User talk:Xaosflux/Archive35
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Rich Farmbrough arbitration amendment request
The Arbitration Committee respectfully requests your attention, as an active member of the Bot Approvals Group, at this arbitration amendment request, which seeks to remove bot-related restrictions from Rich Farmbrough. Any comments would be appreciated. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 18:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Was this bot approved?
It seems there's a bot running right now that has the userpage saying it's unapproved. The bot in question is DYKReviewBot. Could you please take a look? Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:44, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Anarchyte: It's approved for trial. Im on my phone so can't link to the BRFA. ~ RobTalk 07:01, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- It is in an approved trial Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DYKReviewBot. If you have any sort of feedback on the trial, please comment at the request page. — xaosflux Talk 11:08, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the barnstar. Can you figure out why the info box doesn't display fully? --agr (talk) 16:08, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- @ArnoldReinhold: fixed it up, there was a weapon type that was a not-quite optional parameter on that infobox. — xaosflux Talk 20:20, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
RMpmc
I've made a little proposal at Template talk:RMpmc#Appearance, and since all this is still so new, I'd like your input. What's in your palette? Paine 17:06, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Move bug in throttle increase
Hi Xaosflux, see this test I did in my space. There seems to be a bug in the implementation of the throttle limit increase for extendedmover. I moved these 16 pages in my space sequentially to "/m2", all without a problem. When I moved them back, the ninth page complained of a throttle limit hit, but the tenth to 16th all succeeded seconds afterwards. I had to wait a minute before I could move that ninth page. Do you know what the issue is, and should a ticket be submitted to ask if this is really expected?
FYI, the specific move that failed (and that I did a minute afterwards) was Special:Diff/727244335. Thanks — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 17:41, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- Hi @Andy M. Wang:, phab:T138703 was only closed out a couple of hours ago - so it could be something odd with replication/etc - I'd give it a day and try again. If you are still having the problem I'll try to reproduce with another account as well then we can open a bug. — xaosflux Talk 17:59, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Mailing list
Hi Xaosflux - is the EFM mailing list still in use, and if so would it be possible to be added to it? I've submitted a subscription request, thank you :) -- samtar talk or stalk 09:36, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yes it is, it looks like you got on now. User:MusikAnimal and User:Samwalton9 are the list admins. — xaosflux Talk 11:39, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
BAG
You made the call, I have answered. HighInBC Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}} 20:27, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
Userboxes
Yeah sure. Go ahead man Reverend Mick man34 ♔ (talk) 13:46, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Your RfB
With the numbers being what they are right now, there's an excellent chance that this one will go to a bureaucrat chat. You might just barely eke this one out, Xaos. In the event that it ultimately passes, I'd like to give you my preemptive congratulations. (Fingers crossed.) Kurtis (talk) 08:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Ditto. I suggest you withdraw and avoid the inevitable humiliation. - NQ (talk) 10:38, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
After reviewing the milkmaid and her pail, I think my best course of action is the quietly sit in this corner for now. — xaosflux Talk 11:49, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Love that reference : ) - jc37 00:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
Discussion at WikiProject_Articles_for_creation
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Move_Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation.2FRedirects_to_Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation.2FRedirects_and_categories.3F. Could you please close this discussion and make the required edits? I'm not sure on who else to contact. Anarchyte (work | talk) 04:54, 11 July 2016 (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
- A new image scaler fixed a number of bugs for showing SVG files. Some new problems turned up. [1][2][3]
- Notifications are grouped by types. They are now counted by number of notifications and not by unread groups. That change may increase the number of notifications displayed. The earlier way of counting was often incorrect. Unread notifications will also be displayed first. [4][5][6]
- Special:Notifications now has a maximum width for the notifications list on desktop computers. This allows long titles and descriptions to be cut properly. Notifications are now also better parsed. [7][8][9]
Problems
- On 5 July Wikimedia Commons had problems and could not be edited for 20 minutes. For a short while after that the recent changes log and some gadgets were not working properly. It affected administrative actions on other projects too. [10]
- Users who have multiple unread notifications can mark them as read by visiting Special:Notifications page on their wiki.
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 July. It will be on all wikis from 14 July (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:15, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
The MfD instructions only allow for deletion of problematic pages and nothing in the discussion indicated a problem. WP:N doesn't apply to drafts, the age is irrelevant and the COI issue is resolved because the editor isn't being a COI anymore. please reverse hut closure in line with policy. Wikijuniorwarrior (talk) 19:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Replied on your talk. — xaosflux Talk 20:03, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- I saw the ping from the user's talk page. I would prefer to discuss here, regardless of the discussion with WJW. I'm concerned by WJW in general, who is mucking up a storm on WP:AN#Revert non admin closure and who is clearly a WP:SPA regarding drafts. I'm skeptical that he is of the genuine belief that the draft can be improved. (Already at least one allegation at AN questioning whether the user might in fact be a WP:SOCK, but I won't go that far since the user has a user page indicating prior anonymous experience.) Would you reconsider your un-deletion here, or should I pursue another avenue (WP:AN? WP:DRV?)? I would personally prefer a relist and some appropriate WP:CANVASSing to WT:VG to get a discussion on the specific case of this draft rather than a soft delete. --Izno (talk) 20:45, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Izno There's numerous editors who argue to undelete drafts of all sorts and then move on. One of the problems of MFD. I'd say you'll have to sit on it before relisting it for deletion. To be fair, the editor could have made a WP:REFUND request and we'd be here again. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682: Well, I'm taking it at face value that this basically was a WP:REFUND given that it was "soft" delete in the first place, but I suppose Xaox could have refunded a not-so-soft delete as well. But I think for a refund, the user has to show that he is willing to improve the draft, and given the behavior of the editor in other forums... I find that path an unlikely one. --Izno (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Izno: Eh, it's not as bad as the editors who went on a craze asking for refunds and them moving them back into the userspace of six/seven/eight-year-old inactive users (after it was moved to drafts for some work and eventually to MFD to kill) under the belief that those users shouldn't have to figure out redirects. I have a dozen or so very, very drafts that we'll have to debate again. And those editors have been here for years. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:02, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682: Well, I'm taking it at face value that this basically was a WP:REFUND given that it was "soft" delete in the first place, but I suppose Xaox could have refunded a not-so-soft delete as well. But I think for a refund, the user has to show that he is willing to improve the draft, and given the behavior of the editor in other forums... I find that path an unlikely one. --Izno (talk) 21:00, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Izno There's numerous editors who argue to undelete drafts of all sorts and then move on. One of the problems of MFD. I'd say you'll have to sit on it before relisting it for deletion. To be fair, the editor could have made a WP:REFUND request and we'd be here again. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- I saw the ping from the user's talk page. I would prefer to discuss here, regardless of the discussion with WJW. I'm concerned by WJW in general, who is mucking up a storm on WP:AN#Revert non admin closure and who is clearly a WP:SPA regarding drafts. I'm skeptical that he is of the genuine belief that the draft can be improved. (Already at least one allegation at AN questioning whether the user might in fact be a WP:SOCK, but I won't go that far since the user has a user page indicating prior anonymous experience.) Would you reconsider your un-deletion here, or should I pursue another avenue (WP:AN? WP:DRV?)? I would personally prefer a relist and some appropriate WP:CANVASSing to WT:VG to get a discussion on the specific case of this draft rather than a soft delete. --Izno (talk) 20:45, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- I'm usually willing to stretch WP:AGF very far - so I hope that Wikijuniorwarrior actually has an interest in improving this content, but if they don't this one draft being restored is very unlikely to be an immediate problem for our readers. The MFD sat open for almost 3 weeks without comment, which lead to my soft delete. Feel free to relist it in the future if it continues to be problematic, but I'd give it at least 4-6 weeks to see if it gets improved (barring any information that this was a bad faith restoration request). Please note, that while I will assume lots of good faith - if someone starts asking for lots of undeletions with no intention to work on them I will be less likely to just flat restore. — xaosflux Talk 21:12, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Roger. I'll take a look at this again at a later date. --Izno (talk) 21:17, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- I think, given the indef block of the user asking for a refund, that it might be appropriate to re-delete the page. Would you mind doing that? --Izno (talk) 11:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
- Roger. I'll take a look at this again at a later date. --Izno (talk) 21:17, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Done Izon I have re-deleted, still as WP:SOFTDELETE. — xaosflux Talk 13:33, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Bombardier Movia & CNR Changchun C951
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Bombardier Movia & CNR Changchun C951. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
BAG membership
Hello xaosflux. I was asked if I would consider a BAG nomination. I value your opinion, so what are your thoughts on my suitability to serve as a BAG member? — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:02, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
- Hi JJMC89, I think that in order to gain support you would need to demonstrate more contribution in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval (outside of your own requests) - which you can start at immediately. Asking questions to the proposers that are relevant to evaluating technical operations, community support, and adherence to policies and guidelines is one way; reviewing trial results (which can be tedious for large runs) is another good way. Putting the time in will give the !voters information to consider. Also, while being a sysop is not required for BAG, having NAC closures in your contributions in other discussion venues is a good way to demonstrate that you can measure discussion consensus. I hope to see you around WP:RFBA either way. — xaosflux Talk 11:53, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Crat list
Is your subscription working? (NB it's a very low traffic group) --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Dweller: Yes, thank you! — xaosflux Talk 11:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
- Groovy. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:37, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Changing the content model of a sandbox
Hi! I just created MediaWiki talk:Gadget-DRN-wizard.js/sandbox and realized I don't have the ability to specify its content model. Would it be possible for you to change its content model to Javascript, like you did with MediaWiki talk:Gadget-popups.js/sandbox? Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 03:49, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Enterprisey: Done — xaosflux Talk 03:51, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
- A non-admin method you may be able to use is to create it at User:Enterprisey/Sandbox.js then move it. (I haven't actually tried this). — xaosflux Talk 03:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks! Enterprisey (talk!) (formerly APerson) 03:54, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
- A non-admin method you may be able to use is to create it at User:Enterprisey/Sandbox.js then move it. (I haven't actually tried this). — xaosflux Talk 03:52, 18 July 2016 (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
- Due to the rollback, new sorting of Notifications on the Fly-Out Menus has been deployed with a delay. [11]
Due to the rollback, the daily special patch deployment process has been changed. [12]- In notifications, "Messages" are now called "Notices". [13]
Problems
- On July 12 all wikis were rolled back to MediaWiki 1.28.0-wmf.8 due to a problem in the log-in system. [14][15]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 July. It will be on all wikis from 21 July (calendar).
- Special:Log now has a help link. [16]
- The RevisionSlider can be tested on the beta cluster. From 22 July, it will be available as a beta feature at: German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 19 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "Devise plan for a cross-wiki watchlist back-end". The meeting will be on 20 July at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join. [17]
Future changes
- User scripts and bots can no longer use http:// to edit wiki pages. [18][19]
- Gerrit is going to be updated. Developers are invited to test it. [20]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
12:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
A suggestion
You may want to use this template on your user page instead of the clock you have. -- Template:Calendar clock with Wikipedia stats --— VarunFEB2003 I am Busy 12:52, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks VarunFEB2003 but I would never replace old WikiClock he's over 10 years old :D — xaosflux Talk 14:14, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Bulk messaging
I didn't know - thanks for telling me. Something very useful to keep in mind for the future. :-)
Happy editing! --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 01:53, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 21 July 2016
- Discussion report: Busy month for discussions
- Featured content: A wide variety from the best
- Traffic report: Sports and esports
- Arbitration report: Script writers appointed for clerks
- Recent research: Using deep learning to predict article quality
Please comment on Talk:Tony Scherman
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Tony Scherman. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Problem with tag closing
Hi, there appears to be a problem with Fluxbot trying to fix Category:Pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags. It is splitting up <ref name"z"/> into <ref name"z"></ref> which is incorrect according to Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: using a source more than once. An example is here, the actual change does not fix the problem which is the </blockquote/> tag in the article. Keith D (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you Keith D, I am fixing and reverting as needed - see continued discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Fluxbot 6. — xaosflux Talk 00:23, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Reference errors on 23 July
Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:
- On the List of Santos FC seasons page, your edit caused a broken reference name (help) and a cite error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)
Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
Oam9383
Might need to shut down their talkpage access as well, continued vandalism there. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
- Done CSD'd as well. — xaosflux Talk 14:08, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: I've seen this LTA around for a while now (discussion) and they actually tagged themselves as a Diamese sock - I'm working on this which may help limit them - if you have any thoughts please email me -- samtar talk or stalk 14:11, 25 July 2016 (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
- Interactive maps have been enabled for Meta wiki and the Catalan, Hebrew, and Macedonian Wikipedias. Learn how to add interactive maps to wiki pages.
- Last week's rollback is now documented. [21]
Problems
- Sometimes, the visual editor required saving twice. That problem is now fixed. [22]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 July. It will be on all wikis from 28 July (calendar).
- It is now possible to mark all Notifications as read on Special:Notifications, by clicking on the cog icon. [23]
- Wikipedia search will now detect the language of your search if 2 or fewer results are found. It will then show results from the matching language Wikipedia, if any relevant article exists. It will start to roll out in 5 languages. [24]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 26 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "an extension that implements an authenticated key-value store". The meeting will be on 27 July at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join. [25]
Future changes
- The current icon for Notifications "Notices" (in English "Notices") will be changed from a bubble-speech icon to a tray icon for consistency. [26]
- Special:Notifications page code will be changed to be more Mobile friendly. [27]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
Speedy deletion nomination of 20160726-test-xaosflux B
If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice that the page you created was tagged as a test page under section G2 of the criteria for speedy deletion and has been or soon may be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. — Smjg (talk) 23:22, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
- This will be deleted shortly, I'm fairly confident readers will not be confused by it. — xaosflux Talk 23:28, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
- I've moved it to User:Xaosflux/20160726-test-xaosflux B, as this preserves the page in case it's needed to demonstrate the testing while keeping it out of mainspace. Hope you don't mind; I didn't see the message you placed here until after it was done. Feel free to move it back temporarily if you weren't done testing. ~ Rob13Talk 23:29, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Question
Hi, become an admin, how do to that? I want admin to be RIGHT NOW!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by TRCuba (talk • contribs) 07:53, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
- Administrators are elected by the community at the WP:RFA page. Very new editors don't really have a chance in winning the elections because they don't have enough documented experience for the community to review. — xaosflux Talk 11:12, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Kingdom of Ulidia
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Kingdom of Ulidia. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Hi, I asked for import to user name space User:Bussakendle/Import Hybrid navigation. Of course You can also import to my sandbox. Thanks. bkb (talk) 09:29, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Number of BRFAs
Hey xaosflux. For a bot that will process multiple templates in a similar manner, would you want to see one BRFA or a BRFA for each template? The task will be to remove template parameters for IDs that have been migrated to Wikidata (sample edits). I am planning on using a custom AWB module, most of which shouldn't change from one template to another. — JJMC89 (T·C) 10:26, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
- From a technical point of view, a single BRFA is likely OK - however the broader the task the more community support may be required. — xaosflux Talk 13:32, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- A prototype for structured data on Commons is available now. [28]
- The RevisionSlider beta feature can now be tested on mediawiki.org, German Wikipedia, Arabic Wikipedia and Hebrew Wikipedia.
Problems
- Renamed users on some wikis were not connected to their account on other wikis between 20 July and 21 July. This has been fixed. [29]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 August. It will be on all wikis from 4 August (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- The next CREDIT showcase will be on 3 August at 18:00 (UTC). This is to present and comment on new gadgets, small projects and works in progress. See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "notifications in core". The meeting will be on 3 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:48, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
Mass message
Hello xaosflux,
IF you see this page - Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Incubator/Indian military history/Mailing list that you created it contains a inputbox in which one can type his name to place it in the list. What module or template produces that inputbox? Moreover when I click edit source it gives me completely different layout and I am probably editing a different page? If I type the full URL - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Incubator/Indian military history/Mailing list&action=edit it takes me to the real edit page. How does this happen? Thanks. VarunFEB2003 I am Online 13:46, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
- VarunFEB2003 that page is in a special Content Model that can only be created by administrators. There are some "blank" pages that are created in this model for anyone to adopt and use, see available pages here: Wikipedia_talk:Mass_message_senders#Mass-mail_subscription_list_shells. If you manually enter an edit url you will get the json editor for the page - but your edits will be rejected if they are not in the special content model. Using the edit button on the page actually loads the Special: editor for that content model. — xaosflux Talk 15:12, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 04 August 2016
- News and notes: Foundation presents results of harassment research, plans for automated identification; Wikiconference submissions open
- Obituary: Kevin Gorman, who took on Wikipedia's gender gap and undisclosed paid advocacy, dies at 24
- Traffic report: Summer of Pokémon, Trump, and Hillary
- Featured content: Women and Hawaii
- Recent research: Easier navigation via better wikilinks
- Technology report: User script report (January to July 2016, part 1)
For your edification, I don't have and have never had an alternative account. At one point I did think about it but then discovered I would have to pay royalties to Bishonen, who has the exclusive rights to alternative accounts.
--Bbb23 (talk) 15:49, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you,
I've blocked that account for impersonation.I was about to block it! — xaosflux Talk 15:51, 6 August 2016 (UTC) - (edit conflict) As well as, more expensively, to The Lady Catherine de Burgh. Bishonen | talk 15:54, 6 August 2016 (UTC).
Whisperback
Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 06:44, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
No one voted to delete. I took the case to review but could you restore them all so I can add sentences and keep them?
Why did you delete Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Stubs/Aaron Banda? No one wanted it deleted but you it seems — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sulky mulky (talk • contribs) 21:04, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
- Sulky mulky there really is no content to "restore" on these - most were empty section headers and literally "Page title - is ... ". Please see notes at Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion#Wikipedia:WikiAfrica.2FStubs.2FAbel_Tilahun. Please also note, while I closed the discussion and it had little participation, I did not nominate these so there was at least one other editor involved in each. Feel free recreate any of these as drafts, with enough content to identify the subject. — xaosflux Talk 21:48, 7 August 2016 (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
- In notifications, the icon for Notices has been changed from a speech-bubble icon (
) to a tray icon (
) for consistency. The Alerts icon has been redesigned too. The colors have been changed for accessibility. [30]
Problems
- If you use the wikEd gadget, changes you made were not kept when you switched from the wikitext editor to the visual editor while you were editing. This has now been fixed. [31]
Changes this week
- Wikimedia search will now ignore question marks at the end of the sentences or words you use when you search. Until now the question mark was just a wildcard. [32]
- On Commons, UploadWizard will now be available on mobile, rather than just the old upload form. This should reduce the workload for the community in reviewing images. [33]
- When you edit with the visual editor a puzzle symbol tells you there is an invisible template in the article. It will now mention the name of the template. [34]
- The button to read something in another language will move for mobile users. This will happen on 9 August. [35]
- When someone mentions you and links to your user page you get a notification. You will now get a notification when you mention yourself this way. [36]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 August. It will be on all wikis from 11 August (calendar).
- A message on Notifications panel will invite users to try Special:Notifications page. [37]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 9 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
Your request for bureaucratship
And thus, after nearly two-and-a-half years, I relinquish the symbolic title of "Wikipedia's Newest Bureaucrat" to you. Well done for the overwhelming amount of people in support for your candidacy and well done for the successful result in itself. Good luck, Xaosflux! Acalamari 00:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, and the all the members of the community who contributed to the discussion; I hope to serve everyone well. — xaosflux Talk 00:13, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congrats! - jc37 00:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations, Xaosflux. You deserve the wrench, and I'm absolutely confident that you'll do well with it. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 00:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, and I guess there's a screwdriver too. So... yeah. :-P ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 00:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking on the task. HighInBC Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}} 01:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congrats! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congrats! Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:34, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations!! --joe deckertalk 02:02, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations Lourdes 02:44, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations. Thank you for taking this on. Donner60 (talk) 03:39, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- You are not congratulated. No post-RfX congratulations should pass without at least one oppose. (But seriously, congrats!) ~ Rob13Talk 03:45, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- No, no, no Rob, if you're gonna go for it, then GO for it. Something like:
- AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! - I was a reader for years, and I only created an account just so I could oppose xaosflux's RfA, but it closed before I could comment. So now I've been stuck here for years contributing to this crazy project for all this time, and I blame xaosflux! And then, when I finally have a chance to vote in a discussion regarding him, set to release all this pent up anxiety, these many years as a Wikipedia drudge have destroyed my personality, my entire sense of self and I found myself voting with the crowd, but did anyone see through my cries for help? NO! Instead we all got trouted by a calamari! We're all trapped here forever, and it's all part of their evil plan!...
- Now - are we taking bets that someone somewhere will take this edit seriously and accuse me of everything under the sun the next time I request additional permissions? : ) - jc37 04:36, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- If that is what it takes to get someone to edit for 10 years, its worth it! — xaosflux Talk 04:41, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- I think what little was left of my sense of self just died : (
- All kidding aside, when I was checking links before commenting in your rfb, and saw the date of your rfa, I was like: wow at the coincidence. I mean, doesn't everybody know the exact date they signed up for the project? : ) - jc37 04:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- When I think about when I signed up, it's hard to believe it has been 5 years since I signed up. 5 more to go for me. :p—cyberpowerChat:Online 07:52, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Who told you that? - Wikipedia is a life sentence : ) - jc37 08:08, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Meh, I can live with that.:p—cyberpowerChat:Online 10:49, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Who told you that? - Wikipedia is a life sentence : ) - jc37 08:08, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- When I think about when I signed up, it's hard to believe it has been 5 years since I signed up. 5 more to go for me. :p—cyberpowerChat:Online 07:52, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- If that is what it takes to get someone to edit for 10 years, its worth it! — xaosflux Talk 04:41, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- No, no, no Rob, if you're gonna go for it, then GO for it. Something like:
- Congratulations for bureaucratship!! CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 04:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations on becoming the first bureaucrat in over two years! Biblio (talk) WikiProject Reforming Wikipedia. 15:33, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congratulations, and wishing you all the best. Mz7 (talk) 15:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congrats! And an excellent choice of first promotion too ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:19, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- ... and that promotion done in style, thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:19, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Welcome to the team! I was half-considering opposing (just to spice up your RfB a bit) but better judgment prevailed :) –xenotalk 01:25, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- Congrats! :) ·addshore· talk to me! 07:57, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Welcome to the most boring club in the entire world and the least sexy title in the universe. May your time be entirely devoid of controversy. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:01, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Belated congratulations! -- samtar talk or stalk 09:02, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- ... Well shit aren't I late to the party!
