skandha means Compound Matter in Jainism and Buddhism. If you look into Pudgala article, which means all types of Matter in Jainism, you will realize that they are of two types : Paramanu (Elementary Matter Particles ) and Skandha ( Compound Matter). Jainism doesn't have a separate article about Paramanu and Skandha and hence I, being lazy, linked to existing Pudgala article instead of creating separate new Paramanu article and Skandha article for Jainism.

I included Prakriti, which means Matter in one of the sects of Hinduism, for completeness so that we can give equal treatment to Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. Realphi (talk) 21:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I change text for Pudgala to Skandha to remove the confusion on the disambiguation page. Realphi (talk) 21:45, 6 June 2018 (UTC) thanks

@Realphi: It's very kind of you to respond so quickly to my question. Unfortunately a Disambiguation Page page is only for resolving possible confusing when searching for articles with similar titles, not creating additional confusion by including completely different words, as at Skandha (disambiguation) Forgive me for not having a proper appreciation of the subjects, but I don't think it is really needed to appreciate that this new page is not really OK. May I suggest that you either include these as terms and wikilinks within the article on Skandha, or simply add Pudgala and Prakriti to the 'See also' section, which is for related topics not mentioned in the article itself.
I do appreciate your concern to improve Wikipedia, but I feel there is no alternative here but to propose this page for deletion with a WP:PROD notice. This can be removed by any editor, but I would then only submit it for discussion at Articles for Deletion, where I am confident it would still be removed. Please don't be offended by my action, and do please continue working to improve access to information here in one of the ways I've suggested.
(I see whilst I was drafting this that you have altered the DAB page and that to one of its target pages, but I still don't think this is helping, especially as you felt it was justifiable to remove the Skandha wikilink from within Pudgala). Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:18, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi Nick, I have created a new article Skandha_(Jainism) and linked it to the disambiguous page. Hope that suffices to keep wikipedia page. Thanks. Realphi (talk) 23:17, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Also removed Prakriti. Thanks. Realphi (talk) 23:25, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi, Realphi. It may just be sufficient, but only if you support your new page with citations to Reliable Sources! We do not allow editors just to post from their personal opinion or personal knowledge. So you must address this immediately, or another editor may well propose that new page for deletion. I'm sure you appreciate that every article here must only contain content that can be tracked back to other independent sources. I will give you some leeway on this, and will return in a day or so to check you have added them. (You will also need to add categories, add wikilinks, and ensure the page title and the emboldened name in the lead paragraph actually match one another. In the meantime I will not propose that DAB page for deletion, but cannot guarantee that another editor won't do so. I am sorry that I might appear to be being harsh on you. It is not personal in any way, I promise. I would express these concerns whether or not this was about trees, footballers, mountains, religions, or a host of other topics. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:29, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Done except adding category and wikilinks. Thanks for your help. Realphi (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow

Picture slideshow
  • Image 1Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
    Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
  • Image 2Pocket Sacramento Canal
    Pocket Sacramento Canal
  • Image 3State Capitol Building
    State Capitol Building
  • Image 4US Bank Tower
    US Bank Tower
  • Image 5Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
    Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
  • Image 6Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
    Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
  • Image 7Tower Bridge
    Tower Bridge
  • Image 8Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
    Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol

Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork

This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...

There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page.    — The Transhumanist   02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Gog the Mild

Hi Nick. Many thanks for the advice re auto-translating. Lest you are worried I am a moderately experienced editor and have no intention of copying and pasting auto-translated garbage. (I do some work at GOCE and have been on the receiving end of some of that.)

What follows may be inappropriate. If so, please say; no offence will be taken. I live in Derby - born and bred. Looking at your user page it is likely we have mutual acquaintances. I would be most interested in getting involved in any Museum/Wikipedia activities going on in future and would appreciate a heads up. The March editathon looked like a lot of fun.

If I have the odd Wikipedia query I hope that you won't mind if I direct them your way, There are a number of things which I would like to do, but find the instructions completely opaque. Eg, as you have picked up, using AWB, or checking new pages.