, Anyway Congratulations Xaosflux :) –Davey2010Talk 19:38, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Conrats
|
Congratulations |
| Heartiest Congratulation on one of the most successful RfB's I hope you prosper and better this place. Congrats again Varun ☎ 11:42, 9 July 2016 (UTC) |
Some stroopwafels for you!
|
You're a crat! Congrats! ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 11:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
|
The Barnstar of Good Humor |
| for your guidelines. I'm so happy to work near by users like you . thank you for being here. Amir Muhammad 04:12, 24 July 2016 (UTC) |
Abuse filter question
Hi Xaosflux. I was hoping you could help me out here. I'm looking to set up an abuse filter to help me track a sockmaster. For obvious reasons, I don't want to discuss what the abuse filter would be on-wiki. Any chance you could hop into the BAG IRC channel quickly to discuss? ~ Rob13Talk 23:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
- Looks like we missed eachother. — xaosflux Talk 00:43, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
- BU Rob13, 786 appears to be all FP's - how long do you want to leave it going? — xaosflux Talk 11:29, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
- I think you mean BU Rob13.... Omni Flames (talk) 07:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC) --- Oops, yes. — xaosflux Talk 11:29, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
- @BU Rob13: - updated, and see email for one recent hit on the old pattern you may be interested in. — xaosflux Talk 05:46, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
- This filter will be useful whether or not it does what it's intended to do. I've already found other vandalism, etc. with it. They've all been FPs in the sense that they weren't what I intended to find since the change, but they've also all been useful diffs to look at. ~ Rob13Talk 21:11, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
Side note about Jaguar's BRFA
Please let me know if you'd prefer I not suggest that BRFA route of obtaining AWB access in special cases like Jaguar's. I realized after the fact that I was kind of volunteering the BAG to babysit, and that wasn't my intention. The already-existing oversight processes of bot approvals seemed most appropriate in this case, and I'm aware that semi-automated "approved bots" have existed in the past, so I thought it was a good fit. I'll refrain from doing it in the future if BAG members would prefer I not, though. Either way, I'll stick around for the BRFA so as to take some of the load off. ~ Rob13Talk 19:45, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, BRFA is really designed to approve bot accounts to do work, from what I can tell this editor just wants to use AWB to automate parts of their editing, now they are talking about programming something - it is a bit of a mess. I looked at the other threads and it looks like multiple admins already said no AWB for this user. Unless that task is significantly defined it will be rejected; and if the editor thinks they can use a bot account for non-approved tasks - the bot will be blocked. — xaosflux Talk 20:24, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
Mis-understanding
I was asking if you would remove the ACC flag from User:Bluerasberry as they have not used it since May. Sorry for the confusion. Mlpearc (open channel) 00:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
- Bluerasberry is listed as part of the education program, added by OhanaUnited, which is listed as a reason to be in that usergroup per Wikipedia:Account_creator. While I do clean up old permissions from time to time, it is normally for completely inactive users. If you see any suggested misuse of this please discuss with Blue, or bring to WP:AN. — xaosflux Talk 00:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello Xaosflux,
I wanted to ask you something. The edits made to the bot's talk page like this and this look like manual i.e made by you. I just had a doubt, few weeks ago MusikAnimal advised a new user NepaliKeto62 who had created a bot account (so called) that never (with bolding) make manual edits from your bot account and had mentioned this policy - Wikipedia:Bot_policy#Bot_accounts which says bot accounts should not be used to answer messages related to the bot. Now I am in a confusion! Which of you is correct? Both of you have a lot of experienced in bots! Can you advice me? Meaning you are the best to say about it! Many thanks and sincere regards. VarunFEB2003 I am Online 06:30, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
- VarunFEB2003 - the bot policy allows for an exception related to edits by bots that affect
only the operator's or their own userspace
. As you noted, if other editors have questions for a bot operator, the operator should reply to the editor, not use the bot account to make responses. — xaosflux Talk 10:40, 15 August 2016 (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
- Last week Tech News announced you will get a notification when you mention yourself the same way as if someone else had mentioned you. This caused some problems and will happen later instead. [38]
- Creating and editing links to sections on other pages on the wiki now works again in the visual editor. [39]
- For some users, cross-wiki notifications haven't been working properly. The count has been wrong when only cross-wiki notifications were present. The cross-wiki bundle has been showing only the names of wikis and not the actual notifications. This will be fixed soon. [40][41]
Changes this week
- The login session when you choose "Keep me logged in" will now last a year. Previously it was 30 days. This will happen on August 16. [42]
- Some abuse filters will have to be updated during the week. This is because a bug will be fixed. [43]
- In compact language links, two new kinds of languages will be shown in the shorter language list: Languages that are used in the article's text, and languages where the article has a badge like "featured article" or "good article". [44][45]
- The visual editor will be available by default for logged-out editors on Wikipedias that use the Arabic script. It is already default for logged-in editors. [46]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 16. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 17. It will be on all wikis from August 18 (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on August 16 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Starting the week of August 22 there will be three software deployment windows. They will be at 13:00, 18:00, and 23:00 UTC. This is to have more times when software of the wikis can be updated and make it easier for developers in different parts of the world. [47]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:37, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Content model change
Hi Xaosflux, may you change the content model of User:Andy M. Wang/prototyping1 from wikitext to JavaScript? (I believe that will also inherently protect the page from nonsysops from editing it, right? (I was also wondering if it would be helpful to have a help page like "Help:Content model" or "WP:Content model" that soft-redirects to mw:Help:ChangeContentModel?) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 20:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
- Andy M. Wang the model change has been completed. — xaosflux Talk 01:02, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
A page you started (Crew rest compartment) has been reviewed!
Thanks for creating Crew rest compartment, Xaosflux!
Wikipedia editor Xaosflux ep just reviewed your page, and wrote this note for you:
Write a helpful note for Xaosflux. It will be posted on their talk page.
To reply, leave a comment on Xaosflux ep's talk page.
Learn more about page curation.
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) 04:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 18 August 2016
- News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses
- Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica
- In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising
- Featured content: Simply the best ... from the last two weeks
- Traffic report: Olympic views
- Technology report: User script report (January–July 2016, part 2)
- Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case
About MascotGuy
Don't forget to delete the talk pages. Mage Resu (talk) 21:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
More pages. Category:Talk pages of MascotGuy sockpuppets to be deleted Mage Resu (talk) 21:18, 18 August 2016 (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 ORES review tool is now available on Special:Contributions as a beta feature. It can make it easier to find contributions that are probably damaging the wikis. The ORES review tool is available on Wikidata and Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and Russian Wikipedia. [48]
- The
normandccnormfunctions have been updated to make it easier to write abuse filters. This also affects the TitleBlacklist extension. You don't have to transform "I" and "L" to "1", "O" to "0" and "S" to "5" anymore. [49] - The old pageview data in the "pagecounts-raw" and "pagecounts-all-sites" files is no longer being updated. You can find the new pageview data here. This happened on August 5. [50]
Problems
- Some big image files could not be thumbnailed. This has now been fixed. [51]
- When you moved a page over a redirect it would delete the redirect without saving it in the logs. This has now been fixed. [52]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 August. It will be on all wikis from 25 August (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 23 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification. You will be able to get a notification when you successfully sent out a mention to someone or be told if they did not get a notification. This will be opt-in. You can test this on the test wiki. [53][54]
- How you add text after an edit conflict might work in a different way in the future. You can test the prototype. [55]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:18, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of senior officers of the Argentine Navy. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Whisperback
Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 03:31, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 04:13, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
The patrol page
Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right
Kudpung sent me an email with the entire content he drafted.
He wanted me to copy paste it on that page removing his comments. You have done a good beginning. Now should I copy paste Kudpung's content below it. He won't be available for few hours now. --Marvellous Spider-Man 13:04, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
- Marvellous Spider-Man Feel free to do anything, it is a wiki! I suggest you start by adding more to the page, then during discussion we can whittle it down. I think a good example of a recent RfC for permissions is here: page mover rfc. One thing that usually makes these RfC be more likely to come to a decision is to have a dedicated "drafting period" where the "what will be decided" steps get nailed out, before any "!voting" period opens. — xaosflux Talk 14:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
stub tags
Hallo, it's probably less than helpful to add {{geography-stub}} to an article as you did here: it just takes it out of the Category:Stubs which stub-sorters look at, without sorting it into a useful category. Best just leave it as {{stub}} unless you can slot it into at least a country.
I might have a look at Category:Geography stubs to see if anything else there needs rescuing.
In fact I found it depressing how many people had edited that article without putting the country name into the lead ... I was alerted to it by chance by spotting this strange talk page notice! PamD 22:36, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
- Hi PamD, in looking at my diff you referenced above, the prior version was not in any categories at all - I didn't remove it from anything. The only place I can see this would have cleared the page from any sort of category list would have been in Special:UncategorizedPages. Please let me know if I've missed something here. For what it's worth - I rarely do these, but was working though some issues related to WP:CXT. — xaosflux Talk 00:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
- Ah yes, sorry - you'd given it the {{geography-stub}} from scratch, rather than replacing {{stub}}. Apologies. But it's probably better to add {{stub}}, which leaves it in the category where people will look and sort it, rather than a stub template which is always going to be too broad. (Though I admit I do tend to drop quite a lot of articles into {{software-stub}} to leave someone else to sort them out!) PamD 07:14, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
- And I've now cleared out the sortable stubs from within Category:Geography, leaving it only a collection of geography journals ({{geography-journal-stub}} goes there) and a tiny handful of the otherwise unsortable! PamD 08:01, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them. This is to save mobile data and make the pages load faster. [56]
- When you edit a table with the visual editor, pressing
Tabin the last cell of a row will take you to the first cell in the next row. PressingShiftandTabin the first cell of a row will take you to the last cell in the previous row. [57]
Changes this week
- The name of the "Save page" button will change. The button will say "Publish page" when you create a new page. It will say "Publish changes" when you change an existing page. [58][59]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 August. It will be on all wikis from 1 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 30 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is "RfC: image and oldimage tables". The meeting will be on 31 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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16:04, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Re: Switzer
I cut it down to semi-protection, must've had a finger slip and picked a different one than intended; to be honest I didn't even realize the 30/500 thing was a protection option until just now, must be new. Wizardman 21:35, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:1
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:1. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can request it after a community decision. See how to request it. [60]
- When you edit text and mention a new username they are notified if you add your signature. Before this only happened under certain conditions. [61]
- Users are notified if they are mentioned in a section where you add your own signature even if you edit more than one section. Before, users were not notified if you edited more than one section in one edit. [62]
Problems
- The MediaWiki version that was supposed to come to the wikis two weeks ago was put on hold again because of new problems. The MediaWiki version after it is now on all wikis. [63][64]
Changes this week
- There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [65]
Meetings
- You can join the next office hour with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on September 27 at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Abandoned tools on Tool Labs could be taken over by other developers. There is a new discussion on Meta about this. It will be discussed until 12 October and then voted on. [66]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 29 September 2016
- News and notes: Wikipedia Education Program case study published; and a longtime Wikimedian has made his final edit
- In the media: Wikipedia in the news
- Featured content: Three weeks in the land of featured content
- Arbitration report: Arbcom looking for new checkusers and oversight appointees while another case opens
- Traffic report: From Gene Wilder to JonBenét
- Technology report: Category sorting and template parameters
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:List of bus routes in London
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of bus routes in London. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 19 September 2016 (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
- Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back because of bugs. Creating new accounts did not work between 15 September 19:10 UTC and 16 September 12:50 UTC. [67][68]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will hopefully be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 September. It will be on all wikis from 22 September (calendar). This is the version that was meant to go out last week.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 20 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is multi-content revisions. The meeting will be on 21 September at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Wikidata will start working on adding support for Wiktionary. The Wikidata development team is now taking one last look at the development plan. [69]
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22:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
MfD nomination of User:Gregaga/sandbox
User:Gregaga/sandbox, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Gregaga/sandbox (3rd nomination) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Gregaga/sandbox during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Whpq (talk) 11:31, 22 September 2016 (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
- Word-level diffs now work in longer paragraphs. [70]
- Interactive maps now have a frame by default. This is to make them look like other multimedia objects. This affects all Wikivoyages, the Catalan, Hebrew, Macedonian Wikipedias and Meta. [71]
- When you preview the MediaWiki:Captcha-ip-whitelist page it will show a validation output of the listed IP addresses instead of the list of addresses only. This can help you to identify if your whitelist rules will work or not. [72]
Changes this week
- You will be able to use
<maplink>on all Wikipedias. It creates a link to a full screen map. [73][74] - Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification. You will be able to get a notification when you successfully send out a mention to someone or be told if they did not get a notification. This will be opt-in. [75][76]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 September. It will be on all wikis from 8 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The CheckUser extension could work differently in the future. There is a Request for Comments to figure out how. [77]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:12, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Help talk:Hidden text
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Help talk:Hidden text. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 06 September 2016
- Special report: Olympics readership depended on language
- WikiProject report: Watching Wikipedia
- Featured content: Entertainment, sport, and something else in-between
- Traffic report: From Phelps to Bolt to Reddit
- Technology report: Wikimedia mobile sites now don't load images if the user doesn't see them
- Recent research: Ethics of machine-created articles and fighting vandalism
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) 04:29, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- The Wikimedia Commons app for Android can now show nearby places that need photos. [78]
<maplink>and<mapframe>can now use geodata from Open Street Map if Open Street Map has defined a region and given it an ID in Wikidata. You can use this to draw on the map and add information. [79][80]
Changes this week
- The RevisionSlider will be available as a beta feature on all wikis from 13 September. This will make it easier to navigate between diffs in the page history. [81]
- A new user right will allow most users to change the content model of pages. [82][83]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 September. It will be on all wikis from 15 September (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- When you search on the Wikimedia wikis in the future you could see results from sister projects in your language. You can read more and discuss how this could work.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
Your deletion of a wikipedia-talk page
On 5 January 2016 you deleted Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Liisa Ladouceur (G7: One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page). Just wondering what was the rationale for such an unusual deletion? Thanks in advance for responding on my talk page. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:44, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
Modulo:Citazione on it.wiki
Thanks for the message, I fixed it:Modulo:Citazione as requested, and I fixed also another module with the same problem (it:Modulo:Tracce), I will check it:Categoria:Pagine che utilizzano tag HTML auto-chiusi non validi for other template/module with this problem.--Moroboshi (talk) 19:17, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Question concerning discretionary sanctions
I noticed that you stopped in to fix a stray tag marking part of a discussion about a dead gorilla who was being compared to a Presidential candidate's chances in the 2016 election. (Though this struck many as unencyclopedic and misleading, an administrator kept "accidentally" reverting it). This same administrator has recently redirected the "political positions of Ralph Nader" to Nader's bio page (without any discussion or reinstating references added), and called for the deletion of the article "political positions of Jill Stein". Is this normal behavior for a "neutral" administrator?
My question concerning discretionary sanctions (I have been banned from the topic Jill Stein by Nuclear Warfare) is: "Do I have the right to ask the question above (Is this normal behavior for a "neutral" administrator?)". My question concerning the problem of the page hack : "Is anyone looking into this?"
Thank you for your time. SashiRolls (talk) 12:20, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- Hello SashiRolls, if you have concerns about an edit that I made, I will be happy to review any edit I made, if you can provide me the diff link. For this instance, even if the edit was related to your topic banned area I think it is OK for you to provide me the link, especially if it was related to an edit made in my capacity as an administrator. Prolonged discussion may not be available if against your topic ban but I will review and at least make a short reply for you. Regarding your other questions - most high profile pages are heavily watched by other editors, and most editors strive to maintain quality and neutrality. As your questions about the actions of the other administrator are specifically related to article content in the are you are topic banned from - you don't really get to follow up on it. Deletion discussions are also highly watched by many editors - and failed deletion nominations are common. I understand you are interested in these topics - but as you have active sanctions, if you wish to continue to help us build the encyclopedia I suggest you edit in other areas. — xaosflux Talk 15:01, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- It is just the fact that the process is supposed to be a process and not an administrator quietly deciding to redirect long-standing pages (related to Green political postions), as has been done for Political positions of Cynthia McKinney (a reasonably well-referenced page from what I see from the history, certainly not a redirect candidate) and Political positions of Ralph Nader (which did need better referencing, but could have been improved). This is the work of the same administrator that led me to add the faulty tag that you corrected here (diff). I've been editing in other areas, and am observing and will continue to observe the strictest silence on the pages in question. I'm waiting to see how this develops to formulate my appeal. SashiRolls (talk) 15:52, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for the link, my edit was purely technical in nature, and I find no fault in whoever introduced the technical error (it is currently transparent to readers until a new software release that this is preparing for) - there have been thousands of these to clean up across all pages. As for your content and topic concerns - have faith that other editors will continue to care for pages in your absence from editing them and go in to any future appeal proceedings with a calm manner. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 16:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for the sound of advice, xaosflux :) And thanks for your work, I've learned a lot from all this. SashiRolls (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for the link, my edit was purely technical in nature, and I find no fault in whoever introduced the technical error (it is currently transparent to readers until a new software release that this is preparing for) - there have been thousands of these to clean up across all pages. As for your content and topic concerns - have faith that other editors will continue to care for pages in your absence from editing them and go in to any future appeal proceedings with a calm manner. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 16:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
- It is just the fact that the process is supposed to be a process and not an administrator quietly deciding to redirect long-standing pages (related to Green political postions), as has been done for Political positions of Cynthia McKinney (a reasonably well-referenced page from what I see from the history, certainly not a redirect candidate) and Political positions of Ralph Nader (which did need better referencing, but could have been improved). This is the work of the same administrator that led me to add the faulty tag that you corrected here (diff). I've been editing in other areas, and am observing and will continue to observe the strictest silence on the pages in question. I'm waiting to see how this develops to formulate my appeal. SashiRolls (talk) 15:52, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Changing content models
Hey xaosflux. Per wikitech-l all users with the move userright will be able to change the content model of pages (editcontentmodel) beginning 12 September. For us that means (auto)confirmed and page movers (and admins who already have it). A Phabricator task to change who is assigned the right can be created. I don't think it should be granted to page movers since it doesn't apply to moving pages. I'm not sure if (auto)confirmed should have it or not. I think MMS is a reasonable candidate if we revoke it from (auto)confirmed. Maybe template editors? Thoughts? Should an RfC or proposal be dawn up for discussion at a VPR? (I thought you would be interested.) — JJMC89 (T·C) 20:11, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
- JJMC89 I read the phab ticket, and they are usually worded a bit different then they are implemented. As far as enwiki goes, what I suspect will occur is that
(editcontentmodel)permission will be added to the Autoconfirmed users and Confirmed users (they probably wont bother with page mover since it is an enwiki specific group). As rights are cumulative, unless enwiki makes a decision to not give this to (auto)confirmed users it is moot if it is actually also deployed to out custom pagemovers group. I don't think giving it to move enabled groups is a good idea - and have commented at phab:T85847. If the sysadmins decide too bad - this is our new default because something something flow something something - then we can poll enwiki and request that enwiki is different. — xaosflux Talk 00:50, 8 September 2016 (UTC)- It is being explicitly granted to page movers (
extendedmover) per this commit (line 7788). I agree, I don't think it is a good idea – I don't think it is similar to moving. Users who are granted the right should be expected to know how and when to (not) use it. Deploying it to the masses is likely to lead to problems. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:25, 8 September 2016 (UTC)- JJMC89 please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#restrict_changecontentmodel_permission. — xaosflux Talk 02:02, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, are you able to change the contentmodel of Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:29, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- It is able to be targeted, but I don't want to break that page - let me see if there is somewhere else to try. — xaosflux Talk 02:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Andy M. Wang Attempting to change to model on testwiki:Talk:ET43 fails with error
The flow-board content model does not support direct editing. — xaosflux Talk 02:40, 15 September 2016 (UTC)- Thanks. What about a direct topic like testwiki:Topic:T6442d08n4xqo3ia? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 02:42, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
- Andy M. Wang Attempting to change to model on testwiki:Talk:ET43 fails with error
- JJMC89 please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#restrict_changecontentmodel_permission. — xaosflux Talk 02:02, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
- It is being explicitly granted to page movers (
Same The flow-board content model does not support direct editing. — xaosflux Talk 02:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
Extended confirmed protection
Hello, Xaosflux. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.
Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.
In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:
- Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
- A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.
Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
A cookie for you!
|
I was eating cookies when I got your mass email about the Extended page protection. Thanks for keeping everybody informed and your work on Wikipedia:Administrators/Message list itself. I share my cookies with you. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC) |
Question
I realise that there is no deadline, however my bot request has been open for 8 days, and counting. I know that bots such as JJMC8789 bot task 7 take a longer time to process, but mine is extremely simple and only affects a bit over 1,000 pages. Thanks, Dat GuyTalkContribs 09:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
- I'll try to get to this in the next 2 days; I think most of the other WP:BAG guys are busy too. — xaosflux Talk 12:25, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Policies for dealing with new articles at NPP & AfC
HI. Following 5 years of unstructured discussion, a dedicated venue has been created for combined discussion about NPP & AfC where a work group is also being composed to develop recommendations for necessary changes to policies and related software. It is 'not an RfC, it is a call for genuinely interested users who have significant experience in these areas to join a truly proactive work group. There is some reading to be done before signing up. See: Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:45, 24 September 2016 (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 this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 October. It will be on all wikis from 6 October (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 4 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tidy will be replaced. Instead the HTML 5 parsing algorithm will be used to clean up bad HTML in wikitext. This would cause problems on a number of wikis. They need to be fixed first. [84]
<slippymap>will not work on Wikivoyage after 24 October. You should use<mapframe>instead. If you need help to fix this before 24 October you should ask for it as soon as possible. [85]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Right-patrol
Hi Xaosflux, I notice that when I use/hide the tool, the "Mark this page as patrolled" disappears/appears. I'm a bit shady on the technical details of (patrol), but I believe this right gives users the ability to "Mark this page as patrolled", as well as use the Page Curation tool to apply deletion tags, review pages, etc, right? If that is the case, perhaps MediaWiki:Right-patrol deserves a clarification? — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 01:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
(patrol)permissions are currently required to use the page curation tool; check out Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/RfC for patroller qualifications and lets see where that goes before expanding the definition - I'm fairly sure it is not changing and there is just a verbiage mixup going on at that page. — xaosflux Talk 02:13, 6 October 2016 (UTC)- I checked the core code myself and it's apparent that MediaWiki:markaspatrolledtext-file is related to
(patrol)as well. While the NPP RfC has mostly focused on getting competent patrollers for new articles, its implications for non-admin file patrollers have not been discussed as far as I know.(reupload)needs repatrolling. It seems that the new right would need to be reassigned based on competence in article evaluation or competence in file patrolling, but that seems to be out of scope of the current RfC. Any thoughts? A potential workaround is to split file patrol from(patrol), but I don't know what the dev cost increase would be. — Andy W. (talk) 00:43, 14 October 2016 (UTC)- What kind of workload are we talking about here New Unpatrolled Files currently only has 1 file backlog, and of the last 5000 manual patrols performed, only 69 are to the File: namespace, and most of those look like they are from people who would fairly easily qualify for Patrol access. — xaosflux Talk 02:57, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
- I checked the core code myself and it's apparent that MediaWiki:markaspatrolledtext-file is related to
RfC for page patroller qualifications
Following up from the consensus reached here, the community will now establish the user right criteria. You may wish to participate in this discussion. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Self-closed tag pages keep drifting into the category
Category:Pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags is adding new pages all the time, despite its being nearly three months old, and based on some insource searches I have done, many thousands of pages have yet to be added. Examples: 3,777 pages, 223 pages, 173 pages, 118 pages, 133 pages (with some false positives, but mostly error pages).
Can you please run Fluxbot 6 through the current contents of the category to fix the easy cases? That will enable human editors to focus on the tricky ones. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:08, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
- Jonesey95 I sure will - likely in the next couple of days. The category slowly populates by the software for pages that are not actively edited. — xaosflux Talk 13:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
- The pages listed here could also use a pass by the bot so that editing them doesn't clog watchlists. They have self-closed span tags within "includeonly" sections, so the pages themselves do not show up in the category, but pages that transclude them are in the category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:57, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I see that the bot is plowing through the category. Nice work! Note that Category:User pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags has been split from the main category for some reason. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:22, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- Hi Jonesey95 was just about to ping you, at start of current run there were 4291 pages, run 1 just finished lowering it to 2284; the split is good - we really should concentrate on Articles first - because they are most likely to impact readers. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks! There are only four article-space pages in the category right now, at least according to a petscan search, and no templates. I'll see if I can fix those right now.