Thanks again, and curse those Tory cuts. Gog the Mild (talk) 01:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Gog the Mild. Thanks for stopping by. I'm pleased to hear another very active editor lives nearby. I'm wondering whether it's other Wikipedians like Roger B. that you might know, or maybe former colleagues from the museum world? Yes, the event in March was great fun, and we did throw up the idea of perhaps arranging a regular (or occasional) meetup at the University. We now have three Wikipedia editors who work there (two relatively new and enthusiastic ones in the library), and we did discuss whether an evening get together in their bar might be worthwhile. Interested? We've not taken this idea forward, but just thought I'd mention it. I am only too pleased to be able to help any editor - I find I learn a lot along the way, too. So feel free to give me a shout directly if you ever need any help, though as you'll have gathered, my experience with foreign language articles is limited.
Maybe you'd like to consider adding your name to Wikipedia:WikiProject Derbyshire, which is rather in the doldrums at present. I've been slowly working away at colleagues in the Derwent Valley WHS to consider Wikipedia-related projects when applying for HLF grants, or to engage local volunteers in liberating archived content. I also fancy trying to get Derby Quad of Local Studies more involved - maybe running some training courses or activity days, and have a supportive contacts there. So, lots of possibilities - never enough time! Hopefully, we might meet up one day. I'll certainly keep you informed of any local events that might come up. Feel free to email me directly should you ever wish to. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:05, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
A local Wikipedia social sounds good. It fact I would be enthusiastic.
Re assistance: thanks, will do.
Added. I have also found an unassessed article which needs copy editing; I will have a look at it. (Someone I know, but I don't see a CoI.)
If you need physical assistance on any local projects, let me know. Eg I have some second hand contacts with Quad and some local groups - I suspect that yours will be better. I also have some experience of training; mostly 16-25 year olds, but I find that it transfers. Plus no compunctions about teaching people something where I am only a page ahead of them, or possibly vice-versa. These days that mostly finds outlet via work for the Prince's Trust but I would be happy to chip into any workshops etc on Wikipedia. (Back in the day I also used to have some experience filing in funding applications etc.)
And finally, a query. I do a lot of assessing for the MilHist Project - 800 articles in their April drive. But I am unsure what the rules are, if any, re up- or down-grading non-MilHist articles, or for other projects on articles which are also MilHist tagged. Obviously I am only talking about start, C and B class and articles which I have not significantly contributed to myself. Eg I assessed Strutt's Park Roman Fort and Talk:Derventio Coritanorum for the drive. (I note that a highly experienced editor attempted to change my assessment for the latter, but doesn't seem to understand how assessment templates work.) So am I ok to change the grades on the other projects to match? And if an article has nothing to do with MilHist am I free to simply assess it, across all of its projects? Gog the Mild (talk) 10:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-24

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

Recent changes

  • In the Wikipedia app for Android or iOS users can create reading lists. The reading lists can be seen on different devices if you are logged in to your account. There is now a browser extension so you can add pages to your reading list from a web browser. At the moment it works with Firefox and Chrome. [22]
  • Advanced item There is a new version of Pywikibot. Pywikibot is a tool to automate tasks on MediaWiki wikis. [23]

Problems

  • The MonoBook skin was changed to make it work better for mobile users. This caused some problems. The change was rolled back to fix them. The new version is now back on the wikis. MonoBook users can opt out from the new responsive design. [24]

Changes later this week

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

Meetings

  • You can join the Readers Web team IRC office hour. There you can discuss tools to contribute on the mobile web for the existing MediaWiki skins. The meeting will be on 18 June at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • Recurrent item 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 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
  • Recurrent item Advanced item You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

21:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Minor thing

[27] Your second diff is a wikilink to the article diff. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you - fixed now. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a friendly reminder

...that you gotta put colons in front of categories you're trying to link to. It took me aback when the Teahouse link on my watchlist turned deletion-pink. :) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Writ Keeper: Doh, what a plonker I am! I did know that, of course. Just forgot in the haste to reply to somewhat confusing TH question. So sorry. (Wanders off to find a very sharp stick...) Nick Moyes (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #2 – Quick updates

Read this in another language • Subscription list

Mockup of the new reply feature, showing new editing tools
The new features include a toolbar. What do you think should be in the toolbar?

This edition of the Editing newsletter includes information the Wikipedia:Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. The central project page is on MediaWiki.org.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-25

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

Recent changes

  • Advanced item Toolforge hosts several tools created by the Wikimedia community like edit counters or enhanced editors. It is changing the domain from tools.wmflabs.org to toolforge.org. The routing scheme is moving from tools.wmflabs.org/toolname to toolname.toolforge.org. You can read the details. Tools that use OAuth will have to be updated to keep working. You can ask for help.

Problems

  • There is a Wikidata item link in the sidebar on many pages. This disappeared for a couple of days for users who have the Monobook skin. This was because of a bug. It has now been fixed. [28]
  • Editing, logging in and logging out didn't work properly for a short period of time last week. It was soon fixed. [29]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • Advanced item Pywikibot is a Python library to automate work on wikis. It will not support Python 2 after the new version in July. Support for Python 3.4 and MediaWiki below 1.19 will also be dropped. You should migrate to Python 3. You can ask for help. [30]
  • The selectors .menu and .vectorMenu will no longer work in the Vector skin. This can affect gadgets and user scripts. .menu should be replaced by ul. .vectorMenu should be replaced by .vector-menu. [31]

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

21:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

A cupcake for you!