- Hi Jonesey95 was just about to ping you, at start of current run there were 4291 pages, run 1 just finished lowering it to 2284; the split is good - we really should concentrate on Articles first - because they are most likely to impact readers. — xaosflux Talk 16:25, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- I did some null edits on the results of insource searchs to add about 3,000 pages to the category. I'll be off-wiki for a day or two, but I have a few more searches to do that will probably add a few hundred more pages. I may ping you for another run after that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- This bot task is primarily fully supervised, if you find a very very explicit pattern with high use I may run it semi-supervised (spot check mode) on it. This has been good for cleaning up things like old broken user signatures, but the error rate is too high if the pattern is not very specific. — xaosflux Talk 16:37, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- We're making good progress. It looks like you got about 3,000 articles out of the category on your last bot run, and I got another 800 or so out over the last few days. I have added a few hundred more to the User/User Talk subcategory through insource searches and null edits, and both categories are ready for another pass. I have noticed that many of the errors in these pages are caused by editors' signatures. Here are a few patterns that have cropped up quite a bit, and their replacements:
\<b\/\>fan71→\<nowiki\/\>fan71(User Kornfan71)\<\/sup\/\>\<p style=\"font\-family→\<p style=\"font\-family');(User Journalist)pie\]\]\<sup\/\>→\pie\]\]\<sup\>(User Illogicalpie)
- There may be more editor sigs that you find, but these are the most common that I have found. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
- We're making good progress. It looks like you got about 3,000 articles out of the category on your last bot run, and I got another 800 or so out over the last few days. I have added a few hundred more to the User/User Talk subcategory through insource searches and null edits, and both categories are ready for another pass. I have noticed that many of the errors in these pages are caused by editors' signatures. Here are a few patterns that have cropped up quite a bit, and their replacements:
- This bot task is primarily fully supervised, if you find a very very explicit pattern with high use I may run it semi-supervised (spot check mode) on it. This has been good for cleaning up things like old broken user signatures, but the error rate is too high if the pattern is not very specific. — xaosflux Talk 16:37, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
- I did some null edits on the results of insource searchs to add about 3,000 pages to the category. I'll be off-wiki for a day or two, but I have a few more searches to do that will probably add a few hundred more pages. I may ping you for another run after that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:1
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:1. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Template:Anarchism sidebar
Consensus will never be reached because there are two intractable sides, at least one of which has resisted mediation. By locking the page you unilaterally have declared victory for one of the sides. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.221.197 (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
- Other than stopping an editing war, I have no specific interest in that template. If there is a change you would like to propose for that page, please list what you want it changed to and make an edit request on the talk page. For more information on resolving disputes, please see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. — xaosflux Talk 04:05, 9 October 2016 (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 show Special:RecentChanges on a page by using
{{Special:RecentChanges}}. You can now use tag filters by using{{Special:RecentChanges/tagfilter=tagname}}. [86] - The notification badge is coloured if you have notifications. When you check the notification the badge will now turn grey on all wikis instead of just the local one. [87]
- Colours used in the Wikimedia wikis' main interface changed slightly. This is to make them easier to see for readers and editors with reduced eyesight. [88]
Changes this week
- Hidden HTML comments will be more visible when you edit with the visual editor.
<!-- You write hidden HTML comments like this. -->[89] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 October. It will be on all wikis from 13 October (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week is CREDITS files. The meeting will be on 12 October at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Language converter syntax will soon no longer work inside external links. Wikitext like
http://-{zh-cn:foo.com; zh-hk:bar.com; zh-tw:baz.com}-must be replaced. You will have to write-{zh-cn: http://foo.com ; zh-hk: http://bar.com ; zh-tw:http://baz.com }-instead. This only affects languages with Language Converter enabled. Examples of such languages are Chinese and Serbian. [90]
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Motion picture rating system
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Motion picture rating system. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 14 October 2016
- News and notes: Fundraising, flora and fauna
- Discussion report: Cultivating leadership: Wikimedia Foundation seeks input
- Technology report: Upcoming tech projects for 2017
- Featured content: Variety is the spice of life
- Traffic report: Debates and escapes
- Recent research: A 2011 study resurfaces in a media report
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- There is a new newsletter from the Collaboration team at the Wikimedia Foundation. It will have more details about for example Flow and notifications. You can read the first issue.
Problems
- Some users got a warning about Wikipedia's security certificate last week. This was because of a problem GlobalSign had. This has now been fixed. Only a small number of users got the warning. [91]
- Editors couldn't edit semi-protected pages in the Wikipedia app for Android. This has now been fixed in the beta version. [92]
Changes this week
- There will be no new MediaWiki version this week. [93]
Future changes
- The Editing Department are working on a new wikitext editor. It will have tools that are in the visual editor but not in the wikitext editor today. You can read more about this. This is an early plan and things can change. The old wikitext editor will still exist.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Phab task
Hey xaos, wanted to ask if you might have time to look over a draft for the phabricator task for the recent RfC on userpage protection. I'm still working at it, but not having a lot of experience writing these up before, I wanted to get a second set of eyes on it, and it seems like you have some experience in this area. If you're too busy or not interested, that's fine too, just let me know. Thanks, I JethroBT drop me a line 17:28, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
- I JethroBT To start with, all of the technical goals (not the programming code) need to be very clearly spelled out and attached to the RfC. These should be of the "one thing per line" type variety. This change is likely not of the "easy" variety for developers overall - however some portions of it may be able to be introduced in pieces. If you start drafting these line by line onwiki, I can help make sure they make sense prior to throwing this in to phab (and it may be in to multiple phab tickets). For an example, see the "Summary of under the covers technical changes" on Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/RfC_for_patroller_qualifications — xaosflux Talk 00:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: Thanks. I've started a draft in my userspace here. I've tried to keep it fairly simple, and pointed to settings that may need to change based on feedback in the RfC and a little of my own research on MediaWiki. I can see how these changes may not be simple, though I'm not sure how to break these up into more specific technical goals. Any suggestions? I JethroBT drop me a line 21:51, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
RevDel Request
Hello, Xaosflux. I would like to request revision deletion under R2 for this edit on my userpage. Also, if there is some alternative way that I'm supposed to use to request this that I didn't know about, I would be glad to hear about it. Thanks for looking at this request, Gluons12 ☢|☕ 19:15, 17 October 2016 (UTC).
- Done Gluons12 this is completed - you can also see Wikipedia:Revision_deletion#How_to_request_Revision_Deletion. — xaosflux Talk 19:26, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks...
for the barnstar. I would have cleared it the other day but Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Raging Fire (band) confused me. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 22:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Category talk:Culture by city
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Category talk:Culture by city. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 23:57, 23 October 2016 (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
- The abuse filters had a problem and caught too many edits. This has now been fixed. [94]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 25. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from October 26. It will be on all wikis from October 27 (calendar).
- The "Search" text in the search box will show the name of the project. For example, on Wikipedia it will say "Search Wikipedia". [95]
- About a dozen wikis now have numerical sorting in categories. If your wiki wants numerical sorting in categories you can ask for it. [96]
- Some wikis that want numerical sorting in categories can also ask to use UCA to sort categories. The biggest difference is that characters with diacritics will be sorted together. For example, for most languages Ä will be sorted with A instead of at the end of the alphabet. This is not true for languages that have Ä as a character in their alphabet. Wikis that already use UCA are listed on Meta. Languages that can use UCA are listed on MediaWiki.org. You can test it.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Username policy
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Username policy. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2016 (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
- Now you can include Commons video films with subtitles in your wiki language. Before you could see translated videos on file page at Commons only. [97]
- Search now has an updated preference tab to configure the search completion suggester. [98]
- The visual editor is now available on all wikis using only one language script. [99]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 1st. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 2nd. It will be on all wikis from November 3rd (calendar).
- Now you can use autocomplete for page names in "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" field when editing templates. [100]
- Special:NewPages can now be filtered by page size. [101]
Future changes
- New MediaWiki deployments will be now based on MediaWiki 1.29. [102]
Miscellaneous
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Technical Collaboration Guideline is available for community review. Any feedback welcome, in any language.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Category:Wikipedian new page patrollers
Could you please empty the Category:Wikipedian new page patrollers of patrollers, I don't know how to do it. There is no need to delete the cat itself. These are the ones that remain after deleting the userbox templates that were transcluded but not subst'ed. I've explained at WT:PERM why this needs to be done. It's so tat I can send the mass message to all former 1,800 users on the list you made so that if they are still around (roughly 50% of them are/were never genuine patrollers, and many others are simply no longer editing),I can send the mass message encouraging those who might still be around to apply for the new right. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:48, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: there is no "simple" way to empty a category - it requires going to everywhere it is in use and removing it - if it is in a template (like a userbox) it can be updated in one place (and it looks like it may have been) - but for everyone who just slapped the category on their page usually a bot needs to go do it - and there are bots that will do this following a WP:CFD. I created the CFD for you, please enter the rationale here: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_November_1#Category:Wikipedian_new_page_patrollers. If you want the existing members of the category removed, "delete" is fine - if you want them moved to a new category change this to "rename". — xaosflux Talk 12:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for your help. I've just completed the deletion rationale. I suppose for everyone who just slapped the category on their page a bot will be needed to go do it.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:52, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
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Dat GuyTalkContribs 12:37, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Talkback
Message added 01:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Please comment on Talk:Klaatu
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Klaatu. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Admin newsletter
I've suggested that here should be a regular newsletter for admins (see details at User talk:MusikAnimal#PERM). Would you be interested in being part of a small editorial team? I see you have recently created an admin mass mailing list. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:14, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
'Crat question
Hey, I am thinking about trying for an RfA again. (Yeah, I know...) My question is how things have changed since last fall in terms of who monitors !voter and comment behavior and other supervision of the process -- My understanding is that it is the 'crats. During my previous RfA there was a fair amount of chaos. In general, I was just wondering about the changes in policies that govern RfAs and if you had any suggestions for how to keep things a bit calmer than they were last year if I throw my hat in again. I know where isn't anything more to be done about things like this or the off-wiki doxxing that occurred, but I am wondering how the RfA world could handle round two of me trying for RfA. Montanabw(talk) 08:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
- Montanabw, RfA is still contentious and as you had the second most opposed (by !votes) application in the last 3 years (2014, 2015, 2016) you may expect to get a lot of scrutiny and be prepared to address any concerns that were raised last year. Civility enforcement on the RfA page is ultimately maintained by 'crats and most of us do watch the pages - but we try not to get involved with anything that may steer the results. There is a recent discussion about moving certain discussions to the RfA talk pages you may want to look at as well. — xaosflux Talk 15:18, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
- Fascinating, and thanks for the link. I commented. Oh, I do expect scrutiny next time around. My concern is, the concern about steering the results by inconsistent action ... in my case, all sorts of people were moving and deleting other people's stuff, and in one case, a !voting admin was selectively removing some comments of other people -- arguably, anyone who !voted should not be allowed to do any of that. It would be useful if one can point to consistent rules about WHO can alter comments! In addition, I was VERY troubled by the things that wound up revdeled after the AfC closed (which should have been struck by a neutral "traffic cop" at the time), and things like the person (a now-indef blocked editor) who kept altering their comments without using strkeout or other indicia so people knew that that editor had done so, thus creating a false record of the discussion. My primary concern is that I am unclear how to handle such things if they happen this year and would be interested in a better understanding of what is a 'crat issue, what might be an oversighter issue and what is a "any random person can do this-- except the candidate" situation. I need to stay above the fray, but there times when I really wanted to say something last year (mostly the items I pointed out here). I am actually saying this not only for myself, but other controversial candidates. Montanabw(talk) 20:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
- Montanabw, going right back to the reform project I led at WP:RFA2011 the community has formly rejected the introduction od any official mechanism for clerking' the RfAs. Bureaucrats have not been given any additional powers and the right (or more accurately, the possibility) for absolutely anyone to mess with the process whether constructively or disruptively still remains. And whether those interventions are constructive or disruptive also remains very much open to debate. The spite, nastiness, and disingenuous voting that pervades RfA still continues unabated, and with total impunity. The recent (Dec 2015) round of reforms did nothing to improve the situation - leaving the question: What was the ultimate purpose of those reforms? They certainly have not encouraged more candidates of the right calibre to come forward. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
- Correct, not much "powers and rights" - I agree it is still a messy area. Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform/Phase II/Clerking RfC was the closet that came regarding "clerking" by 'crats - though no crat is required to do this. — xaosflux Talk 02:42, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
- Montanabw, going right back to the reform project I led at WP:RFA2011 the community has formly rejected the introduction od any official mechanism for clerking' the RfAs. Bureaucrats have not been given any additional powers and the right (or more accurately, the possibility) for absolutely anyone to mess with the process whether constructively or disruptively still remains. And whether those interventions are constructive or disruptive also remains very much open to debate. The spite, nastiness, and disingenuous voting that pervades RfA still continues unabated, and with total impunity. The recent (Dec 2015) round of reforms did nothing to improve the situation - leaving the question: What was the ultimate purpose of those reforms? They certainly have not encouraged more candidates of the right calibre to come forward. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
- Fascinating, and thanks for the link. I commented. Oh, I do expect scrutiny next time around. My concern is, the concern about steering the results by inconsistent action ... in my case, all sorts of people were moving and deleting other people's stuff, and in one case, a !voting admin was selectively removing some comments of other people -- arguably, anyone who !voted should not be allowed to do any of that. It would be useful if one can point to consistent rules about WHO can alter comments! In addition, I was VERY troubled by the things that wound up revdeled after the AfC closed (which should have been struck by a neutral "traffic cop" at the time), and things like the person (a now-indef blocked editor) who kept altering their comments without using strkeout or other indicia so people knew that that editor had done so, thus creating a false record of the discussion. My primary concern is that I am unclear how to handle such things if they happen this year and would be interested in a better understanding of what is a 'crat issue, what might be an oversighter issue and what is a "any random person can do this-- except the candidate" situation. I need to stay above the fray, but there times when I really wanted to say something last year (mostly the items I pointed out here). I am actually saying this not only for myself, but other controversial candidates. Montanabw(talk) 20:32, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
- Kudpung's comments about the problems are spot on. The messiness of the process is a barrier to people becoming candidates at RfA. It is an issue and over the long term, a concern. If the community can police itself, that would be a good thing to see. I think a very simple solution would be to either have uninvolved, non-voting admins who agree to clerk, or perhaps have one supporter and one opponent to agree to !vote and then work together to fairly and equally supervise the process. Montanabw(talk) 08:05, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
- In the media: Washington Post continues in-depth Wikipedia coverage
- Wikicup: WikiCup winners
- Discussion report: What's on your tech wishlist for the coming year?
- Technology report: New guideline for technical collaboration; citation templates now flag open access content
- Featured content: Cream of the crop
- Traffic report: Un-presidential politics
- Arbitration report: Recapping October's activities
MassMessage
Well, to be honest, I've tried mass-message, and have not been pleased. It doesn't work at all as well as I'd like it to - I returned to using AWB because it allows me more control over what pages I hit with the message. I know there's supposed to be a way that I can create a list of pages and use mass-message to target those, rather than a category, but I haven't been able to make it work yet. If you could point me towards a tutorial, or explain to me how I could do something like that, I'd be happy to return to the mass-message function. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 19:08, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) Mass-messaging with categories is problematic. I send messages for the Guild of Copy Editors using a list of user names that lives on a page, and it works well for me. These are the short instructions another editor made for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:42, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
- OK. I've figured out what I need to do to make mass-messaging work, I think. Should be OK from here on out. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 21:11, 7 November 2016 (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
- Victoria Coleman is the new Chief technology officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. [103]
- First release candidate for MediaWiki 1.28 is now available. [104]
-
.gitreviewfor MediaWiki branches and extensions switched from targeting a specific branch to usingtrack=1. [105] - Section numbers in Table of Contents boxes will use grey to improve readability. [106]
Changes this week
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 7 November.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 8th. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 9th. It will be on all wikis from November 10th (calendar).
- Special:ActiveUsers will allow users groups selection. [107]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 8 November 2016 at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topics this week are Image Thumbnail API and allow SVG files uploaded on MediaWiki to have XHTML namespaces. The meeting will be on 9 November at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- RevisionSlider will be enabled by default on all beta wikis, on testwiki, testwiki2, mediawikiwiki and de.wikipedia.org. [108][109][110]
- Upcoming holidays will impact deployments. The schedule has been published.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:01, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
NPR phases
Hi Xaosflux, wanted to follow up on the second phase separately. I believe the ~41 remaining users listed at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/List3 accorded should be evaluated "eventually" (a week or two if really need be). It may be seen as unfair that some editors are not evaluated on that list based on their alphabetical positioning.
Side note: as one who suggested the phased approach on the RfC and on the ticket, and despite support from devs on the ticket, didn't mean to overcomplicate this stage if it did... was a good faith suggestion to help with the technical permissions transition, since it involved a revocation. Didn't mean to step out of my purview if I did, and apologies that I myself am unable to help with the list. — Andy W. (talk) 01:29, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
- It doesn't bother me any, I'm just trying to get a feel if the community thinks we have satisfied or not satisfied the RfC closing provisions. — xaosflux Talk 02:03, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
- Andy M. Wang, there are no rules on Wikipedia about the order in which items on a list should be addressed. I abandoned the list because (not in order)
- nobody else was prepared to help with the list in spite of asking
- nobody could find a way of creating a proper list anyway, despite the presence of some seasoned IT geeks on this particular project
- There was no proper sequence or coordination of the various items to be carried out before the right was rolled out, categories created, and PERM going live.
- For the work on the NPP project I started 4 years ago and dedicated 1000s of hours to and finally got consensus for, when I pointed out all the above issues, I was told that I was no longer required.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:17, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Confirmation status
Thank you so much!
Actually I lied, this is not my account at all, I just found it on BugMeNot. (And it wasn't that easy either BTW -- did you know that Wikipedia is still available on it (and similar sites) under wikipedia.com or alternate domain components such as xx.wikipedia.org or wikipedia.xx? (I'm telling you that because I hope that you -- meaning, Wikipedia -- won't be able to prevent *all* combinations on *all* such sites anyway...))
Though still, the reason I obtained this account and asked for the permission *was* in good faith. I was hoping to (I just didn't get to owing to lack of time) use it to tell a certain admin who has semi-protected his talk page that he's being a harmful clown for blanket-removing a certain edit of mine.
And no, that edit was not insulting at all. It was about reinstating a certain simple good faith template I made. It was completely apolitical (didn't use a single word of human language), using #exprs, CSS border radii, et c., and removed only because of (another admin's) technical incompetence.
Why not give it a look and restore the template (or give other users feedback if it's unfitting the wiki for any reason, if you feel like it)?
Regards! ~~~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiktoria14 (talk • contribs)
- Blocked, locked. However will follow up with admin with spp talk page. — xaosflux Talk 03:57, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Damn
Oops, I figured I'd screw something up. Thanks for fixing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
- given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow :) — xaosflux Talk 18:51, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins
Hello,
Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
I have just completed a triage of this list (which took several hours), but suddenly it no longer displays its content. Its edit history is intact and the content is there when viewed from the 'edit' mode. Why is this? Is there anything you can do? I believe it happened when I created the talk page for the list.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- Checking right now, I'll fix it one way or another! — xaosflux Talk 03:49, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: Done I think there is a bug of some kind in that extension, possibly related to copy pasting that may include invisible right-to-left text markers. — xaosflux Talk 03:54, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks:) I'll just finish a second quick triage run then get the newsletter out. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- Newsletter sent to just under 1,500 users. I didn't realise until too late that the debug tweaks you made restored all the users I triaged out of the list (I was working on a backup list on my hard disc). Never mind, around 50 of them were indef blocked, while the vast majority of the rest were either users whose only edit (or one of their first 5 or so edits) was to add the userbox to their user page never to edit again, users who have not edited for many years, or users with extremely low edit counts. All as I anticipated (mainly based on the complex NPP survey I designed and ran a few years ago) in which the total list came to 3,937 users having patrolled new pages, excluding blocked editors. Of the non-blocked users:
- @Kudpung:
- Checking right now, I'll fix it one way or another! — xaosflux Talk 03:49, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- 2,504 came from Scottywong's list of patrollers;
- 1,300 self-identified with a “new page patroller” userbox;
- 133 self-identified with a “this user uses Twinkle...” userbox.
Of the users asked to fill in the survey, only 1,255 responded which after removing the nonsense responses only 304 were left. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:03, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- Wow lot of work there! Good job! — xaosflux Talk 05:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'm about to send a newsletter to all admins informing them of the new user right. Could you please check it out. It's here. Thanks.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:19, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- Kudpung It seems OK, there is a mailing list here: Wikipedia:Administrators/Message list. — xaosflux Talk 13:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'm about to send a newsletter to all admins informing them of the new user right. Could you please check it out. It's here. Thanks.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:19, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Competing bots?
This looks odd. - Brianhe (talk) 05:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
- Brianhe The robot wars have begun! Actually, that was a run of User:Fluxbot#Task5 for Special:PermaLink/749415268#Bot_mistake_help, rollback of a malfunctioning bot. — xaosflux Talk 05:39, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Bot war
GreenC bot appears to be in an edit war with Fluxbot, as indicated by these edits:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gustave_Whitehead&diff=749389266&oldid=746210088
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gustave_Whitehead&diff=749414086&oldid=749389266
DonFB (talk) 05:48, 14 November 2016 (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
- When you edit with the visual editor you can use
meta+shift+kto add a reference. The meta key is often the control key or command key. [111]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 15. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 16. It will be on all wikis from November 17 (calendar).
- In Special:Preferences you can choose which language menus and buttons will be in. If there is no translation for that language, MediaWiki has a list of fallback languages. A fallback language is a language many will understand better than English. MediaWiki will now use English when there is no Ukrainian translation. [112]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 15 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Magic links might not work in the future. [113]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi Xaosflux.
A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.
It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.
If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Messasge List
Hi. I've spent an hour trying to create a message list at Special:CreateMassMessageList but either the instructions are not clear or I'm missing something (probably the latter). Within the New Page Reviewer project I need a list called Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants message list. The list to import is here. Can you help? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:45, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
- Done @Kudpung: the list has been made, it can be tricky. There are two entries on your import list you may need to review and add if they are needed:
user talk:** {{user3|JJBers Public ; user talk:**{{user2|Sandgem Addict. — xaosflux Talk 15:17, 15 November 2016 (UTC)- Thank you very much for your help. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:55, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the heads up about those two. Sandgem was a false positive, but I have removed JJBers from the list and from reviewing drafts at AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:55, 15 November 2016 (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) 04:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Watchlist notice
Hi Xaos, hope you're well. I'm a little concerned we're still seeing admin accounts compromised - do you think a watchlist notice urging users to change passwords would be appropriate? -- samtar talk or stalk 13:32, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- Not yet, this is being discussed on the mailing list - as far as admins go we already mass messages all of them. If this is to the point where we want to encourage all editors to act we should do a sitenotice, not a watchlist notice - but I think it is premature right now; we can discuss on VP if you'd like to get more input. — xaosflux Talk 14:28, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- Worth noting I boldly created the edit request for it, which was done - I agree discussion is needed to deal with the long term solution, but with account compromises as recent as hours ago I think now is the time to get people resetting passwords or enabling 2FA -- samtar talk or stalk 14:36, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- It won't hurt - the massmessae should have gotten ahold of the admins already - but if we need all the editors, then sitenotice-logged-in is the way to go. — xaosflux Talk 14:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, is this being tracked anywhere on phab/elsewhere? I'm sub'd to T150605 but I would imagine (hope?) there is incident documentation going on -- samtar talk or stalk 14:44, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- FWIW, I read the mass message, followed up on what to do, found it terribly complicated and/or needing paid subscriptions to external services, that I gave up on it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: you may find the simple guide which Ritchie and I have written useful -- samtar talk or stalk 21:44, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- It won't hurt - the massmessae should have gotten ahold of the admins already - but if we need all the editors, then sitenotice-logged-in is the way to go. — xaosflux Talk 14:39, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
- Worth noting I boldly created the edit request for it, which was done - I agree discussion is needed to deal with the long term solution, but with account compromises as recent as hours ago I think now is the time to get people resetting passwords or enabling 2FA -- samtar talk or stalk 14:36, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
New Page Reviewer
Hi Xaosflux. I noticed that my new page feed has become different (the yellow highlighting is absent now on unreviewed pages), probably because of the New Page Reviewer right addition. I noticed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers that there is a Grandfather clause: "Users who made at least 200 uncontested patrols between 1 January 2016 and 6 October 2016 will be accorded the right by administrators without the need to apply at WP:PERM." I have 200 plus uncontested manual patrolled edits between these dates. Would you please be able to accord the said flag to me? I have read the tutorial and have a clean CSD log with only two rejections in all my CSD tags till date, both which got eventually deleted. Thank you. Lourdes 06:02, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
- Lourdes I did a quick check of your [114]log for the grandfathering status, there may possibly be a database issue but it looks like you were just short of the automatic requirement (only patrols of "new articles" were in the count and the "automatic" patrols don't count). I don't normally do a lot with NPR, so may be missing something. I suggest you drop a request over at WP:PERM, they have been getting resolved fairly quickly. If you mention your prior CSD log and that you have already reviewed WP:NPR and Wikipedia:Page_Curation/Help (which is a newer new-page patrolling utility that you may find greatly helps-it takes a little getting used to but is better for dealing with the non-speedy deletion type new pages) I don't think you should have any issue getting set up. — xaosflux Talk 12:53, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Talkback
Message added 01:35, 21 November 2016 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
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
- Administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers can now use two-factor authentication. This makes their Wikimedia accounts more secure. This can be turned on in Special:Preferences. There are discussions on how to best turn it on for everyone. [115]
- You can now search for file properties. For example you can search for media type, how big a file is or what resolution it has. [116]
- The latest Collaboration team products newsletter has been published. It has more details about their work than Tech News has.
Problems
- A hacker group is hacking Wikimedia accounts. They can probably do this because users have the same passwords on Wikimedia wikis as on other sites. Please have a password you use only on the Wikimedia wikis and nowhere else. This is especially important for administrators, bureaucrats, oversighters and checkusers. These users can also turn on two-factor authentication. [117]
Changes this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
- RevisionSlider will be a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia. This will happen on 22 November. It will come to other wikis later. [118][119][120]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 22 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- It will be possible to do cross-wiki search. The developers who work on this are looking for communities that want to test this. [121]
- Hovercards will leave the beta stage. The Wikimedia Foundation Reading Web team wants communities to set Hovercards as a default option for readers who are not logged in. Communities that are interested can say so on the Hovercards talk page. [122]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!
Hello, Xaosflux. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
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 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
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One quick request again
Hi Xaosflux :) One quick request again. In September, I had requested and you had helped me by unchecking the auto patroller and reviewer flags. Katie has been kind enough to give the rollback bit. Might I request you to please add back the reviewer and auto patrol bit? Thanks and cheers. Lourdes 02:43, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Lourdes: - Done — xaosflux Talk 03:45, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Oh thank you so much. Lourdes 03:55, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 4 November 2016
- News and notes: Arbitration Committee elections commence
- Featured content: Featured mix
- Special report: Taking stock of the Good Article backlog
- Traffic report: President-elect Trump
New Page Review - newsletter
- Breaking the back of the backlog
If each reviewer does only 10 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by each reviewer doing only 2 or 3 reviews a day - that's about 5 minutes work!
Let's get that over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
- Second set of eyes
Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work. Read about it at the new Monitoring the system section in the tutorial.
- Getting the tools we need - 2016 WMF Wishlist Survey: Please vote
With some tweaks to their look, and some additional features, Page Curation and New Pages Feed could easily be the best tools for patrollers and reviewers. We've listed most of what what we need at the 2016 WMF Wishlist Survey. Voting starts on 28 November - please turn out to make our bid the Foundation's top priority. Please help also by improving or commenting on our Wishlist entry at the Community Wishlist Survey. Many other important user suggestions are listed at at Page Curation.
Sent to all New Page Reviewers. Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:16, 26 November 2016 (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 this week
- When someone tries to log in to a blocked account they will be blocked by a cookie. This means their browser will be blocked even if they change their IP address. This makes it more difficult for returning vandals. [123]
- When you use Content Translation to adapt a template to a new translation it will work differently. You can adapt big templates such as infoboxes. Translators will have control over the template parameters. A first version of this is released this week. It is possible it will not work correctly with all templates. There will be more updates for this soon. [124]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 November. It will be on all wikis from 1 December (calendar).
- Gadgets will have a new option called "hidden". This means you can register gadgets that can't be turned on or off from the preferences page. Hiding gadgets was already possible by using
[rights=hidden]. You should now use[hidden]instead.[rights=hidden]in old gadgets should be changed to[hidden]. [125][126]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 29 November at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tool Labs could get two new policies. One would be to be able to adopt tools without an active developer. The other would be a right to fork. There is a request for comment on Meta.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:17, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Royal free city
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Royal free city. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Rollback
Hello! I just wanted to know if it's okay to add a comment like the one I did to a user's rollback request, the one you just marked as not done. Adotchar| reply here 22:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Adotchar: It isn't normally necessary - closing admin typically go through those type of stats - it is "okay" in that there is no policy against it; if you have specific information that is not obvious from statistics (like 'this diff shows user X vandalized article Y) that type of information is usually welcome. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 22:50, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks. I get bored sometimes and do some quick checks for people and just state it, instead of having admins go through his stats. Adotchar| reply here 00:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
- If you were to look at my account now, would you say I would qualify for rollback permissions? I don't have it yet, and I need it for STiki. Adotchar| reply here 00:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks. I get bored sometimes and do some quick checks for people and just state it, instead of having admins go through his stats. Adotchar| reply here 00:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
- replied at User_talk:Widr#Rollback. — xaosflux Talk 01:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Infobox_television
Moved to Template talk:Infobox televisionYour edit on the television infobox [127] is causing problems in cases like this and this where information about the second title is in parenthesis. Is there a way around this? Could you revert it if there isn't? Grapesoda22 (talk) 06:49, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
Why did you revert it? I made a valid point. Several articles those articles I listed and several others are screwed up since you reverted. Grapesoda22 (talk) 01:04, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Grapesoda22: At Template_talk:Infobox_television#Italicized_show_name you said you were satisfied by the explanation Mdrnpndr gave. At this point, please discuss any additional reverts at Template_talk:Infobox_television - if you have a version ready to go, please file an edit request there. — xaosflux Talk 01:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
- I meant I was satisfy with you removing it. Grapesoda22 (talk) 01:40, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
- We could just add a second alternative label for unformated alternative titles. Like this: (its only readable to you from the editing page)
|show_name_2 =
|Rshow_name_2 =
| label1 = Also known as
| data1 =
| label2 = Also known as | data2 =
Grapesoda22 (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Grapesoda22: Please make your suggested edit at Template:Infobox television/sandbox, test it, then make an edit request at Template talk:Infobox television. — xaosflux Talk 02:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
New Page Review - newsletter #2
- Please help reduce the New Page backlog
This is our second request. The backlog is still growing. Your help is needed now - just a few minutes each day.
- Getting the tools we need
ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT TO VOTE
Sent to all New Page Reviewers. Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:55, 11 December 2016 (UTC) .
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 12 December 2016 (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
- Users who have Yahoo email addresses could not use Special:EmailUser to send emails. This has now been fixed. Emails will now come from a @wikimedia.org address. Users who get an email from you will still reply to your email address and be able to see it. [128]
- You can now see how many categories and pages there are in the categories in Special:TrackingCategories. This is to help you find pages that could need attention. [129]
- Markup colours for reviewed and pending revisions in the page history and recent changes and logs now match Wikimedia standard colours. The "You have a new message on your talk page" notification will have a slightly different colour. [130]
Problems
- Because of work on cross-wiki watchlists global renaming is not working. The plan is to turn it on again on 16 December. Global renaming was turned off for a while in late November and early December as well. [131]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on December 13 at 20:00 (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.
19:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)
Thanks for your answer at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Mass revert in a specific spacename. Is there any chance that your bot could fulfill that task (removing all Ark25 edits from article talk space)? Thanks in advance.Ionutzmovie (talk) 00:25, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Checking... — xaosflux Talk 00:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
- See w:ro:Discuție_Utilizator:Xaosflux#Ark25. — xaosflux Talk 00:39, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Infobox officeholder
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox officeholder. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 18 December 2016 (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.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2017.
- The writers of the technical newsletter are asking for your opinion. Did you get the information you wanted this year? Did we miss important technical news in 2016? What kind of information was too late? Please tell us! You can write in your language. Thank you!
Recent changes
- Administrators and translation administrators can now use Special:PageLanguage on wikis with the Translate extension. This means you can say what language a page is in. The Translate extension will use that language as the source language when you translate. Previously this was always the wiki's default language. This was usually English. [132]
- Wikis connected to Wikidata can now use the parser function
{{#statements: }}to get formatted data. You can also use{{#property: }}to get raw data. You can see the difference between the two statements. There are also similar new functions in Lua. [133]
Problems
- Some abuse filters for uploaded files have not worked as they should. We don't know exactly which filters didn't work yet. This means some files that filters should have prevented from being uploaded were uploaded to the wikis. MediaWiki.org and Testwiki have been affected since 13 October. Commons and Meta have been affected since 17 October. Other wikis have been affected since 17 November. [134]
Changes this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week. There will be no new MediaWiki version next week either.
Meetings
- The next meeting with the VisualEditor team will be on 3 January at 20:00 (UTC). During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey is done. It decides what the Community Tech team will work on during 2017. You can see the results.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
NPR
Can you check what's wrong with this list please. When I added User talk:Rwxrwxrwx, it blanked the page. I restored the list by undoing my edit. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
- Readded, seems OK now. MMS content model is a little buggy still :( — xaosflux Talk 17:56, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
The Signpost: 22 December 2016
- Year in review: Looking back on 2016
- News and notes: Strategic planning update; English ArbCom election results
- Special report: German ArbCom implodes
- Featured content: The Christmas edition
- Technology report: Labs improvements impact 2016 Tool Labs survey results
- Traffic report: Post-election traffic blues
- Recent research: One study and several abstracts
Extended confirmed protection policy RfC
You are receiving this notification because you participated in a past RfC related to the use of extended confirmed protection levels. There is currently a discussion ongoing about two specific use cases of extended confirmed protection. You are invited to participate. ~ Rob13Talk (sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC))
BAG News
| BAG News August 2016 | |
|---|---|
 Greetings Bot Approvals Group member!
Thank you! — xaosflux Talk 23:32, 8 August 2016 (UTC) (You can unsubscribe from future BAG Spam by removing your name from this list.) | |
Precious anniversary
 | |
| speedy keep | |
|---|---|
| ... you were recipient no. 998 of Precious, a prize of QAI! |
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:27, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Barnstar of Diligence |
| I've noticed a few situations lately where you've jumped in to help with a challenging task. Just want to make sure you know it isn't going unnoticed — thanks S Philbrick(Talk) 18:13, 14 November 2016 (UTC) |
Yes, that was legitimately me. — xaosflux Talk 03:20, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Extended content
|
|---|
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Yes, that was legitimately me. ~~~~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Encryption Desktop 10.3.1 (Build 13100) Charset: utf-8 wj8DBQFYK9CS1FANkJA0rpgRAvAAAJwOmFm/4sBW2SFua5AbLU2Pac6HNACfWyFT 1dJIdvqffjeOZKCaQwF8YmA= =ixfD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
NOINDEX in mainspace
I was reading through the latest NPP RfC and related threads and noticed something I'm apparently confused about. I figure you'd probably know :) Much has been made of the possible dangers of "bad" new articles getting indexed by search engines. Speedy tags apply {{NOINDEX}}, but is it actually the case that new articles are not indexed until patrolled? I don't believe that was true last year (last time I had a reason to notice), but I may be behind. WP:NOINDEX seems to be out of date. I tried to test it by creating an article with my sock, but was lucky enough that it was patrolled quickly. (Yet the article still isn't indexed on google, and others I created today with my main account are... unfortunately I don't have enough articles stored up for any more sampling :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:59, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Opabinia regalis: (no)indexing isn't always an exact science. Since October 2016 (c.f. phab:T147544) new articles get an html attribute applied
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/>until they are patrolled (or until 90 days go by, I haven't tested that). This attribute is also applied if the article contains a deletion tag such as {{speedy}}. Note, this is similar, but not identical to the behavior that __NOINDEX__ uses. There is a configuration parameter$wgExemptFromUserRobotsControlthat prevents the INDEX, NOINDEX magic words from overriding the namespace default (which for Namesapce:0 (Article) is set to INDEX). This is to prevent vandals from NOINDEX'ing random pages out of search. The noindex meta tab is merely a request to web crawlers - Google generally honors these - but some search engine may not. Finally, being available for indexed doesn't require or "push" a notice to all of the search providers of the world - it is up to them to fetch and index a page - sometimes this is fast, sometimes it takes a long time. Hope this helps. — xaosflux Talk 14:06, 23 November 2016 (UTC)- Yeah, I know it's not a push notification that pops up immediately; it's just very noticeable that I created three articles yesterday on very similar topics, and the two created by this account were indexed immediately, but the one that needed "patrolling" is still absent. Hardly statistically significant, but I hadn't given it much thought because most of my articles are on very obscure topics and they usually pop up in google searches for the title near-instantly. I suppose we'll have to at least update the boilerplate for autopatrolled - the conventional wisdom is that the user right doesn't benefit the holder, but does benefit others by saving them some work; that's clearly no longer true if we assume that people create new articles because they want others to find and read them.
- Anyway, thanks for the phab link, that's what I was looking for. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:34, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Opabinia regalis I can't find the documentation - but I hear that google does follow our new pages feed - but that non-autopatrolled page (autopatrol is included in your sysop group) would have been skipped - so now it would have to wait to get spider-indexed. I'm assuming you are referring to New Jersey polyomavirus. I pulled the source on it, and it is not (now) flagged for noindex. I made a minor edit on it, that may help kickstart indexing on an external site. Please note, none of this behavior has changed due to removing the patrol behavior from autoconfirmed users - non-autopatrolled editors woudl still have needed someone else to mark their page as patrolled. This indexing behavior is likely different due to the October software update. — xaosflux Talk 20:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Opabinia regalis FYI - I used google webmaster tools to submit a request to crawl that page now - and now it is the #2 search result: google-result-here. — xaosflux Talk 20:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- p.s. google has massive caches - I got it to show me that result, but when reloading its not up - their index will take a little time to replicate. — xaosflux Talk 20:57, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Ahhh, if google is directly following the new pages feed then that would make sense. Thanks, I see it now! (The other two articles are MW polyomavirus and STL polyomavirus, which were autopatrolled and indexed right away.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:26, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- p.s. google has massive caches - I got it to show me that result, but when reloading its not up - their index will take a little time to replicate. — xaosflux Talk 20:57, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Opabinia regalis FYI - I used google webmaster tools to submit a request to crawl that page now - and now it is the #2 search result: google-result-here. — xaosflux Talk 20:53, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
- Opabinia regalis I can't find the documentation - but I hear that google does follow our new pages feed - but that non-autopatrolled page (autopatrol is included in your sysop group) would have been skipped - so now it would have to wait to get spider-indexed. I'm assuming you are referring to New Jersey polyomavirus. I pulled the source on it, and it is not (now) flagged for noindex. I made a minor edit on it, that may help kickstart indexing on an external site. Please note, none of this behavior has changed due to removing the patrol behavior from autoconfirmed users - non-autopatrolled editors woudl still have needed someone else to mark their page as patrolled. This indexing behavior is likely different due to the October software update. — xaosflux Talk 20:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
New Page Reviewer - RfC
Hi Xaosflux. You are invited to comment at a further discussion on the implementation of this user right to patrol and review new pages that is taking place at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC on patrolling without user right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
MfD nomination of Module:Shortcut/Sandbox
Module:Shortcut/Sandbox, a page which you created or substantially contributed to (or which is in your userspace), has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Module:Shortcut/Sandbox and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Module:Shortcut/Sandbox during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Pppery 18:44, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
bot on pl.wiki
Your bot are destroyng references: [135], [136], [137] and some other. Malarz pl (talk) 07:45, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
- Replied to you at w:pl:Dyskusja wikipedysty:Malarz pl. — xaosflux Talk 13:36, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Fluxbot request
Can Fluxbot please make a run through Category:User pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags? It looks like it is stable and not adding new pages via the job queue, and it has a lot of bot-fixable tags. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: I'm not getting many hits in there with my current replace options (and I'm running about 40 of them at once) - do you see any specific patterns that are highly repeated? — xaosflux Talk 16:50, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'm seeing lots of p/ and some h2/ and some /br and a little span/. Those are all bot-fixable. Others require manual oversight, which I can do. I was hoping you could clean out the easy ones for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: I got some, the /br's are broken, but they are not causing this categorization; the h2's should be good; the p's are a mess because it is not a simple <p/> replacement to something, sometimes it should be removed, sometimes swapped to </p> and sometimes replaced with line breaks or with <p></p>. I've run in to a few problem with the span regex I'm tweaking a bit more. — xaosflux Talk 17:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
- I'm seeing lots of p/ and some h2/ and some /br and a little span/. Those are all bot-fixable. Others require manual oversight, which I can do. I was hoping you could clean out the easy ones for me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Lists
Sorry to bother you but I wonder if you could make a list for me again (I really need to learn to do this myself, but the instructions are too vague to follow. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
- Kudpung Not a bother at all! List created here: Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Newsletter list. You can create a blank list using: Special:CreateMassMessageList and if you have a list of names like you did you can use 'Edit' on it to dump them in. The MMS content pages are a bit fragile, they don't like much in the description and can break with some users with certain special characters in their names. — xaosflux Talk 15:38, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you :) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:35, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Bureaucrat chat
I would be grateful for your input in the above discussion. Many thanks, WJBscribe via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:33, 5 December 2016 (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 choose to see users from specific user groups in Special:ActiveUsers. [138]
- Everyone can now see Special:UserRights. Previously only those who could change user rights could. Other users got an error message. [139]
- ORES can now show how likely an edit is to be damaging to the wiki with different colours. This only works for languages that have trained ORES to recognize damaging edits. [140]
Changes this week
- You will now see categories with 0 pages in Special:Categories. Previously you did not see empty categories there. [141]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 December. It will be on all wikis from 8 December (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 December at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2016 Community Wishlist Survey will decide what the Community Tech team will work on next year. You vote for wishes on the survey page until 12 December. You can see what has happened to last year's wishes on the 2015 results page.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
MusikBot II
What's the procedure for getting the bot/admin bits? Should I post at WP:BN? No rush, just curious :) I know you're super busy! And actually expect an email from me soon... :) — MusikAnimal talk 18:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
- If it isn't action after another day or so, post at BN for someone to review the closed BRFA for flagging. I would only do it if it was posted at BN and all the other crats ignore it - since I was the BAG approver. Note: dealing with the onhold RFA is a bit more priority for crats today :D — xaosflux Talk 19:44, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Video game content rating system
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Video game content rating system. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
You were mentioned at ANI
I've pinged you to this thread as it relates to CAPTAIN RAJU's NPP right which you granted, just to let you know -- samtar talk or stalk 14:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Link my blog on Wikipedia
Dear Sir, I want to link my blog [http: topcoconutoilsecrets . com/ The Coconut Oil Secrets] to this Wikipedia page. Is this possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wallsportfolio (talk • contribs) 18:18, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
- Most articles can be edited, please see Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for the types or links and sources the community generally supports being added to encyclopedia articles. If a technical block is preventing your edit, you can request it by clicking on the "talk" tab for the page and leaving a message for other editors. Some new and unregistered users are unable to add certain external links. — xaosflux Talk 18:58, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
BBC 12-hour Editathon - large influx of new pages & drafts expected
New Page Reviewers are asked to be especially on the look out 08:00-20:00 UTC (that's local London time - check your USA and AUS times) on Thursday 8 December for new pages. The BBC together with Wikimedia UK is holding a large 12-hour editathon. Many new articles and drafts are expected. See BBC 100 Women 2016: How to join our edit-a-thon. Follow also on #100womenwiki, and please, don't bite the newbies :) (user:Kudpung for NPR. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC))
Appreciation
Xaosflux, your consistently helpful suggestions are so refreshing, insightful and sincerely supportive. I'm honestly appreciative of your support and suggestions in all places where we have interacted. It's rare to find editors who are so forthcoming. Thank you. Lourdes 02:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Restoration of Admin Privileges
I haven't been on in some time but am back to do regular editing (at least I hope I will be). I don't have any specific need for admin privileges right now, but before I would regularly do some clean up on some lists that are edited in talk or user space then switched over on the date the changes become effective (such as merging histories etc).