Thanks for helping me out with the merging issue. (Oinkers42) (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Adoptee request

Hi. If you are available would you consider "adopting" me? I have left WP previously after finding things very negative, and I'm back editing again now and planning to continue. Mostly I edit Medicine, Psychiatry, and awareness or disability, particularly contested or neglected diseases. Amousey (they/them pronouns) (talk) 23:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey, Amousey. I'm very sorry for the long delay in replying, but thank you for your post. I'm not sure I could do you justice by 'adoption' right now, as I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by a few things in real life and online, too. But neither do I want to disappoint you. So, could I suggest that if you encounter specific difficulties that you first post for help at the Teahouse? You're bound to get quick help there, though if you have broader concerns that you want to list as things for me to try to address for you, I will 'try' to offer you a reply, though it might not be immediate. Does that sound OK? Nick Moyes (talk) 00:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestion Amousey (they/them pronouns) (talk) 09:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Amousey: you're welcome. By all means drop me a list of things that you feel unsure about/need guidance on and I'll try and point you in the right direction of any help, or happily look at any edits that you want feedback on. (Meanwhile you could wikilink to Neuroendocrine tumor in Zebra print ribbon). Cheers Nick Moyes (talk) 10:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

TheWikiWizard/Issues/Summer 2020

Hello, Nick Moyes! Here is the May 2020 issue of TheWikiWizard.

To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here. We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading & stay safe! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 02:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer newsletter June 2020

Hello Nick Moyes,

Your help can make a difference

NPP Sorting can be a great way to find pages needing new page patrolling that match your strengths and interests. Using ORES, it divides articles into topics such as Literature or Chemistry and on Geography. Take a look and see if you can find time to patrol a couple pages a day. With over 10,000 pages in the queue, the highest it's been since ACPERM, your help could really make a difference.

Google Adds New Languages to Google Translate

In late February, Google added 5 new languages to Google Translate: Kinyarwanda, Odia (Oriya), Tatar, Turkmen and Uyghur. This expands our ability to find and evaluate sources in those languages.

Discussions and Resources
  • A discussion on handling new article creation by paid editors is ongoing at the Village Pump.
  • Also at the Village Pump is a discussion about limiting participation at Articles for Deletion discussion.
  • A proposed new speedy deletion criteria for certain kinds of redirects ended with no consensus.
  • Also ending with no change was a proposal to change how we handle certain kinds of vector images.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 10271 Low – 4991 High – 10271

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Adopt-a-user program

Hi there! I am looking for you! to be my mentor, I have been in Wikipedia for a few months and want an experienced user like you to be by mentor. — The Chunky urf Al Kashmiri (Speak🗣️ or Write✍️) 13:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@TheChunky: Thank you for doing me the honour of asking for my help and support. Just a few posts above this one, you'll see that I replied to another user in the same way as I do to you now. Namely, that I'm not sure I could do you justice by 'adoption' right now, as I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by a few things in real life and online, too. But neither do I want to disappoint you, even though I have no experience or virtually no knowledge of the areas that you edit in.
So, could I suggest that if you encounter specific difficulties that you first post for help at the Teahouse? You're bound to get quick help there, though if you have broader concerns that you want to list as things for me to try to address for you, I will 'try' to offer you a reply, though it might not be immediate. I would be very happy for you to post a bulleted list of the things you feel you are weak on, and would like to understand better. I would be very happy to explain these or point you towards any help pages to guide you. Does that sound OK?
I do wonder whether you would be better off not adding your name to the Teahouse Host lists right now, but waiting until you've: a) helped out a bit more informally there, and b) gained a little more experience in general. There is, of course, nothing stopping anyone from answering question at the Teahouse at any time. They do't need to call themselves a 'Host' to do so. But signing up to say you're a 'Host' is meant to show others that you do have the commitment and the knowledge to help people. I'll leave the decision to you, though I do remove people from that list if they haven't shown any evidence of contributing there after some months. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 14:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)  
@Nick Moyes: Thank You. I would love to get your guidance where I think you can help me. I know my location is far than yours but there are many more things in which you can help me to become a good and experienced user. Regarding your busy schedule, I would like to say that I will not poke you until I really needs your help. For the minor things, I know some other Editors here on wiki whom I mention for help. But at many points they know less than you. So I wish you to adopt me. And for the teahouse is concerned, I would love to help new users to help with the best and dearest way. I have some experiences about articles, AFCs, Citations, Drafts, Infoboxes (some), Userboxes and some other things too. So I believe that I can help new comers, to make them a good editor. At the same time I will learn more things from experienced user too. — The Chunky urf Al Kashmiri (Speak🗣️ or Write✍️) 14:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that makes perfect sense. I learned so much by helping out at the Teahouse over the 2 or 3 years before putting my name forward as an administrator. Not only does one learn how to do difficult tasks, one also gains skills in helping and supporting new people (which is something I've enjoyed doing all my working life, too). So, yes, ask away if you wish, or drop by my page with any concerns. Just don't expect an immediate answer, or be prepared for me to say I can't help you right now. It doesn't mater whether we are both culturally, geographically or chronologically poles apart - here on Wikipedia we all have to follow the same policies and guidelines, which is a really great leveller. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:41, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Sock puppetry