Thanks for giving me the notices with clear instructions on how to restore admin privileges when the time comes. --Trödel 03:34, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Trödel: those are mostly form letters, but we do try to make sure they are clear and useful! Stop by WP:BN if you want to resume mopping. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 03:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
RfC
Hi. You may in fact not be aware of it, but mass messaging with the help of automated processes is expressly disallowed by an established guideline. I, for example, only mass inform users of RfC on highly important or sensitive issues that may broadly affect Wikipedia in general, and I do so in full observance of the rules. It's often a tedious task to do manually, but I see no reason why editors, particularly admins, should be encouraged to openly disregard an accepted convention. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- If you are referring to BU Rob13, I asked him to stop flooding recent changes with high speed assisted editing, MMS is much less impacting - as to the "content" of the message, I did not review it or comment on it, but BU Rob13 said he had already reviewed it against the canvassing guideline and I assumed good faith. His interpretation of that guideline to his activity may vary from other editors. Is there another specific guideline you are referring to? — xaosflux Talk 21:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
- This issue has got me in hot water for having done the right thing again. I was severely reprimanded by Risker a while back for even manually messaging concerned users. I think it was on the early NPP RfC - which passed. Using (semi) automated mass message systems for RfC - whether the message is neutral or not - is expressly disallowed by the guideline - something I have been aware of for years and which is unambiguous in its wording.. I am now on the thin end of the wedge for having complained to BU Rob13 for his abuse of admin privilege: a) because as an admin he already has permission to use mass message bots, and b) for insisting that the guideline does not apply to him. This all rather disappoints me, especially as on more than one occasion, his behaviour has nearly caused me to retire. I don't think that those of us who toe the line and act like reasonable admins for years should have to suffer these indignities. Perhaps someone should start yet another RfC (::sigh::) to get a consensus for that guideline - either to change it, or to maintain the status quo. The saddest thing is that Rob is indeed an enthusiastic editor and new admin (whose RfA I supported), works hard and in good faith, and genuinely believes he's doing the right thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- I agree - and it may be time to update that guideline (and it is just a "guideline") - the arbcom mention is over 10 years old and was not directly tied to a finding, just a principal. As far as "what need to be done now" - see my last line on BU Rob13's talk page - if you think this has impacted the RfC from being able to run properly that concern needs to be addressed before it goes much further. — xaosflux Talk 01:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: I've explicitly stated I will not make such notifications again. I'm quite confused how that's been interpreted as "insisting that the guideline does not apply to [me]"? I made these types of mass notifications on your request. There is no winning for me here. If I did not make the notifications, you would have accused me of attempting to sneak through a change, as you've loudly done before in similar situations. If I do make the notifications, you claim they're spamming due to the number of editors who commented at the most recent RfC. Obviously, I cannot cherry pick which editors to notify, because that would be a blatant violation of the letter and intent of WP:CANVASS. The list of editors I notified was the list of editors who had edited the previous RfC page in full. At this point, I've fulfilled WP:ADMINACCT, as I've explained my logic behind sending out the message in the first place and promised not to do so again. It's obvious that notifying the entire group of editors who've participated in a past related RfC does not place any influence on the ongoing RfC except to increase participation, so there aren't any outstanding issues there. I will be archiving the thread on my talk page. If you wish to pursue your apparent vendetta against me in other venues, WP:ANI and WP:ArbCom are that way. I've never had any interest in escalating your dislike of me into anything more than that, and I still don't. Your email today labeling your own actions harassment and egging me on to open an ArbCom case haven't changed that. Your email was the first time the "H" word has ever been used in our correspondence on- or off-wiki, and I hope this to be the last time. I'll forward on your off-wiki correspondence with me to the Arbitration Committee in case you decide to go that route, but I certainly hope you decide to work together productively instead. ~ Rob13Talk 02:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- I agree - and it may be time to update that guideline (and it is just a "guideline") - the arbcom mention is over 10 years old and was not directly tied to a finding, just a principal. As far as "what need to be done now" - see my last line on BU Rob13's talk page - if you think this has impacted the RfC from being able to run properly that concern needs to be addressed before it goes much further. — xaosflux Talk 01:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Xaosflux, I do not believe for a moment that the action has impacted the possible outcome of the RfC, nor have I at any time even hinted that it would or that it were not neutral. My concern is for the blatant disregard of another aspect of WP:CANVASS which I do not understand why recently promoted admins are allowed to ignore to their convenience, while others rigorusly abide by the somewhat ridiculous rules of Wikipedia whether we agree with them or not. I have never, ever, compromised my integrity as an admin by suggesting hat someone flagrantly break the rules by using any mass message systems to canvass for a RfC, and I defy Rob to scour my edits and provide a diff. Not for the first time has Rob misinterpreted what I say on Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:11, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Hi, so:
- The RfC is OK - it can continue on its way
- There are a few active threads open on Wikipedia talk:Canvassing that may impact or reinforce the current guidelines - up to the community where this goes
- BU Rob13's activity has stopped and he has said he will "not do it again"
- I don't see Arbcom taking this occurrence up as a "admin action" issue - there is a lack of demonstrated "harm"
- I've explained my own comments - it was only that MMS is preferable to unflagged highspeed manual editing, I assumed good faith that the canvass guideline issues were already taken care of
- If there is outstanding "conduct" or "behavior" tension between the two of you - I hope you can both move past it - this is a big place and there is plenty of work for us all to do
- — xaosflux Talk 03:31, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Just to better explain my actions per WP:ADMINACCT, I thoroughly reviewed WP:CANVASS to guarantee that my mass notification was allowed prior to bots being involved. I believe I made it very clear on my user talk page that I am not experienced with mass message sending and was uncomfortable using it. I was unaware of the one sentence about using a bot deep in WP:CANVASS, and even if I had been aware of it, I was unaware that mass message sending was even carried out by a bot. I've watched the new page reviewer newsletters #1 and 2 be sent out by Kudpung in the recent past, and they featured a call to action to !vote a particular way at the community wishlist. Based on those experiences, I had little reason to believe this was an issue, and I'm still not quite sure how that call-to-action using MMS is allowable while mine is "abuse of admin privilege".
I made a good-faith attempt to follow Kudpung's wishes, expressed at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC on patrolling without user right, where he stated "In my opinion this current RfC as originally proposed is flawed. Firstly, all those who supported and opposed the the previous two RfC have been denied the right to be properly informed of this new RfC. They must be informed, neutrally and individually of this RfC and there should be a watchlist notice. This should not be allowed to be a back-door overturn by a minor quorum of a major new policy that reached consensus on not one, but two consecutive RfC." He later went on to state that were I to launch more RfCs relating to substantial issues, "it stands to reason that everyone will be notified in order to have a fair representation by the people who previously turned out to support or oppose the previous RfCs". I erred in my method of following Kudpung's wishes. That error is mine, although I think it's a reasonable error to make given this whole history. Even an administrator is allowed to make an occasional error, so long as they respond to criticism appropriately and work to undo any damage caused. Here, no damage was caused at all, as all parties note that the end result is exactly what should have occurred. Still, in my first response to the criticism, I stated definitively that I will not make such notifications in the future. I also noted that I believe WP:IAR could have provided a policy basis for my action in hindsight, but it certainly was not my original intention to invoke IAR. I generally find it distasteful to intentionally make IAR actions when dealing with advanced permissions.
This all could have been handled with a lot more grace. Throwing around terms like "abuse of administrator privilege" is unhelpful when dealing with a simple mistake that caused no damage. Hopefully, this complete explanation puts this well to rest. I have absolutely no desire to have an internet slap-fight over trivial matters when both our time can be better spent improving the encyclopedia. As Xaosflux said, it's a big project. I remain interested in working together productively, as I hope I've made clear in my many comments on-wiki and our private correspondence, Kudpung. ~ Rob13Talk 06:36, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Just to better explain my actions per WP:ADMINACCT, I thoroughly reviewed WP:CANVASS to guarantee that my mass notification was allowed prior to bots being involved. I believe I made it very clear on my user talk page that I am not experienced with mass message sending and was uncomfortable using it. I was unaware of the one sentence about using a bot deep in WP:CANVASS, and even if I had been aware of it, I was unaware that mass message sending was even carried out by a bot. I've watched the new page reviewer newsletters #1 and 2 be sent out by Kudpung in the recent past, and they featured a call to action to !vote a particular way at the community wishlist. Based on those experiences, I had little reason to believe this was an issue, and I'm still not quite sure how that call-to-action using MMS is allowable while mine is "abuse of admin privilege".
- Hi, so:
- This issue has got me in hot water for having done the right thing again. I was severely reprimanded by Risker a while back for even manually messaging concerned users. I think it was on the early NPP RfC - which passed. Using (semi) automated mass message systems for RfC - whether the message is neutral or not - is expressly disallowed by the guideline - something I have been aware of for years and which is unambiguous in its wording.. I am now on the thin end of the wedge for having complained to BU Rob13 for his abuse of admin privilege: a) because as an admin he already has permission to use mass message bots, and b) for insisting that the guideline does not apply to him. This all rather disappoints me, especially as on more than one occasion, his behaviour has nearly caused me to retire. I don't think that those of us who toe the line and act like reasonable admins for years should have to suffer these indignities. Perhaps someone should start yet another RfC (::sigh::) to get a consensus for that guideline - either to change it, or to maintain the status quo. The saddest thing is that Rob is indeed an enthusiastic editor and new admin (whose RfA I supported), works hard and in good faith, and genuinely believes he's doing the right thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you
Thank you for creating this.
I expect that sooner or later, there will be a legitimate request to hide a particular log entry from public view, probably for something like this. Without your work, it would've been relatively easy: The offending edit would just be revision-deleted or suppressed. If hiding specific log entries from public view without making the entire log private, then we are set. If not, consider working on making it so, and/or be prepared to hide this log's entries from public view should the need arise. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:28, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- @Davidwr: currently abuse-filter logs do not have a admin-only revdel type mode per-log entry (only for ALL logs from a filter), however individual log entries may be suppressed by an oversighter - so if you see one just file an oversight request. — xaosflux Talk 18:33, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks. It will be extremely rare that something MUST be hidden from non-admins without meeting the requirements for being WP:OVERSIGHTed. In fact, I can't think of any such situation off the top of my head. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Genfixes
I am concerned that the original issue I raised with genfixes is getting lost under a tidal wave of discussion of Yobot. Do you think that it would be sensible to open a formal RfC or would it be better to wait till the Yobot issues are resolved, or at least settle down? SpinningSpark 19:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Spinningspark it depends - if your concern is with only the one bot keep addressing it - if it is with genfixes for all bots (and possibly all editors?): can you summarize in one or two sentences what type of outcome you would like to see? — xaosflux Talk 19:55, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, the reason I raised it at BAG was precisely because I thought this was more general than one bot, otherwise my block of the bot would have sufficed. My concern is that items that are added to genfixes have the effect of creating a crowd-sourced bot (as well as being used by actual bots) but there is no formal control of these contents. The outcome I would like to see is BAG take on that formal control, or, failing that, that community approval is sought for some form of control. SpinningSpark 20:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- There a few venues:
- If you want an approvals process for AWB genfixes: I think the place for this is WT:AWB. I don't see BAG being charge of the genfix lists, as it is used by non-bots as well. - May need to be an RfC.
- If you don't want bots using genfixes at all anymore - start a thread at WP:BOWN, will need to be an RfC. If it passes, BAG would need to coordinate informing existing AWB bot's to stop using this, and would honor the community result for future requests.
- @Spinningspark: is there something I'm missing? — xaosflux Talk 20:26, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- I don't really want to stop bots using genfixes. I would very much see that as the nuclear option. I'm not convinced that the folks over at AWB have the necessary skill set for this. It needs people looking at it from a community point of view rather than developer and bot operator point of view. Do you know of some similar process they are running that could be modified? At the moment it is anarchy.[142][143][144] I know AWB is used by non-bots, but that was kind of partially my point. Editors are not likely to question the fixes they are being offered (bots do it, so it must be ok, I heard one user say!). They will assume they have approval and just mechanically accept them. As I said, that amounts to a crowd-sourced bot which is what puts it in scope of BAG. SpinningSpark 21:29, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- I think you should start a thread at WT:AWB and advertise is elsewhere. BAG does not have very many active editors, so may not have the manpower to take care of this. Ideally, for enwiki use the software maintainers would ensure that their updates have consensus. — xaosflux Talk 21:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- Ok, understood, but it is still problematic to approve a bot to do something that is liable to change. It would be possible to approve for a specific version of genfixes. It could be made clear to operators that subsequent changes to genfixes invalidate the bot approval if anyone raises an objection with them over those subsequent changes. What do you think? Also, it is certainly within the ambit of BAG to ask operators seeking to perform generalfixes to point to a discussion, especially for changes to genfixes since the last approval. SpinningSpark 11:14, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- That may be possible, but will require: an AWB genfix versioning, release, and review system - as well as a mechanism to tell the AWB software which genfix version to run. Please discuss these changes at WT:AWB. I'm not sure what type of genfixes you think would be OK for bots, but not for human editors in this system? Perhaps bots could run "approve version" n-1? — xaosflux Talk 21:51, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- I was thinking more of something that could be implemented without imposing anything at AWB (I will eventually raise something at AWB, but not yet, and it is unclear what they would be willing to do). What I had in mind was taking a snapshot diff of the genfixes page at the time of bot approval. That serves as version control for the bot. The bot then happily runs until someone raises an issue. If, and only if, the issue concerns something that has changed in genfixes since the bots approval then the bot is obliged to stop and seek new approval. I don't necessarily distinguish here between OK for bots and humans. As I said to you earlier, I kind of consider the human operators to be a crowd-sourced bot as far as genfixes are concerned, but I appreciate you are not going to take that one on board. SpinningSpark 22:34, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- AWB does not currently support genfix version snapshots - the AWB developers would need to be willing to introduce this from a technical aspect - all of that is a software issue and absolutely needs to be dealt with from the AWB side. — xaosflux Talk 23:19, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- Possibly I have got this entirely wrong, but doesn't genfixes consist of this page of regex fixes and this page of template redirects? All of that is on-wiki and editable here (and only protected to autoconfirmed level!). Those can be snapshotted with a diff. Anything hardcoded in is captured in AWB's own version cntrol. SpinningSpark 10:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- Have you ever used AWB? The only client option is "Apply general fixes" (ON/OFF). If you want some accounts (e.g. bot accounts) to use one set of genfixes, but human editors to use another - there would need to be somewhere to specify which one to use in the software. Typo fixing (ON/OFF) is a separate client option (that bots should not be using at all). I just pointed AWB at some new articles (didn't save) and with genfixes on it wanted to do things like remove trailing whitespace, add birth categories. I'm not sure of everything genfixes may include (I do not use it on my bot). — xaosflux Talk 12:27, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- I don't really have much experience with AWB for general editing. I mostly use it to generate lists. My intention was not to have bots work from a different set of fixes, but rather to have the bot stop and investigate if it is brought to the operator's attention that something potentially controversial had been added to genfixes post approval. I'm going to drop this now, it is clearly not going to fly with you. SpinningSpark 12:40, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- Have you ever used AWB? The only client option is "Apply general fixes" (ON/OFF). If you want some accounts (e.g. bot accounts) to use one set of genfixes, but human editors to use another - there would need to be somewhere to specify which one to use in the software. Typo fixing (ON/OFF) is a separate client option (that bots should not be using at all). I just pointed AWB at some new articles (didn't save) and with genfixes on it wanted to do things like remove trailing whitespace, add birth categories. I'm not sure of everything genfixes may include (I do not use it on my bot). — xaosflux Talk 12:27, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- Possibly I have got this entirely wrong, but doesn't genfixes consist of this page of regex fixes and this page of template redirects? All of that is on-wiki and editable here (and only protected to autoconfirmed level!). Those can be snapshotted with a diff. Anything hardcoded in is captured in AWB's own version cntrol. SpinningSpark 10:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- AWB does not currently support genfix version snapshots - the AWB developers would need to be willing to introduce this from a technical aspect - all of that is a software issue and absolutely needs to be dealt with from the AWB side. — xaosflux Talk 23:19, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- I was thinking more of something that could be implemented without imposing anything at AWB (I will eventually raise something at AWB, but not yet, and it is unclear what they would be willing to do). What I had in mind was taking a snapshot diff of the genfixes page at the time of bot approval. That serves as version control for the bot. The bot then happily runs until someone raises an issue. If, and only if, the issue concerns something that has changed in genfixes since the bots approval then the bot is obliged to stop and seek new approval. I don't necessarily distinguish here between OK for bots and humans. As I said to you earlier, I kind of consider the human operators to be a crowd-sourced bot as far as genfixes are concerned, but I appreciate you are not going to take that one on board. SpinningSpark 22:34, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- That may be possible, but will require: an AWB genfix versioning, release, and review system - as well as a mechanism to tell the AWB software which genfix version to run. Please discuss these changes at WT:AWB. I'm not sure what type of genfixes you think would be OK for bots, but not for human editors in this system? Perhaps bots could run "approve version" n-1? — xaosflux Talk 21:51, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- Ok, understood, but it is still problematic to approve a bot to do something that is liable to change. It would be possible to approve for a specific version of genfixes. It could be made clear to operators that subsequent changes to genfixes invalidate the bot approval if anyone raises an objection with them over those subsequent changes. What do you think? Also, it is certainly within the ambit of BAG to ask operators seeking to perform generalfixes to point to a discussion, especially for changes to genfixes since the last approval. SpinningSpark 11:14, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
- I think you should start a thread at WT:AWB and advertise is elsewhere. BAG does not have very many active editors, so may not have the manpower to take care of this. Ideally, for enwiki use the software maintainers would ensure that their updates have consensus. — xaosflux Talk 21:34, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- I don't really want to stop bots using genfixes. I would very much see that as the nuclear option. I'm not convinced that the folks over at AWB have the necessary skill set for this. It needs people looking at it from a community point of view rather than developer and bot operator point of view. Do you know of some similar process they are running that could be modified? At the moment it is anarchy.[142][143][144] I know AWB is used by non-bots, but that was kind of partially my point. Editors are not likely to question the fixes they are being offered (bots do it, so it must be ok, I heard one user say!). They will assume they have approval and just mechanically accept them. As I said, that amounts to a crowd-sourced bot which is what puts it in scope of BAG. SpinningSpark 21:29, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
- There a few venues:
- Yes, the reason I raised it at BAG was precisely because I thought this was more general than one bot, otherwise my block of the bot would have sufficed. My concern is that items that are added to genfixes have the effect of creating a crowd-sourced bot (as well as being used by actual bots) but there is no formal control of these contents. The outcome I would like to see is BAG take on that formal control, or, failing that, that community approval is sought for some form of control. SpinningSpark 20:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Files for discussion
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Files for discussion. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
Merry, merry!
From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:44, 25 December 2016 (UTC) 
Eubot redirects
Thanks for getting back to me. I had already gone through the approved runs of Eubot's redirects and did not find any approving this, not only in the wording but in the dates that it was run (December 2008).
From a previous Eubot run, I forget which and excuse me for paraphrasing, but the intent was to "Create redirects to prevent accidental creation of duplicate articles". That is as near as I can remember the wording off the top of my head. Now, to me that is a bit kinda weird anyway, because we WP:SALT articles after ther's a problem, not pre-emptively (I am not an admin, I do not want to be, I am just an editor, that's fine with me).
What I would kinda like is a definitive statement from an admin that "Nope, this never got approved, nor even discussion". The thing is, everything I'm whacking into WP:RFD is "Delete". Of course it is, but actually about 90% of Eubot's redirects were sensible (even though nowaday not useful with improvements to the search engine, but that's a battle for another day, they're harmless but not useful.) The 10% are mostly where Eubot created redirects from redirects, in bizarre ways. It has managed, which I listed tonight, to create an {{R from title without diacritics}} from a {{R from title with diacritics}} to a target which, mirabile dictu, has no diacritics. That kind of nonsense we can do without. Backwards run my sentences now until reels my mind. Si Trew (talk) 23:29, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
- These go far back in to wiki-history, creating a redirect was once the preferred method of salting a page, then there was a cludgy method using embedding an empty page to a cascading page (individual admins had these too e.g. User:Xaosflux/JUPE). — xaosflux Talk 00:25, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
- What is it you want to achieve? (e.g. an X3 CSD?) — xaosflux Talk 00:28, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Edit conflicts
It seems you did half the page editing that needed to be done to close the Ivanvector RfA. Thanks for the help! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:05, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
- I had them all open - but you beat me to the most important one :D — xaosflux Talk 00:10, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
- I figured it was something like that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Mentioned you
Hi Xaosflux, I mentioned you in the arbitration case request (don't worry it's not about you :P), hoping that you might be able to provide some input (I think it was you) paraphrased you. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Yobot evaluation of tasks
Just a summary of the current problem and the solutions I tried seeking for advice: I am willing to give away all tasks that are related to talk pages. Still the only real problem is that Yobot runs unconditionally with CHECKWIKI errors (task 16). All other tasks have very tight skip conditions. Task 16 goes off hand everytime there are changes in CHECKWIKI's code. For error number have been been repurposed. One idea is that I abandon completely task 16 apart from 2-3 errors I have skip conditions. I tried to find other bot operators willing to take over the tasks but this is not easy. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
- Magioladitis if it is not working the way you want in certain namespaces, suspend it. I don't think it will impact readers to be suspended, or any significant wikiprocesses? — xaosflux Talk 14:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Non-BAG BRFA involvement
At the risk of being very alphabet soup-y, how does the BAG feel about non-BAG BRFA involvement? Is it helpful to you? I likely can never be a BAG member, because I lack technical skills outside of AWB regex, but I'd be happy to occasionally help with patrolling if that saves you time. For instance, I could read through the discussions leading to the bot and note whether consensus appears sufficient or not, endorse/oppose a trial/approval, etc. I'm just not sure if that's actually helpful or whether you'd have to do the same stuff you already do before making a decision. ~ Rob13Talk 09:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
- All editors are welcome to comment on BRFA's. The format doesn't lead to "NAC" type closures. One area I think is most useful would be in reviewing the "linked discussions" and comments related to if the community consensus that the task "should be done" exists. — xaosflux Talk 12:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Cold War
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Cold War. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Happy New Year, Xaosflux!
Xaosflux,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Donner60 (talk) 06:09, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.
You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis.
Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Evidence. Please add your evidence by January 17, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes.
You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Workshop.
For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.
If you no longer wish to receive case notifications for this case you can remove yourself from the notifications list here.
For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 22:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
thanks
Thanks for taking a peak at my nascent scratch pad of AE/DS reform ideas. It's intended to be a constructive effort, not a bitch session. Can you offer any suggestions or pointers to other venues I should maybe check out? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:07, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Infobox country at games
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox country at games. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Category:Catholic lay societies has been nominated for discussion
Category:Catholic lay societies, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle (talk) 10:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Categories in the bulk-deletion request
Please see WP:ANI#BrownHairedGirl and categories; this is in respect to the recreation of the categories you mass-deleted because of the WP:AN#Bulk delete request, round 1 thread. Nyttend (talk) 02:16, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
- @Nyttend: thank you for the note, I made a statement at the case request. — xaosflux Talk 02:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Hi, strange problem. I'm trying to add some additional content to this page and it says "Invalid Content" but the content is fine. The page is suspiciously close to 5k in size, do you think there is a page size limit? Trying to add
- "{{Website}},
- "{{Internet}}
..to the end of the "ignore_tags" record. I made other edits a few minutes earlier no problem, and backed those out and was able to add back in, but can't get past 5k. -- GreenC 04:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
- Green Cardamom Done from above, you are missing closing
"'s. — xaosflux Talk 04:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)- FYI they can be much larger, see MediaWiki:Gadget-Twinkle.js for example. — xaosflux Talk 04:55, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
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- You can now use datasets on Commons. You can see an example that is using this source. [145]
- There is a new opt-in beta feature of a wikitext mode for the visual editor. You can try it out.
- When you update a page with translations on wikis with the Translate extension the existing translations will be marked as outdated instead of removed. [146]
- The new version of MediaWiki was released to all wikis last week (calendar).
- MoodBar has been removed from the Wikimedia wikis. [147]
- The
liveoption for the Tipsy notice tool has been removed. Gadgets and user scripts which use it need to be updated. [148]
Problems
- Editors who use Firefox 50 might get logged out or fail to save their edits. This is because of a browser bug. Until this is fixed you can enter
about:configin the address bar and setnetwork.cookie.maxPerHostto 5000. Firefox 50 is the current version of the Firefox. [149]
Changes this week
- There is no new version of MediaWiki this week because of the Wikimedia Developer Summit.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 13 January 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
- You can now upload WebP files to Commons. [150]
Problems
- video2commons was down for two weeks. This was because of a problem with Commons video transcoders. It is now back up. [151]
Changes this week
- There is a new magic word called
{{PAGELANGUAGE}}. It returns the language of the page you are at. This can be used on wikis with more than one language to make it easier for translators. [152] - When an admin blocks a user or deletes or protects a page they give a reason why. They can now get suggestions when they write. The suggestions will be based on the messages in the dropdown menu. [153]
- You will be able to use
<chem>to write chemical formulas. Before you could use<ce>.<ce>should be replaced by<chem>. [154] - You now can add exceptions for categories which shouldn't be shown on Special:UncategorizedCategories. The list is at MediaWiki:Uncategorized-categories-exceptionlist. [155]
- The "Columns" and "Rows" settings will be removed from the Editing tab in Preferences. If you wish to keep what the "Rows" setting did you can add this code to your personal CSS:
#wpTextbox1 { height: 50em; }You can change the number50to make it look like you want to. [156] - Sometimes edits in MediaWiki by mistake are shown coming from private IP addresses such as 127.0.0.1. Edits and other contributions logged to these IP addresses will be blocked and shown the reason from MediaWiki:Softblockrangesreason. This should not affect most users. Bots and other tools running on Wikimedia Labs, including Tool Labs will receive a "blocked" error if they try to edit without being logged in. [157]
- When you edit with the visual editor categories will be on the top of the page options menu. [158]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on January 17 at 20:00 (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.
23:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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Suggestion for MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome and MediaWiki:Newpages-summary
Hi Xaosflux, you and Kudpung had assisted me in placing links to the page curation and special new pages feed scripts on the above pages. I had a suggestion. Instead of giving the direct link to the script, I would recommend that the links be changed to the script documentation pages, which are better in explaining how to install the script, than the script page itself. In others words:
- In MediaWiki:Pagetriage-welcome, the line "[[User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js|Use the Page Curation script]]." may be changed to "[[User:Lourdes/PageCuration|Use the Page Curation script]]."
- In MediaWiki:Newpages-summary, the line "An alternative [[User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages.js|script]] is available for the same." may be changed to "An alternative [[User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages|script]] is available for the same."
Thanks and cheers. Lourdes 08:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Lourdes
I think that is fine - would you leave these as edit requests on those associated talk pages in case anyone else wants to comment? Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 12:54, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
- Yes. Will do that. Thanks. Lourdes 14:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
- Hi again Xaosflux, I don't think anyone has replied on those two talk pages till now. Thanks. Lourdes 07:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Lourdes I added the edit request templates to attract attention (via a report and a category) if they go uncontested for a few days I'll do them if someone else doesn't do it first. (Several admins patrol Category:Wikipedia fully-protected edit requests and keep it low). — xaosflux Talk 15:48, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. Lourdes 17:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- I just noticed that Jo-Jo Eumerus has done the requested change. Thanks, ciao Lourdes 18:36, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. Lourdes 17:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Lourdes I added the edit request templates to attract attention (via a report and a category) if they go uncontested for a few days I'll do them if someone else doesn't do it first. (Several admins patrol Category:Wikipedia fully-protected edit requests and keep it low). — xaosflux Talk 15:48, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Hi again Xaosflux, I don't think anyone has replied on those two talk pages till now. Thanks. Lourdes 07:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Yes. Will do that. Thanks. Lourdes 14:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 17 January 2017
- From the editor: Next steps for the Signpost
- News and notes: Surge in RFA promotions—a sign of lasting change?
- In the media: Year-end roundups, Wikipedia's 16th birthday, and more
- Featured content: One year ends, and another begins
- Arbitration report: Concluding 2016 and covering 2017's first two cases
- Traffic report: Out with the old, in with the new
- Technology report: Tech present, past, and future
interface-editor
Hi Xaosflux. I would like to ask for your opinion. I'm planning to propose the creation of an interface-editor right, and I've drafted an RfC at User:Fastily/IE Sandbox. Could you review, give me some feedback, and/or comment on the feasibility of said proposal? Thanks in advance, FASTILY 01:31, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
- @Fastily: see User talk:Fastily/IE Sandbox. — xaosflux Talk 03:37, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
- Wow, this is fantastic! :D I'll definitely incorporate these suggestions into the proposal. Thanks! -FASTILY 06:33, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:New York Daily News
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:New York Daily News. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Miss Universe 2016
Hi kan you add in the awards section the list of winners during the Miss Universe Mindanao tapestry? Phoenix Best Smile - Indonesia, Pearl of Phoenix - Philippines & Miss Phoenix Petroleum - Venezuela. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ph awesome (talk • contribs) 14:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
- I activated an edit request here: Talk:Miss_Universe_2016#Awards, someone will attend to it soon. — xaosflux Talk 14:49, 19 January 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
- You can see a list of the templates on a page you edit with the visual editor. [159]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:15, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Indexing user pages
Hi Xaosflux, thought I'd consult you first on this issue.
User space has been noindexed (that's to say, not findable by internet search engines) by default since November 2015.
However, it is still possible to override this by using the magic word or its templated equivalent on a user page. Category:Indexed pages shows nearly 1,000 cases where this has been done. Just looking at the 13 cases listed under K, we find three formatted as articles (Krupa Vara Prasad, Ktv ch, and James 1997/sandbox (sorted to "Koibana Onsen")). There are two pages of javascript to do with WikEd International, that seem to relate to Cacycle; these pages may or may not have a reason to be indexed. The others I would classify as typical unproblematic userpages: one belongs to an arb (Ks0stm) and two others to established users (Kiore and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) who might want to comment.
New page patrol does have a queue for user pages (Special:NewPagesFeed) which may prevent indexing while unreviewed, as it does for mainspace. In practice though the majority of user pages seem to be going without review and dropping off the back of the queue at the 30-day mark.
Question: should the magic word be disabled in userspace? or are there reasons to continue to allow users, intentionally or not, to have their user pages or draft articles indexed by search engines?: Noyster (talk), 14:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
- @Noyster: to be intentionally, manually tagged for indexing: I think we should continue to allow this in general. Some people host user scripts, user essays, even their own user page that may want to be found by people on other wiki projects. Now: if someone is using their userspace as an inapproriate webhost (possibly even more easily identified because of manual index tags), MFD or CSD can be swiftly applied. — xaosflux Talk 19:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
- @Noyster: Thank you for the invitation to the discussion. I agree with Xaosflux that user pages "intentionally, manually tagged for indexing" should be indexed. Unfortunately I can no longer remember why I chose to add the {{INDEX}} to my user page which I did in an isolated edit on 26 December 2015. This does raise an interesting question: Should there be a mechanism so user pages that are to be indexed need to have that periodically reaffirmed? Kiore (talk) 20:12, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
- @Kiore: may have been around then when the default index status for User: namespace was changed from index to noindex - maybe you noticed you disappeared from search results. I think that's why I did it - because a search for something like "xaosflux wiki" was turning up results for the piles of other language user pages I have, but not my "primary" one here on enwiki. — xaosflux Talk 20:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
- If you consider this a legitimate thing for users to want to do then I'm OK with that. It does mean we have to be vigilant for people bypassing the new page patrol apparatus to get their publicity on Google this way: Noyster (talk), 10:31, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Sesshō and Kampaku
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Sesshō and Kampaku. Legobot (talk) 04:34, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
A barnstar for you
|
|
The Barnstar of Diligence | |
| I see you working endlessly on so many places, and thought that some positive confirmation wont hurt. Thanks for all you do for fellow Wikipedians and for the community! Dan Koehl (talk) 17:12, 27 January 2017 (UTC) |
Misc Question
Hi how can I make make a common pages — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarzan bond (talk • contribs) 06:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what you are asking, I left a banner on your talk page with links to a lot of information. — xaosflux Talk 12:48, 30 January 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
Changes this week
- ElectronPdfService will be enabled by default on Meta and German Wikipedia. This is a new way to get articles as PDF files you can download. It will come to more wikis later. [161]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 31. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from February 1. It will be on all wikis from February 2 (calendar).
Future changes
- The Community Tech team will develop more tools to handle harassment of Wikimedia editors. The goal is to give the communities better tools to find, report and evaluate harassment. They will also work on more effective blocking tools. [162][163]
- The Wikimedia technical community is doing a Developer Wishlist survey. Developers can propose ideas before 31 January 23:59 UTC. This is soon.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:45, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
Revocation of TE permission
Hi Xaosflux, please can you remove my template editor permission, for the time being, as per your post earlier in the month. I haven't had the time to continue testing the changes I am making prior, so won't be committing to anything in the near future. Thanks. Nördic Nightfury 14:01, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
- Done If you need it back in the future just drop on over to WP:PERM. — xaosflux Talk 14:03, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.
Administrator changes
NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
Guideline and policy news
- A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
- Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
- Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
Technical news
- When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
- Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
- The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.
Obituaries
- JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Unblocks
Did you actually check the cases where I unblocked Yobot? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:59, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- Magioladitis I did not investigate this thoroughly, thus didn't write up a proposal - only commented on another. I amended that comment now to make it conditional that there is actually a finding. — xaosflux Talk 16:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. See for example that the first unblock was after contact with the blocking admin User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_2#Yobot. (Compare the times + see how fast I responded to an error that was not even related to the "cosmetic" problem) I read a lot around but very few evidence that makes me sad. It it also weird for me that I am accussed for something and it s not the accuser who has to prove their allegations but me to dig and prove my "innocence"(?) -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- See also that the second block was mainly that the blocking admin makes an alternative suggestion User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_5#Empty_sections_and_See_also_.2F_Further_reading related to the task of tagging empty sections. See that the unblock was in cooperation with the blocking admin, unrelated to "cosmetic" changes and focused in a single task. The third unblock discussion: User_talk:Yobot/Archive_2#Taxobox_.28and_other_infoboxes.29_breaking reveals that the error was fixed 1 day before the block and that I contacted the blocking admin before the unblock. The fourth blockk is also unrelated -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. See for example that the first unblock was after contact with the blocking admin User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_2#Yobot. (Compare the times + see how fast I responded to an error that was not even related to the "cosmetic" problem) I read a lot around but very few evidence that makes me sad. It it also weird for me that I am accussed for something and it s not the accuser who has to prove their allegations but me to dig and prove my "innocence"(?) -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- I was really thining that comment to be an "if" the whole time, just didn't turn it in to words, basically: I don't think you should be de-sysoped but you should probably stay away from the unblock button on yourself going forward and trust if that was explicitly required you would be able to honor it. — xaosflux Talk 16:23, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- While the current policy does not disallow it, I wrote that I gree with that. But I think we should not stay to that and really evaluate if my unblocks evade something and also investigate how is this related to my edits or my bot editing. I think they are unrelated still they are used to create chaos and increase discomfort against me. So we have a pattern of increasing complains based on a series of unrelated events. It' clear to me that none really wants to investigate deeper and till now all statements rely on the "where there's smoke..." scenario. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
You really have to take some time to check the unblocks before you judge me actions in a span of 10 years. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:00, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
- Replied at the workshop. I really don't want to hash this out here. — xaosflux Talk 00:51, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Deletions
Thanks for the help. It can't be a common occurrence for the same person to thank you and to use rollback on you for the same edit :-) I envisioned this situation when "Thanks" was new, but for the opposite situation: I requested a confirmation dialogue so that it would be harder to thank vandals. Nyttend (talk) 05:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
- No worries, I saw the "you were reverted" box and was wondering what was going on :D — xaosflux Talk 05:08, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - newsletter No.2
- A HUGE backlog
We now have 816 New Page Reviewers!
Most of us requested the user right at PERM, expressing a wish to be able to do something about the huge backlog, but the chart on the right does not demonstrate any changes to the pre-user-right levels of October.
The backlog is still steadily growing at a rate of 150 a day or 4,650 a month. Only 20 reviews a day by each reviewer over the next few days would bring the backlog down to a managable level and the daily input can then be processed by each reviewer doing only 2 or 3 reviews a day - that's about 5 minutes work!
It didn't work in time to relax for the Xmas/New Year holidays. Let's see if we can achieve our goal before Easter, otherwise by Thanksgiving it will be closer to 70,000.
- Second set of eyes
Remember that we are the only guardians of quality of new articles, we alone have to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged by non-Reviewer patrollers and that new authors are not being bitten.
- Abuse
This is even more important and extra vigilance is required considering Orangemoody, and
- this very recent case of paid advertising by a Reviewer resulting in a community ban.
- this case in January of paid advertising by a Reviewer, also resulting in a community ban.
- This Reviewer is indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry.
Coordinator election
Kudpung is stepping down after 6 years as unofficial coordinator of New Page Patrolling/Reviewing. There is enough work for two people and two coords are now required. Details are at NPR Coordinators; nominate someone or nominate yourself. Date for the actual suffrage will be published later.
Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
BAG News
| BAG News February 2017 | |
|---|---|
Greetings Bot Approvals Group member!
Thank you! 17:52, 5 February 2017 (UTC) (You can unsubscribe from future BAG Spam by removing your name from this list.) | |
Watchlist notice
Unlike AfC, the GOCE, or MilHist projects, for example, New Page Review is a function and one that is established by policy. As an admin I am not aware that I need special permission or a consensus to make this kind of watchlist notice. Please do the community the correct service and revert your revert. And rather quickly please otherwise the New Page Patrol system is going to wallow in future in the typical apathy and anarchy Wikipedia is headed for, and I will personally regret the thousands, (yes thousands) of hours I have spent on it. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
- We are obviously at a disagreement to this, as I mentioned at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details prior to you making an administrative edit to the notice without discussing. Will leave this for an uninvolved administrator to deal with now. — xaosflux Talk 01:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 6 February 2017
- Arbitration report: WMF Legal and ArbCom weigh in on tension between disclosure requirements and user privacy
- WikiProject report: For the birds!
- Technology report: Better PDFs, backup plans, and birthday wishes
- Traffic report: Cool It Now
- Featured content: Three weeks dominated by articles
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
- The block log sometimes showed blocks as being much longer than they were. This has now been fixed. [164]
Changes this week
- Wikimedia pages will now be better at showing pictures when you share them on social media. The descriptions will be different too. You can see an example of before and after. [165]
- There are some changes to the OOjs UI. Some old functions will not work anymore or not work as they used to. This could be a breaking change. [166]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Tidy will be replaced later this year. Instead, the HTML 5 parsing algorithm will be used to clean up bad HTML in wikitext. This will cause problems on a number of wikis. They need to be fixed first. You can see if your wiki still has something to fix here for one of the HTML problems. This list does not cover all problems. You can read about more problems. [167][168]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Rangeblock
Hi Xaosflux. You previously helped with this in Katie's abscence. Please could you re-block, and if possible, for longer? The evidence is here. First IP after the last 10-day block expired was reported and blocked. The third IP was back today, and as you can see from their contribution history, making less than helpful edits. Any questions, please ping me or drop a note on my talkpage. Thanks. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 18:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
- Lugnuts 180.234.0.0/16 has been blocked for a month this time. — xaosflux Talk 20:41, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
- Many thanks. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 07:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you - please put article in the sandbox. Arigo (talk) 15:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Question
Hi, on 4 February I noticed this and today (8 February) I noticed this, is it a coincidence? Do you edit from a mobile device? Sorry I'm just curious.. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 18:52, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
- Hi Vejvančický I found where mine came from, some of the examples on other projects for using the Special:ApiSandbox have a manual link to enwiki Talk:Main page, I've been changing them to the sandbox page when I find them. — xaosflux Talk 21:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
- I've added a warning edit filter, hopefully will put a stop to this. See Filter 838 log for any hits. — xaosflux Talk 22:05, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
- @Vejvančický: looks like it's working stopped one already Log838. — xaosflux Talk 18:44, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, thank you, I noticed the IP attempt yesterday. To me, it's still a bit puzzling but I'm not a technical person so it probably doesn't matter :) --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 05:37, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:List of sovereign states
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of sovereign states. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Import of de:Harald Sicheritz to Harald Sicheritz
Again, thanks. @References - do they have to be translated as well? @Weblinks - why does my Wikipedia username show up as .../with my name. How to get rid of it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arigo (talk • contribs) 14:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
- @Arigo: User:Arigo/Harald Sicheritz is a subpage of your otherwise not created userpage User:Arigo. For references, the actual name of references should not be translated, but the meta data about them (such as access date, publication date) should be. — xaosflux Talk 18:39, 9 February 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
- EventStreams is a new way to show activity on Wikimedia wikis. For now it works with the recent changes feed. It will do more things later. It will replace RCStream. Tools that use RCStream should move to EventStreams before 7 July. [169]
Problems
- The Firefox add-on Firefogg can cause problems with the Upload Wizard. This will not be fixed, because Firefox will not support Firefogg in the future. The Upload Wizard will no longer work with Firefogg. [170]
- Tool Labs and Wikimedia Labs databases will be under maintenance on 15 February. This will start at 17:00 (UTC) and last for about six hours. Some tools could have problems during or after this. [171]
Changes this week
- The TwoColConflict extension is a new way to solve edit conflicts. It makes it easier to copy and paste the relevant text to the text field. It will come to Meta and German Wikipedia this week. It is already available on MediaWiki.org. It will come to more wikis later. [172]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Page Previews will be turned on for logged-out users on the Catalan, Greek, Russian, and Italian Wikipedias in the middle of February. Page Previews shows readers a short part of a linked article when they rest their mouse pointer on the link. This is to help them understand what it is about without leaving the article they are reading. Page Previews used to be called Hovercards. It will come to more wikis later this spring. [173]
- The Developer Wishlist is a list where developers prioritize tools they need. The voting closes at 14 February 23:59 (UTC). This process is only for developers.
Review
- You can read the 2016 product summary from the Wikimedia Foundation Product group to see what they did with things they said they would work on in the annual plan.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
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Please comment on Talk:Basketball Comebacks
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Basketball Comebacks. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review-Patrolling: Coordinator elections
Your last chance to nominate yourself or any New Page Reviewer, See Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination. Elections begin Monday 20 February 23:59 UTC. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:17, 19 February 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
- The edit summary box is now a little bit bigger. This is to make it follow the Wikimedia design guide. [174]
Changes this week
- Page Previews will be updated on 23 February. This fixes many bugs. Page Previews can be turned on as the Beta Feature called Hovercards. [175]
- There has been a problem where the CSS of gadgets has been loading twice. The Gadgets extension has two new options:
typeandpeers. Thetypeoption solves this problem. You can usepeersto create gadgets with more than one style module. Read more about type and peers. [176] - OAuth will handle blocked users in a more consistent way. [177]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 21 February at 20:00 (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.
19:26, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Admin list
Re this, it's a perfect job for a bot. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:51, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
- I was thinking that, but we did want to let them opt-out and the changes happen so rarely. — xaosflux Talk 13:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
- True. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
- If wanted, I could write a bot to maintain WP:ADMINMMS, Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Newsletter list, and similar MMS lists, adding/removing from rights changes, which would allow users opt-out. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:39, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
- NPR list may have a lot more activity - however I'm not sure if having patrol rights is a requirement for being on that list or not? — xaosflux Talk 13:03, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know that it is a requirement. In any case, I wasn't planning on having the bot remove those without
patroller. It would go through the log and add those grantedpatrollerand remove those that hadpatrollerremoved. The admin list could have the requirement of must havesysop. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:16, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know that it is a requirement. In any case, I wasn't planning on having the bot remove those without
- NPR list may have a lot more activity - however I'm not sure if having patrol rights is a requirement for being on that list or not? — xaosflux Talk 13:03, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
- If wanted, I could write a bot to maintain WP:ADMINMMS, Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Newsletter list, and similar MMS lists, adding/removing from rights changes, which would allow users opt-out. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:39, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
- True. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
- May want to ask the folks over at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers what they want done with that. — xaosflux Talk 21:03, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
- Anyone is free to add themselves to the New Page Review message list or remove themselves from it. Blocked and banned users are generally removed as well as users who have their rights revoked. It's generally considered to be one of the tasks for the NPR coordinators. But that's up to them. I don't see a need for a bot to automatically administer the list. It's already added to automatically when an admin creates a new rights holder using the user rights management tool. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
- I agree with Dweller, we have enough paperwork already. Let's have the bot do this simple task. –xenotalk 23:11, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - newsletter No.3
Voting for coordinators has now begun HERE and will continue through/to 23:59 UTC Monday 06 March. Please be sure to vote. Any registered, confirmed editor can vote. Nominations are now closed.
- Still a MASSIVE backlog
We now have 816 New Page Reviewers but despite numerous appeals for help, the backlog has NOT been significantly reduced.
If you asked for the New Page Reviewer right, please consider investing a bit of time - every little helps preventing spam and trash entering the mainspace and Google when the 'NO_INDEX' tags expire.
Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:List of sport utility vehicles
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:List of sport utility vehicles. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello sir
I was wondering if you could please kindly take a little time from your busy schedule and visit my new article Reverend King Ezeugo
I would really be grateful if you can give me some insight, e.g if you think it's lacking in some areas, If you think I should include more inline stations, if you think I should add more content in some categories etc It would really really be appreciated, but perhaps you are way too busy and cannot assist at the moment. I equally understand.
Thank you. Celestina007 (talk) 12:15, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
- (talk page watcher) @Celestina007: It's rather good. Very intersting. But I suggest it will need some tightening, perhaps a little re-writing in the main section; and mainly sourcing every sentence of that section which will need such to avoid any hint of WP:BLPVIO- as there are some pretty strong claims being made! And yes, cats, formatting, etc, but that can be left until last. It's the floridity that needs addressing primarilly :) have a great day! O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 12:39, 24 February 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.
Problems
- On 22 February the wikipedia.org portal did not work for an hour. This was because of a problem with a JavaScript file. [178]
Changes this week
- You will be able to use
<chem>to write chemical formulas in the visual editor. Previously this only worked in the wikitext editor. [179] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 March. It will be on all wikis from 2 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 February at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can soon upload 3D files to Commons. The file formats are AMF and STL. The plan is for this to work later this week but it could be later. [180]
- The name "Wikipedia" will be more obvious at the top of the page when you read Wikipedia in the mobile view. This is because many readers don't realize they are on Wikipedia. [181][182]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:56, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 February 2017
- From the editors: Results from our poll on subscription and delivery, and a new RSS feed
- Recent research: Special issue: Wikipedia in education
- Technology report: Responsive content on desktop; Offline content in Android app
- In the media: The Daily Mail does not run Wikipedia
- Gallery: A Met montage
- Special report: Peer review – a history and call for reviewers
- Op-ed: Wikipedia has cancer
- Featured content: The dominance of articles continues
- Traffic report: Love, football, and politics
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) 04:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – March 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).
Administrator changes
- Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13
- Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi
Guideline and policy news
- A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
- AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
- Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
- The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.
Technical news
- A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
- Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
- A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.
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 search on English, French, Hebrew and Greek wikis and find words even if you forget the diacritics. It also works if you use diacritics in your search but the wiki doesn't. [183]
- When you use the mobile view and click on a link to an article in another language you will see that article in the mobile view. Previously it changed to the desktop view. [184]
Problems
- Some watchlist gadgets didn't work for a period of time last week. This has now been fixed. [185]
- Admins who click on "mass delete" on a user's Special:Contributions will be taken directly to a list pages created by that user. It has worked like this before, but not lately. [186]
Changes this week
- The way you switch between wikitext and the visual editors in the desktop view has changed. It is now a drop-down menu. This is the same as in the mobile view. [187]
- The "flag the edit in the abuse log" checkbox will be removed from the abuse filter interface. This is because the edits are always flagged in the abuse log. [188]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 March. It will be on all wikis from 9 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 March at 20:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Clarification
- The 2017/09 issue of Tech News mentioned 3D file formats you can soon upload to Commons. The AMF format will be available later.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Revolver (Beatles album)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Revolver (Beatles album). Legobot (talk) 04:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
Bit removal request
This users access to ACC has been suspended, could you please remove the Account_Creator flag from their account. Thanx, - Mlpearc (open channel) 17:48, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
- Done — xaosflux Talk 19:15, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you very much. :) - Mlpearc (open channel) 19:23, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names). Legobot (talk) 04:32, 13 March 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.