Hey, I noticed you were the admin who issued the block to this IP (User_talk:72.87.85.166). Please take a look at the suspected sock puppetry going on here. Looks like several accounts, all causing problems. If someone were to open an SPI on this, which account would be listed as the sockmaster? Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers. SolarFlashDiscussion 17:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's been dealt with, sorry to bother you. Cheers. SolarFlashDiscussion 22:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Hello, SolarFlash. Sorry for the delay in replying. I'm glad this was resolved. But please, in future, help people out by linking to the other user accounts or the other articles where you feel bad faith edits have occurred. I found it very hard to know what pages or people were in your mind. And my mind reading skills are a bit crap, right now. Best, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:18, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Matthew Stafford 's talk page

So on the article Matthew Stafford it says his name is John Matthew Stafford not Matthew Stafford like everyone knows him as. I posted a talk discussion so can you look into this? Sport.07GamerDet (talk) 21:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Oops did citation wrong Sport.07GamerDet (talk) 21:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

And the talk page is Matthew Stafford name mistake? Sport.07GamerDet (talk) 21:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Oops how do I do a link like that. And it is a link not a citation, sorry Sport.07GamerDet (talk) 21:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sport.07GamerDet: Sorry for the delay in replying. At least one source shows his name is John Matthew Stafford, but we are guided by WP:COMMONNAME when titling articles. Reg Dwight is the real name of Elton John; it's fine to link to the former, but the article needs to be named by how he is widely known, and not by his birth name. Same with Matthew Stafford. I think ThatMontrealIP has explained this on the talk page of that article. See Talk:Matthew Stafford. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:13, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Past Bari Weiss / vandalism in search results

Remember this discussion: Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_1064#Question
I saw Bari Weiss on my watchlist and I was wondering if you had followed up on it and learned anything new. --David Tornheim (talk) 16:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi David. Having reported to Bing the unfortunate 'scraping' of that Wikipedia page just after that vandalism was added (a weird coincidence for an edit that was only there for a minute or two), I watched Bing's search results for a few days. I don't know when it was fixed, but Bing has now removed the malicious comment/reindexed the page. I did also make this edit to the template that some people use to explain the problem with Google Knowledge Graphs. But I confess I did not take the matter to WP:AN after seeing the 'scumbag' comment was removed by Bing. Nick Moyes (talk) 17:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)  
Thanks for the update. Glad it is resolved. My guess is that the scrape happened before they got to your comment. I'm actually surprised it took that long for it to do a new scrape: I believe Google is faster at that. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. Google is much faster. The word on t'internet was that Bing takes forever. So at least the reporting does seem to work. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

the BBC and boondoggles?!

So I was just driving home (at 2 a.m.; augh, yes) and turned on the BBC World Service, and in progress was a piece about F.D. Roosevelt and his “New Deal” programs from the 1930s. And I ABSOLUTELY KID YOU NOT: the FIRST COMPLETE SENTENCE I heard was: “This gave rise to the popularisation of the term ‘boondoggle.’” !!! I’m really glad I’m not prone to delusions of reference because this would send me over the edge! Holy mackerel! Julietdeltalima (talk) 09:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC) Julietdeltalima (talk) 09:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Julietdeltalima: Amazing. This could clearly only have happened because of the divine intervention of an all-powerful God. Meanwhile, at 2am local time here in the UK, and as a result of a casual Tweet, I was discovering the answer to a mystery that I had failed to solve for the preceeding 25 years. (X-files emoji) Nick Moyes (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a big deal

...but vandalism-only accounts need not be warned before being blocked [32]. EEng 12:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

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