Changes this week
- You will be able to show references from
<references />tags in more than one column on your wiki. This is the list of footnotes for the sources in the article. How many columns you see will depend on how big your screen is. On some wikis, some templates already do this. Templates that use<references />tags will need to be updated, and then later the change can happen for all reference lists. [189][190] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 March. It will be on all wikis from 16 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 March at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Some old web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis in the future. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can upgrade to a newer version. [191]
- CSS in templates will be stored in a separate page in the future. [192][193]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:26, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
RFA by year page
Hi Xaosflux, should I have updated this page or should this be done by a crat as I appear to be missing. Amortias (T)(C) 22:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Amortias: feel free to update it with accurate information. The page 'crats tend to update is Wikipedia:Successful requests for adminship. — xaosflux Talk 23:39, 13 March 2017 (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) 12:12, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Taiwan
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Taiwan. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 20 March 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
- The
Save pagebutton now saysPublish pageorPublish changeson the Wikimedia wikis except for Wikipedias and Wikinewses. This change will come to Wikipedias later. The point is to make it more clear that the edit will change the page immediately.Publish pageis when you save a new page andPublish changeswhen you edit an existing page. [194] - DMOZ no longer works. Templates that use DMOZ can be redirected to archive.org or another mirror. DMOZ has been removed from the RelatedSites extension on Wikivoyage. [195]
- You can see monthly page views when you click on
Page informationin the sidebar. Developers can also get monthly page views through the API. [196] - The Linter extension is now on smaller Wikimedia wikis. It helps editors find some wikitext errors so they can be fixed. It will come to other Wikimedia wikis later. The extension will be able to find more errors later. [197]
- The MediaWiki-Vagrant portable development environment has been updated to use Debian Jessie. This means local development and testing will be more like on the majority of Wikimedia production servers. [198]
Problems
- On 15 March some interwiki links to other languages were not correctly sorted. This has been fixed. If you still see pages where the interwiki links are not sorted as they should be, they should be fixed automatically with time or you can edit the page and save it without changing anything. If this doesn't work, please report it. [199]
Changes this week
- When you edit with the visual editor, you will be able to switch the direction you write in from right-to-left to left-to-right as you are editing. This is especially important for editors who edit in languages that write from right to left. You can do this with a tool in the editing menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcut
Ctrl+Shift+Xon PCs orCmd+Shift+Xon Macs. [200] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 21 March at 19:00 (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.
22:03, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi Xaosflux, I wanted to drop you a note in regards to User:Mifter/Protection Test. My goal with the page actually was to cascade protect the main page to add a bit of protection considering we have seen compromised Sysops unprotect/modify the protection on the Main Page as it adds another step that a compromised account would have to take and might slow down/minimize the risk that the MP would be open to vandalism. Checking now, it looks like when I moved page to fix a typo the rationale got left in the original location. We currently have WP:CASC which is a collection of what we used to do in the userspace regarding cascade protecting high risk images/templates but I wanted to make this separate as a compromised sysop unprotecting CASC (to remove the cascade protection from the main page) could cause even more damage to the other items on that page. On that, I wanted to hear your thoughts on creating a subpage (or several like we have with Main Page/1, Main Page/2, etc.) to cascade protect the main page and make it more difficult for a compromised account to unprotect the Main Page in the future? Mifter (talk) 18:23, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Mifter: Hi Mifter, gotcha, that one looked like a temporary test; we do have a centralized cascade page you could use though - Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items/content. Does that work for you? — xaosflux Talk 18:43, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
- I figured as much as it initially was a test (to make sure the multi-layer cascade didn't reveal anything odd in the software). My concern is that using the centralized cascade page could lead to a compromised account unprotecting the whole cascade page (to remove the cascade on the Main page) whereas a subpage keeps the halo protection on the MP but if a compromised account unprotects it to get rid of the cascade it does not expose the other high risk pages/images on the centralized page. I'm planning to create a subpage of WP:CASC for just the main page to strike a better balance. Mifter (talk) 20:10, 25 March 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) 04:29, 27 March 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
- When you edit with the visual editor, you can see a visual diff as well as a wikitext diff when you review your changes. [201]
Problems
- Special:AllPages was disabled for two days due to some performance issues. It is back, but the filter for redirects is gone as the cause of the performance problem. It still needs to be fixed. [202][203]
Changes this week
- New filters for Recent changes will be released on Portuguese and Polish Wikipedias and MediaWikiwiki on March 28. Other wikis will get it progressively. The new filters include filtering, highlighting and, on certain wikis, user intent prediction.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from March 28. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from March 29. It will be on all wikis from March 30 (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
broken accountcreator template
Hi, I don't know which template you used but it (or invocation thereof) seems broken. special:diff/772687056 cc Ibaimendi --Jeremyb (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Jeremyb: thanks for the note, looks like its been broken - removed that section for now in Special:Diff/772883135. — xaosflux Talk 22:34, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
Main Page
Hey, you're an admin, right? Well, I figured I'd alert you about a situation on the Did you Know section on the main page. I'd estimate that about ~2 million people know that thrust into a difficult situation, Horney Dicks failed to satisfy. I suspect this as vandalism, though it's not listed on the edit history. It's location is the last did you know on the did you know section. Greasemann (talk) 01:06, 1 April 2017 (UTC)Greasemann
- @Greasemann: - check the date this is likely part of WP:FOOLS - and the main page content may be a bit "silly" today - however if it is factually inaccurate please post to WP:ERRORS for review. — xaosflux Talk 01:41, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – April 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).
Administrator changes
- TheDJ
- Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott
Guideline and policy news
- Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
- The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
- An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
- After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.
Technical news
- After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
- Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.
See, I tried that
I tried so many things and nothing worked. You just learned what I already knew: the internet is terrible. CityOfSilver 15:39, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Ping
You've got mail. RivertorchFIREWATER 17:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Fools stuff
April Fools misc
|
|---|
Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikipe-tan Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, introducing inappropriate pages, such as Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikipe-tan, is not in accordance with our policies. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Under section G3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, the page has been nominated for deletion. If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Kostas20142 (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2017 (UTC) Revoked, check below--Kostas20142 (talk) 15:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC) AccusationI am really sorry for accusing you of creating a hoax! I didnt notice you are a bureaucrat. Plus there was a indef blocked account with similar name. And the most important? I had forgotten it is April Fool's! Kostas20142 (talk) 15:12, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Block notice! V-steamingYou wouldn't be the first to question my knowledge of vaginas. Drmies (talk) 17:07, 1 April 2017 (UTC) Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikipe-tanHello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, introducing inappropriate pages, such as Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wikipe-tan, is not in accordance with our policies. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Under section G3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, the page has been nominated for deletion. If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2017 (UTC) MfD nomination of User:Xaosflux/Requests for adminship/Wikipe-tan
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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 3 April 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
- The
Save pagebutton now saysPublish pageorPublish changeson most Wikipedias. The point is to make it more clear that the edit will change the page immediately.Publish pageis when you save a new page andPublish changeswhen you edit an existing page. [204] - The tracking category Category:Pages with template loops is now added when a template loop is found. A template loop is for example when a template tries to use a second template that uses the first template. [205]
- English Wikipedia now has cookie blocks. It will come to more wikis in the future. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. [206]
Problems
- Wikidata descriptions, aliases and labels that used some characters could not be saved. This has now been fixed. [207]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 April. It will be on all wikis from 6 April (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 4 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next office hour with the Wikidata team. The meeting will be on 5 April at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- New filters for Recent changes will come to Wikidata and Persian, Dutch, Russian, Turkish, Czech and Hebrew Wikipedia on 11 April. The new filters include filtering, highlighting and user intent prediction. User intent prediction means the filter tries to help editors determine if the edit was made in good faith or not. Other wikis will get it later. [208]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
RfA Redux
I'm trying not to pester editors who've opposed my RfA, but I'm curious about your statement, "You mention working with patrolling of edit by new users, but I notice you have not really been involved in patrolling new pages (barely any patrols or page curations in recent years logged). You mention working with anti vandalism, but have very little actual vandalism cleanup logged.
Since several supporters specifically cite anti-vandalism work, the tools that I've created have been specifically aimed at helping my patrolling activities and even one of the opposers cites RC patrol ("in which it is relatively easy to make larger numbers of edits") as a reason for opposition, I'm wondering what exactly the problem is here? It feels a bit like I just don't use the patrolling / anti-vandal tools you expect me to. GoldenRing (talk) 14:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
- In brief, I expect admin candidates that include patrolling or anti-vandalism background statements to have significant logged contributions in these areas. — xaosflux Talk 15:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Bureaucrat discussion - GoldenRing
I would be grateful for your input in the above discussion. Many thanks, WJBscribe (talk) 12:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Talkback
Message added 22:02, 9 April 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Jamesjpk (talk) 22:02, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on MediaWiki talk:Blockedtext
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on MediaWiki talk:Blockedtext. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 10 April 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
- Tidy is going to be replaced with an HTML5 parsing algorithm. Bad HTML in wikitext would cause problems on a number of wikis. There is now a ParserMigration extension on all wikis that you can use to help clean this up. You can read more about how you can use it. [209]
Changes this week
- Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can upgrade to a newer version. [210]
- New filters for Recent changes will come to Wikidata and Persian, Russian, Turkish and French Wikipedia on 11 April. The schedule has been changed to fix the user intent prediction filters for some wikis. User intent prediction means the filter tries to make it easier for editors to determine if the edit was made in good faith or not. Other wikis will get it later. [211]
- The list of special characters in the wikitext editor and the visual editor will now have a group of Canadian Aboriginal characters. [212]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 April. It will be on all wikis from 13 April (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April and 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.
- RevisionSlider will change how you move between revisions. This will be available on the test wiki from 11 April. It will come to other wikis later if users like the change. You can test it and give feedback.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:35, 10 April 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) 12:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, April 2017
| Bots Newsletter, April 2017 | |
|---|---|
Greetings! The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include:
Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include:
We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular:
Several new things are around:
Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC) (You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.) | |
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Translation
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Translation. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 17 April 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
- You can add
?safemode=1to the end of the URL on Wikimedia wikis to disable your personal CSS and JavaScript. Example:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature?safemode=1. This means you can test if a problem is because of your user scripts or gadgets without uninstalling them. [213] - You can now see a list of all autoblocks on Special:AutoblockList. [214]
- The Wikiversity and Wikinews logos are now shown directly from the configuration and not from
[[File:Wiki.png]]. If you want to change logo or have an anniversary logo, see how to request a configuration change. This is how it already works for other projects. They can request logo changes the same way. [215]
Problems
- Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 19 April. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this. This will also happen on 3 May.
Changes this week
- There is no new Mediawiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 18 April at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- stats.wikimedia.org will be replaced. You can see the new prototype. You can leave feedback on this change.
- Page Previews will be turned on for logged-out users on a large number of wikis in May. It could be postponed and happen later. Page Previews shows readers a short part of a linked article when they rest their mouse pointer on the link. This is to help them understand what it is about without leaving the article they are reading. Page Previews used to be called Hovercards. Users who have tested the feature can give feedback. [216]
- From next week, user scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions will show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. [217][218]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi @Samwalton9, Dane, and Ks0stm: I split some of your comments between the original thread and this new thread so that it can have a longer discussion when the original eventually ends. If any of you object to this refactoring of your comments, feel free to revert my entire edit. (It is a little 'out of the box'). — xaosflux Talk 00:42, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Link language
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Link language. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 24 April 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
- New filters for recent changes are now available as a beta feature on most wikis. You can turn it on in your preferences. Remaining wikis will have the new filters on 9 May. [219]
- When administrators, bureaucrats and stewards make a user a member of a user group they can now set an expiry date. A user group is for example "administrators" or "bots". This means that they can give someone user rights for a limited time. This is similar to how blocks and page protections can be limited in time. Special:UserRights will have new options for this. You can read more about user groups. [220]
Problems
- Since the data centre test last week the content translation tool has been disabled. This is because of a database problem. It will be back as soon as the problem has been solved. [221]
Changes this week
- The GuidedTour extension will be enabled on all wikis. This is a tool to explain to new users how to edit. [222]
- Wiktionary will handle interlanguage links in a new way. The Cognate extension will automatically link pages with the same title between Wiktionaries. For this to work all old interlanguage links have to be removed. You can read more about this. [223]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 April. It will be on all wikis from 27 April (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 25 April at 19:00 (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.
16:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Request
Would it be possible to block my IP range (2001:8003:30E5:BB00::/64) from editing for 6 months, as required by my school teacher because she thinks I'm not competent enough to edit Wikipedia. Thank you for your help if you can. --2001:8003:30E5:BB00:35D2:621F:F7E1:6245 (talk) 06:32, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
- Hello BB00, while technically possible, we don't issue rangeblocks preemptively as they could impact other people if the range is reallocated. You can certainly just not press the edit button if you don't want to edit; blocks have no impact on reading pages. Additionally, there are unblock requests active in this range already (e.g. User talk:2001:8003:30E5:BB00:DD7C:8852:3152:F01B). — xaosflux Talk 11:52, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Blacklist
Hey Xaosflux, could you please remove the blacklist for the specific phone number "1-800-273-8255"? I wish to redirect 1-800-273-8255 to National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and I want to make 1-800-273-8255 (song) a redirect to Everybody (Logic album) with the "r with possibilities" tag. Cheers, Anarchyte (work | talk) 13:31, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
- @Anarchyte: The blacklist was for an entire pattern, not just the number - as this is very explicit I created the pages as redirects for you (instead of making a whitelist override for just 1 number); now that they are created you may edit them normally. Hope this works for you, if not let me know. — xaosflux Talk 15:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Infobox deity
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox deity. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 30 April 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
- The content translation tool works again. It was turned off because of a database problem. [224]
- Scripts using very old deprecated wikibits functions show errors. These functions have not worked since 2013. You should fix or disable broken scripts. You can see examples of how to upgrade scripts. This is the same thing as Tech News wrote about in issue 2017/16. You need to add
mw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' )block for your scripts also, or addmediawiki.utildependency in gadget ResourceLoader section in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition. [225][226]
Problems
- Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for 20 to 30 minutes on 3 May. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. You can read more about this.
Changes this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week. This is because of the data centre test.
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 2 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- All Wikimedia wikis will have cookie blocks from May 8. This is an extension to the autoblock system so when a user is blocked, the next time they visit the wiki a cookie will be set. This means that even if the user switches accounts and to a new IP address the cookie will block them again. [227]
- The
Publish changes,Show previewandShow changesbuttons will look slightly different. This is to fit with the OOUI look. Users can test scripts, gadgets and so on to see if they work with the new interface by adding&ooui=1to the URL. [228]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:50, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Small fix post some global deprecations
Hello Xaosflux, as the page User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages.js is protected, I needed your assistance in making a small change to the script:
Please change the first line of the script from:
$( document ).ready( function() {
to
$.when( mw.loader.using( ['mediawiki.util'] ), $.ready ).done( function() {
TheDJ has already done this change to the other parallel script User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js.
Thanks. Lourdes 01:05, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Lourdes: This is Done — xaosflux Talk 01:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you. Lourdes 02:37, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).
Administrator changes
- Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim
- Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
- Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.
Technical news
- You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
- There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
- Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)
Miscellaneous
- Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.
TestWiki reverts
I appreciate your vigilance around the study pages I created on testwiki. Just a quick heads up that I have been using my volunteer account as well as my work account (User:Jmorgan (WMF)) to edit those test pages. Apologies for the confusion; the dual account use is an artifact of where the code that updates the pages is hosted. I'll make sure to clean up after myself. Cheers, J-Mo 22:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Jtmorgan: I'm sorry for any confusion - I was actually having a problem with rollback and recent changes and was trying to fix it on testwiki - any of those edits/reverts I made can be completely ignored or re-added at anytime. — xaosflux Talk 00:54, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Bill Potts
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Bill Potts. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 8 May 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.
Problems
- Some users have a problem with the watchlist. Some changes in categories make the watchlist a blank page. The developers are working on this. Until this is fixed you can try some things that have helped other editors if you have this problem. You can turn on
Hide categorization of pagesin your watchlist preferences. You can turn offExpand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recentin your watchlist preferences. You can remove problematic categories from Special:EditWatchlist/raw. [229] - There was a problem with the visual editor for several days. You could not save edits that triggered a CAPTCHA. This would for example be when a new user added external links in references. This was fixed on 2 May. [230]
Changes this week
- When you edit you can switch between the visual editor and the wikitext editor. This works if the wiki you edit has the visual editor. The menu will now say
Visual editingandSource editinginstead ofSwitch to visual editingandSwitch to code editing. This is because it was confusing when the menu said you could switch to the editor you were already using. [231] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 9 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You will be able to get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. This will come to Wikivoyage on 9 May. If there are no problems it will come to most Wikipedias on 30 May. It will come to other projects and English, French and German Wikipedia later in the summer. It will be opt-in for existing users and opt-out for new users. [232][233]
- Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. If
-{is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use-<nowiki/>{for transclusions and%2D{in web addresses. A transclusion could for example be when you use-{in a template:{{1x| sad :-{ face }}. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. [234][235]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
02:25, 9 May 2017 (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) 12:40, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Help with mass messaging
Hi! I'm trying to run an edit-a-thon and I was wondering if you could help me with sending a mass message to a couple of groups/categories. I looked at the mass message page but I was very confused about many things and I found your username on that talk page. Thanks! 80atUO (talk) 18:30, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- @80atUO: I can probably help - few basic questions:
- where are the current list(s) of people that you want to GET the message?
- How did people get on these lists? (That is - is it reasonable to think they expect to get mass messages, for example project members of a wikiproject vs everyone in Category:Wikipedians with public domain text contributions (minor edits only))
- Have you already written the message you want to send? If so where is it?
— xaosflux Talk 20:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux:
- This is what I am confused about, I'm not sure how to create a list but I do have one wikiproject and one user group I would like to send this message to.
- The people got on these lists because they are part of a wikiproject or alumni of the University that is hosting this edit-a-thon.
- I have the message in my sand box.
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 15 May 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
- You can now use ISBNs to automatically generate citations in the visual editor. This works on wikis that have enabled Citoid. [237]
- The Two Column Edit Conflict View is available as a beta feature on all wikis. It is a new interface for the edit conflict resolution page. [238]
Problems
- The
mediawiki.utillibrary does not load automatically any more. Your Special:MyPage/common.js may use it. If you have technical problems that started a couple of weeks ago you can try addingmw.loader.using( 'mediawiki.util' ).done(function(){as the first line in the file and});as a last one. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/18 issue. [239]
Changes this week
- The RevisionSlider extension will be a default feature on all wikis. RevisionSlider is an easier way to move between changes in the page history. It has been a default feature on German, Arabic and Hebrew Wikipedia and a beta feature on all wikis. You will be able to turn it off in your preferences. [240]
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- Administrators will soon be able to search through deleted pages. [241][242]
- Markup that looks like code for language variants might need to be fixed. Tech News wrote about this last week. If
-{is used in transclusions or web addresses it has to be escaped appropriately. You can use-<nowiki/>{for transclusions and%2D{in web addresses. This is because of some code fixes to the preprocessor and affects all wikis. You can now see the full list of wikis with this problem and help fix them to avoid that things break later this month. You might find false positives. You can read more about what to fix. [243][244]
Older unreported changes
- Your Meta user page is shown on all wikis where you don't have a local user page. You can now add the magic word
__NOGLOBAL__to your Meta user page to stop this. [245][246]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Email from me
Hello. I sent you an email. --George Ho (talk) 13:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
Another email. --George Ho (talk) 18:02, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
Double thanks. George Ho (talk) 22:13, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
Content model change request
Hey xaosflux. Please change the content model of User:Magic links bot/config/MagicLinksReplacer and User:JJMC89 bot/config/UserGroupsMassMessageListUpdater to JSON. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:18, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
- @JJMC89: User:JJMC89 bot/config/UserGroupsMassMessageListUpdater is Done; User:Magic links bot/config/MagicLinksReplacer is
Not done - it has Invalid content data- looks like a missing set of {}'s. Ping me after updating if you would like. — xaosflux Talk 12:53, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
New Page Review - Newsletter No.4
Since rolling out the right in November, just 6 months ago, we now have 816 reviewers, but the backlog is still mysteriously growing fast. If every reviewer did just 55 reviews, the 22,000 backlog would be gone, in a flash, schwoop, just like that!
But do remember: Rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling and the use of correct CSD criteria are essential to good reviewing. Do not over-tag. Make use of the message feature to let the creator know about your maintenance tags. See the tutorial again HERE. Get help HERE.
Stay up to date with recent new page developments and have your say, read THIS PAGE.
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:43, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (films). Legobot (talk) 04:30, 22 May 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.
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 May. It will be on all wikis from 25 May (calendar).
- There will be a
<div>tag around HTML from the MediaWiki wikitext parser. Gadgets with code that does not follow recommendations could have problems with this. You can report new problems you think are related to this. [247]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
Request
Would you be willing to look into this: [248], I am also troubled by this edit: [249]. It appears as if a Muslim faith editor was offended. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:57, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
- @Knowledgekid87: it looks like this is now open at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:El_cid.2C_el_campeador_reported_by_User:Vice_regent_.28Result:_.29 - I'm at work right now so can't research much right now, but the admins at that noticeboard can. — xaosflux Talk 15:11, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
- Okay thanks! - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:13, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I just have a few questions...
Hello, Xaosflux.
I see you've been on Wikipedia for a while (not to mention you're an admin and a Bureaucrat.), so I thought I could trust you to answer some questions for me. Now, I am not all that new to Wikipedia and editing, but do I have to be autoconfirmed/confirmed to use the 'Twinkle' gadget now? 2: I am thinking of making an article, though I am not the best with formatting on Wikipedia, particulalry. Any tips or shortcuts I can Use? Thank you for your time, and I hope you can get back to me soon!
-User:SkepticSalmon 2017-05-23T15:29:23
- @SkepticSalmon: Wikipedia:Twinkle has information on Twinkle, and yes you need to be autoconfirmed to use it; this occurs automatically 96 hours (4 days) after you register, provided you have made at least 10 edits. Wikipedia:Your first article has a lot of information on how to write your first article. Most editors start making updates to existing articles, copyediting, etc - but that is not required. — xaosflux Talk 15:34, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello! Having attempted to discuss the matter (which, as I noted, was discussed beforehand), and having received no response after more than a day, I redid the move for the reasons cited. I then noticed the protection and self-reverted immediately.
If you wouldn't mind reading my explanation and deciding whether the protection is still needed, I'd sincerely appreciate it. Thanks very much. —David Levy 05:33, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- @David Levy: Please note, that section was already archived. I suggest you reopen the discussion (or just start a new section) and give it some time for discussion. Unlike the move from "incident" to "bombing" moving from 2017 Manchester Arena bombing to Manchester Arena bombing does not appear to have impact on reader presentation or search results requiring heightened urgency; allowing for a discussion to be open for more than a few hours would be appropriate. I'm not personally inclined towards one title or the other. As your prior move was reverted - attempting discussion is advisable now. — xaosflux Talk 11:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- Note: that few hours was in regards to the original move discussion that was attended to by many editors - your last discussion was really just your statement, there was no response from the person you posed the question to - or any other editor at all. — xaosflux Talk 12:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- Indeed. My move – of the sort usually regarded as uncontroversial, with no advance discussion required – was reverted by the editor who'd previously moved the article to its current title in response to the discussion mentioned above. He claimed that I'd performed an undiscussed move unilaterally, despite the fact that matter was addressed by numerous users in the aforementioned discussion (both inside and outside a dedicated subthread), with most agreeing that "2017" should be omitted from the title. He'd acted on this discussion without providing a written assessment of its outcome (including any analysis of the matter in question), and it was closed shortly thereafter (before I'd even seen it).
- Nonetheless, I honored his request by "attempting discussion". I pinged him and replied to his message with a detailed explanation of why my move was appropriate and consistent with a longstanding policy. I also and copied and pasted the handful of objections raised in the move request's subsection (including one that was valid but reflected an unrelated concern, one based on a rationale that the community has rejected consistently, and one with essentially no expressed rationale at all) and provided detailed responses thereto. This consumed a nontrivial portion of my evening and delayed my sleep.
- As you noted above, I received no replies (from the individual demanding discussion or anyone else), and the section was archived.
- At this point, I've invested vastly more time in the matter than is normally expected; this is a routine piece of housekeeping, ordinarily performed on-sight with no discussion whatsoever and little or no controversy. Editors unfamiliar with our naming conventions frequently are unaware that we omit the year unless disambiguation is required, so many articles are affected. Correcting this error is more akin to fixing a typo than it is to the sort of substantive issues typically addressed in move requests. If every instance required its own discussion, I'm not sure that I'd have time for much else at Wikipedia.
- To be clear, the above isn't intended to come across as hostile. I'm frustrated with the situation, not with my fellow editors. —David Levy 15:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- (I'm at work, but wanted to give you at least a short reply right now) - I think you best course of action is to unarchive your discussion and let it sit for a day or 2, assuming noone still cares you can complete the rename without expending much energy. — xaosflux Talk 15:31, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- Okay, I'll follow this advice. Sincere thanks for taking time out of your day to provide it. —David Levy 15:37, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- (I'm at work, but wanted to give you at least a short reply right now) - I think you best course of action is to unarchive your discussion and let it sit for a day or 2, assuming noone still cares you can complete the rename without expending much energy. — xaosflux Talk 15:31, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
- Note: that few hours was in regards to the original move discussion that was attended to by many editors - your last discussion was really just your statement, there was no response from the person you posed the question to - or any other editor at all. — xaosflux Talk 12:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
You're the admin who created the redirect for the Logic song, can you create the talk page for the song too? Thanks. JustDoItFettyg (talk) 23:01, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
- @JustDoItFettyg: - Done — xaosflux Talk 23:20, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Sic
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Sic. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Oliver Hammam
Thanks for your reply on village pump and action taken to stop this editor. When I made my suggestion on Villega pump I already suspected this editor was not a resource for Wikipedia, but by rephrasing your earlier suggestion I hoped he might understand (assuming good faith against the odd ;-). Clearly not working - so blocking is in order. (above not something for general talks so I posted it here). Cheers Arnoutf (talk) 18:05, 29 May 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.
Problems
- Last week’s MediaWiki version was rolled back from some wikis because of a problem. This means planned changes did not happen. [250]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 30 May at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You will be able to control who can notify you on the Wikimedia wikis. You will have a user blacklist. When you add a user to the blacklist you will not get a notification when they mention you. You can test this on Beta Wikipedia. You can read more and give feedback on Meta. [251]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
12:18, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Cheers!
|
Thanks for rev-del'ing that spam on WP:Articles for creation/Redirects. Shearonink (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2017 (UTC) |
Mass Message sending
Hello Xaosflux! I have messaged you because I made two mass message requests to the group WikiProject YouTube, which I would like you to send. I am forwarding you these requests, because it looks like since March 17, 2017, you have been the only one sending out mass-message requests. To see the requests, click here. Thank you for your time. Jamesjpk (talk) 15:21, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Edit filter help
Any chance you could help with this request? I know nothing about regex and writing filters, so I'm not sure how to implement this. It just needs to tag them so they are more noticeable. I'm asking because I've seen you edit other edit filters. Thanks in advance for any help. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – June 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2017).
Administrator changes
- Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn
- ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned
Guideline and policy news
- An RfC proposing an off-wiki LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
- Some clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
- An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.
Technical news
- Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.
Miscellaneous
- Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.
Whisperback
Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 23:17, 1 June 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
- You can see new files on Special:NewFiles. You can now pick which dates you want to see files from. [252]
- When you read Wikipedia on a mobile device the first paragraph now comes before the infobox. [253]
- You can now remove navigation elements from your results when you search. This could for example be part of an infobox that is only there to help you find the previous or next article. [254]
- New users on Wikivoyages and Wikipedias (except French, English and German) now get a notification when a page they created is connected to Wikidata. Other wikis will get it 13 June. [255]
Problems
- The MediaWiki version from two weeks ago was rolled back. It was fixed late last week. Changes that were planned to go out last week did not happen. [256]
Changes this week
- Wikimedia wikis can show fewer links to articles in other languages. This is to make it easier to find the languages likely to be useful to the reader or editor. Everyone can still click to see the full list. Logged-in users who use the compact language links will see languages they have in their Babel box on their user page in the first, shorter list. You can turn the compact language list off or on in your preferences. [257]
- You can choose what dates to look at when you look at a user's contributions. [258]
- When you click on your watchlist in the mobile view you get a list of all pages in the watchlist instead of the latest changes to them. Logged-in users with at least ten edits will now get the latest changes instead. [259]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 June. It will be on all wikis from 8 June (calendar).
- String comparisons in Scribunto modules are now always done case-insensitively by byte order. Before they were sometimes in a case-sensitive US-English collation order. This could break some modules. [260]
Meetings
- You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 6 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The 2006 wikitext editor will be removed the week of 27 June. This is the old toolbar with small square blue buttons. You can see a picture of it. 0.03% of active Wikimedia editors use this old tool. They will not see a toolbar at all. [261][262]
- Wikimedia wikis use OCG to create PDFs. The OCG code has a lot of problems and will stop working. It has to be replaced. An alternative is Electron. You can tell the developers what you need the PDF service to be able to do. Electron already works on German Wikipedia. It will be on English Wikipedia later this week so you can test it there too. [263]
- The Architecture Committee will change and get a new name. You can read and comment on the draft that describes the new committee.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Glossaries
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Glossaries. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 6 June 2017 (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) 12:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 9 June 2017
- From the editors: Signpost status: On reserve power, help wanted!
- News and notes: Global Elections
- Arbitration report: Cases closed in the Pacific and with Magioladitis
- Featured content: Three months in the land of the featured
- In the media: Did Wikipedia just assume Garfield's gender?
- Recent research: Wikipedia bot wars capture the imagination of the popular press
- Technology report: Tech news catch-up
- Traffic report: Film on Top: Sampling the weekly top 10
MfD nomination of Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Collaboration of the Month
Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Collaboration of the Month, a page which you created or substantially contributed to (or which is in your userspace), has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Collaboration of the Month and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida/Collaboration of the Month during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 04:23, 9 June 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
- Some wikis have the larger and brighter OOjs UI edit page buttons. When you write an edit summary there you can now see how many bytes you have left before the summary is too long. [264]
- When you search on Wikipedia you can now find pages on other Wikimedia projects that could be relevant. You see them next to the search results. [265]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 June. It will be on all wikis from 15 June (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 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You will soon be able to get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account. You can test this on the test wiki. This will only work if they fail to log in to your account. [266]
- Wikimedia wikis use OCG to create PDFs. The OCG code has a lot of problems and will stop working. It has to be replaced. An alternative is Electron. You can tell the developers what you need the PDF service to be able to do. Electron now works on all Wikimedia projects. [267]
- Administrators can soon search for deleted page titles and find results that are similar to what they searched for. Today the search only finds pages that are exactly the same as what you search for. This is to make it easier to find pages when you don't know the exact title. Administrators on Arabic, Catalan, English, Persian, German, Italian, Polish, and Russian Wikipedia and on mediawiki.org can test this by adding
&fuzzy=1to the end of the web address when looking at Special:Undelete. [268][269]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Middlebury, Connecticut
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Middlebury, Connecticut. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Blank talk pages
I notice you're deleting blank talk pages - thanks for that. Please look the contributions of Emmy Expert (talk · contribs), it seems that they've been creating lots of them. – Train2104 (t • c) 13:24, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
- @Train2104: I was doing some cleanup where a page was blanked with only one author (WP:CSD#G7) - strictly worded this does not cover general deletion of talk pages, however there really is no good reason for mass creating blank talk pages either - have you asked that editor what is going on? — xaosflux Talk 13:46, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
- @Emmy Expert: is there any reason these pages are needed? — xaosflux Talk 13:53, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
- @Emmy Expert:, @Train2104: I see you received my message and have no response, this list of pages that you created blank, where your creation is the only edit, are being deleted. If you have any useful content to add to these pages in the future feel free to recreate. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 15:18, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
- Done — xaosflux Talk 15:20, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Why??
Why did you delete this talk page?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category_talk:Chess_museums&action=edit§ion=new
IQ125 (talk) 17:07, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
- @IQ125: I was doing a batch of general cleanups - this appears to be a page created in error from the history where you blanked it seconds after creating:
2016-11-26T11:00:30 . . IQ125 (talk | contribs | block) (empty) (←Blanked the page)
2016-11-26T11:00:03 . . IQ125 (talk | contribs | block) (47 bytes)
2016-11-26T10:59:42 . . IQ125 (talk | contribs | block) (48 bytes) ({{WikiProject Chess|class=Start|importance=Low}})
- If you have any content/tags/etc that you want on that page, feel free to recreate it. — xaosflux Talk 18:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi, just put the page back, I cannot remember what was on it anymore, it was not created in error. IQ125 (talk) 19:13, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
- @IQ125: OK, Category talk:Chess museums is restored - take a look, it is literally a blank page. You put a banner on it, and then removed the banner 48 seconds after you added it, leaving it blank last year. Feel free to put anything useful there. — xaosflux Talk 19:20, 17 June 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.
Problems
Changes this week
irc.wikimedia.orghas to be rebooted. This will probably happen on 21 June. It may be postponed. Some tools use this to get the recent changes feed. They will not work when it is down. [271]-
Special:PageDatawill be an entry point for machine-readable page data. [272] - The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 June. It will be on all wikis from 22 June (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 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- CSS in templates will be stored in a separate page in the future. You can now see how the TemplateStyles extension works on Beta Labs.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
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) 04:27, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
page recreation request and redirection remove request
Hello sir as per discussion i will follow wikipedia guideline. Before posting school(Rawat Public School CBSE,Rawat Public School pratap nagar jaipur, Rawat public school) article one of my friend who operate multiple account did not follow guideline .
Please give me permission for edit page with name Rawat Public School CBSE and please remove Account with name @Sharmaraj123: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayushjain772 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Page redirected
hello sir, As i will write article and revision according wikipedia guideline . so please remove redirection rule from this page and give me a chance to edit my rawat public school page The page Rawat Public School CBSE already exists, but is a redirect to Jaipur. Can i edit it again ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayushjain772 (talk • contribs) 17:52, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
- Hello @Ayushjain772:. The page you mentioned (Rawat Public School CBSE) is not protected and can be edited already; however I strongly recommend you review Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rawat Public School, Pratap Nagar, Jaipur first as a community discussion already determined that this page was not appropriate. As far as User:Sharmaraj123 goes, we don't delete user accounts - just stop using it. — xaosflux Talk 17:58, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion (Rawat Public School CBSE) i' editing it please give me permission waiting for approval — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayushjain772 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
- @Ayushjain772: There should be no permissions required - are you getting a permission error of some sort? — xaosflux Talk 17:08, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
i'm afraid from page redirection so asking you that i can edit it again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ayushjain772 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
- {[re|Ayushjain772}} if you are having a technical issue, let me know and I'll be happy to look in to it. If you are looking for permission to make a content related edit I'm the the one to ask - bring it up at the associated talk pages of the articles. — xaosflux Talk 17:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Elegie
Elegie has been diligently plugging away at converting http external links to https in templates. In the course of this work Elegie has met the criteria for the TE privilege. I see no reason for Elegie's work to need a second pair of eyes - the requests have always been carefully prepped. I've encouraged an application & just now added a refresher to the conversation. Can you think of a way to encourage an application? Perhaps the assessment of an admin who regularly hands out TE would help? Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 09:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
- @Cabayi: I'm a little on the fence about this here's why: a cursory check of their contributions looks like they meet the checkboxes, however their actual template/module related work appears to be limited to these minor http[s] changes which doesn't represent an understanding of complicated template syntax or LUA programming. That could also mean they know their limits - and I don't think they would break things but they may actually prefer the safety net of edit requests. A statement to the effect of what their future template/module editing plans are may go a long way if included with a PERM request. — xaosflux Talk 11:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 23 June 2017
- News and notes: Departments reorganized at Wikimedia Foundation, and a month without new RfAs (so far)
- In the media: Kalanick's nipples; Episode #138 of Drama on the Hill
- Op-ed: Facto Post: a fresh take
- Featured content: Will there ever be a break? The slew of featured content continues
- Traffic report: Wonder Woman beats Batman, The Mummy, Darth Vader and the Earth
- Technology report: Improved search, and WMF data scientist tells all
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 26 June 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
- The <inputbox> has a new
searchfilterparameter. You can add values likesearchfilter=insource:foo. It will add that to the user's search query. [273]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 June. It will be on all wikis from 29 June (calendar).
- Users will be able to choose whether they want to see Wikidata changes in enhanced watchlist/recent changes. Previously, this was disabled for everyone. [274]
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 June at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next WMF Language team office hour, an open session to talk about Wikimedia Language projects. The meeting will be on 27 June at 13:00 UTC. [275]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Title blacklist
Hi, could you please remove Hōkūleʻa from the blacklist? I closed this but was unable to move it to its new location. Anarchyte (work | talk) 09:39, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Bot task??
Please read my latest comments. The regex I use now fxes the ons left unfixed by the bots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
The request: Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/New page reviewer
Please look the review - click here. - Prinsipe Ybarro (Talk to me) 08:51, 1 July 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
- There was a problem with maps on Wikimedia wikis that used <mapframe> when you clicked on the link to another map service. Open Street Map or Google Maps are examples of other map services. If you had marked a place on the map the marker would not be in the same place on the other map service. It was in the middle of the map. This has now been fixed. [276]
Changes this week
- Very old and inactive unpublished translations in the Content Translation database will be removed. This is because of technical maintenance. If you have not worked on a translation after 1 January 2016 you will lose it after 6 July. If you want to keep the unfinished translation you need to open it before 6 July with the Content Translation tool. You can continue working on it later. Translations that were started or have been worked on after 1 January 2016 will not be affected.
- There is no new Mediawiki version this week.
- EventStreams is a new way to show activity on Wikimedia wikis. It works with the recent changes feed. It will do more things later. It will replace RCStream. Tools that use RCStream should move to EventStreams before 7 July. Tech News wrote about this in the 2017/07 issue. [277]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:32, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
BOTN discussion
The discussion regarding the edit summaries of Magic links bot has been moved to WP:BOTN#Concern about Magic links bot. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 16:10, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Kombucha
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Kombucha. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please let us know on SuggestBot's talk page. -- SuggestBot (talk) 12:00, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
You've got mail!
Message added 01:51, 6 July 2017 (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.
It involves discussion about private filter 860, so that's why I sent you an email. —MRD2014 01:51, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
- @MRD2014: I've made an adjustment. — xaosflux Talk 02:27, 6 July 2017 (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.
Administrators' newsletter – July 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.
Technical news
- Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding
?fuzzy=1to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term. - A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.
- Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding
Miscellaneous
- A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
- A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
- Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.
Thanks
Thanks for helping me with my login problem. I already thanked you on the other page, but I felt the need to do so on your page as well, because good things deserve recognition. At first I felt you underestimated my problem by giving me a standard suggestion, and I'm sorry if I seemed to reply a bit harshly to that (being a programmer I had the impression you were thinking about me as a newbie), but after that you've still been very kind and you gave me the solution I needed. I don't know you but I gave a quick look to your user page now and it appears you're a very good administrator and more than that, I'm glad I've been lucky enough to get my problem report to be read by someone as experienced as you. The only thing that's still outstanding is my report on Wikidata (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Talk:Q4010562), I hope someone knows how to deal with that because there's no way in the world I'm going to click on a Wikidata link ever again, given what happened the first and only time I ventured there.
Best regards, and thanks again :)
Nineko (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Nineko: good to hear you are fixed, this looks to be a software bug that a fix will soon be deployed for. Regarding Q4010562, I've dissociated the entries and they are no longer linked at w:en:Via (album) or w:it:Via (Claudio Baglioni) - thank you for bringing attention to that error. Now that your hash is updated you should be able to safely go to wikidata again. I've logged your case to the existing bug report as well. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 01:29, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
- Also, that may be your first attempt to edit on wikidata, but your first visit (logged in post-central auth deployment) was 4 years ago. (see here). You have an unusual number of "visits" on your central auth; these normally only appear for people that have deliberately run a script to attach to every project - I had a hard time finding a project you had never visited to get you working! — xaosflux Talk 01:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, sorry about that, I have to admit that when the central login thing kicked in, I somehow misunderstood how it worked, and I thought I had to visit every possible Wikipedia and every possible related project to make it work, which (believe me or not) I did by hand and not with a script, it took me a good while to do so, too (I later realised I didn't need to do it, which, incidentally, made it possible to solve my login issue). To be honest I completely forgot I visited Wikidata too, and even though there might not be problems for me to go there again, I'm still happier that someone more experienced than me could handle the "Via" song/album issue, though, as I'm not completely sure how Wikidata works and what I should have edited to fix the entry. I might be a programmer and I can administrate websites, yes, but some of Wikipedia's internal workings are still a mystery to me, one I'm not sure I want to unfold :)
Thanks again for everything.
Nineko (talk) 01:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
- Yeah, sorry about that, I have to admit that when the central login thing kicked in, I somehow misunderstood how it worked, and I thought I had to visit every possible Wikipedia and every possible related project to make it work, which (believe me or not) I did by hand and not with a script, it took me a good while to do so, too (I later realised I didn't need to do it, which, incidentally, made it possible to solve my login issue). To be honest I completely forgot I visited Wikidata too, and even though there might not be problems for me to go there again, I'm still happier that someone more experienced than me could handle the "Via" song/album issue, though, as I'm not completely sure how Wikidata works and what I should have edited to fix the entry. I might be a programmer and I can administrate websites, yes, but some of Wikipedia's internal workings are still a mystery to me, one I'm not sure I want to unfold :)
- Also, that may be your first attempt to edit on wikidata, but your first visit (logged in post-central auth deployment) was 4 years ago. (see here). You have an unusual number of "visits" on your central auth; these normally only appear for people that have deliberately run a script to attach to every project - I had a hard time finding a project you had never visited to get you working! — xaosflux Talk 01:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Anarchyte
Hello. Just a friendly heads up that you didn't actually promote him; the mop switch is still in the "off" position. 😇 --Dylan620 (I'm all ears) (Chris Cornell 1964–2017) 13:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Dylan620: It was stuck in the container had to get some bolt cutters! (Actually the interface seemed to get mad when I added and removed in one step, fixed it right before you messaged). — xaosflux Talk 13:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Xaosflux, I'm a little confused about this deletion. Sure, it was created by a blocked sock, but the last revision contained some substantive discussions about the page title and the sources. Surely keeping it serves a better purpose than deletion? Vanamonde (talk) 05:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: than you for letting me know, this one was deleted in error and has been restored. That sock had a large batch of 0-byte empty pages they created, this was not intended to be removed. — xaosflux Talk 11:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- No worries, and thank you. Vanamonde (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- I'm going back through that entire batch today, looks like there was a problem with my query - any other of that group that had any other comment will be restored as well. — xaosflux Talk 11:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: Done Thanks again - that mess should be all cleaned up now. — xaosflux Talk 11:41, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93:
- I'm going back through that entire batch today, looks like there was a problem with my query - any other of that group that had any other comment will be restored as well. — xaosflux Talk 11:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- No worries, and thank you. Vanamonde (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
pls
have a look - I think it needs exterminating User:2001:8003:1006:7400:8DE2:9C6D:B2F6:508C and its edits zapped, just an idea of course... JarrahTree 11:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- @JarrahTree: Done and Done — xaosflux Talk 11:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you much appreciated - great when that stuff goes before it sits there like... JarrahTree 11:32, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Rights
Take a look at https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/19881
Some of them may need to be removed. XXN, 18:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- @XXN: Hi, I actually did a batch of these earlier (c.f. Wikipedia:Database reports/Blocked users in user groups for an automated report) - blocking alone isn't "cause" to remove groups for most of the low security groups, as sometimes editors become unblocked and can resume where they left off. We do occasionally clean these out - but slowly. I starred your query though, looks like it ran fairly quick. — xaosflux Talk 19:45, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
- Hmm, I didn't knew about that reports page. I just saw that you have removed the rights of a recently blocked sock and I thinked it might be of interest for you to see the whole list of potential candidates to be left without rights :) --XXN, 20:16, 8 July 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
- There are sometimes links to pages about the same thing on other Wikimedia projects. A Wikipedia article about Berlin can link to the Wikivoyage guide or Wiktionary entry about Berlin. You can now see when that page has a badge. A badge could be the star that shows that an article is a featured article. [278]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 July. It will be on all wikis from 13 July (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 11 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Mobile users will be able to edit Wikipedia without JavaScript. This will make it possible to edit the wikis from older mobile phones. This will probably happen on 18 July for most wikis. [279]
- We will not use Tidy on Wikimedia wikis in the future. It will be replaced by June 2018. It could be earlier. Editors will need to fix pages that could break. You can read the simplified instructions for editors.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:07, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Talk:Single-payer_healthcare
Xaosflux,
That seems to solve the problem. Thanks.
--Nbauman (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi Xaosflux. Hope you're doing well. Can you please assist in changing one function in User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages.js (I've replaced a deprecated function)?
Please change
mw.util.wikiGetlink('Special:NewPages/hidepatrolled'),
to
mw.util.getUrl('Special:NewPages/hidepatrolled'),
Thanks. Lourdes 16:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
- Done @Lourdes: all set! — xaosflux Talk 00:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you :) Lourdes 00:46, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Talkback User talk:Crazytales
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
--Alison (Crazytales) (talk; edits) 15:13, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Lol!
([280]) I thought I had an edit conflict, but didn't seem to lose anything. :-) --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:36, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 15 July 2017
- News and notes: French chapter woes, new affiliates and more WMF team changes
- Featured content: Spectacular animals, Pine Trees screens, and more
- In the media: Concern about access and fairness, Foundation expenditures, and relationship to real-world politics and commerce
- Recent research: The chilling effect of surveillance on Wikipedia readers
- Gallery: A mix of patterns
- Humour: The Infobox Game
- Traffic report: Film, television and Internet phenomena reign with some room left over for America's birthday
- Technology report: New features in development; more breaking changes for scripts
- Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 3 wrap-up
test
| Bots Newsletter, July 2017 | |
|---|---|
Greetings! Here is the 4th 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:
BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG!
We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 19:42, 16 July 2017 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
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
- "Wikimedia Labs" is now called "Cloud VPS". "Wikimedia Tool Labs" is now called "Wikimedia Toolforge". This is to help clarify the purpose of these services. [281]
Problems
- On some pages, the Table of Contents is not being shown. It will normally appear if you edit the page again. Investigation is currently ongoing. [282]
Changes this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 July. It will be on all wikis from 20 July (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 18 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Architecture committee. The topic this week is: Migrate to HTML5 section ids. [283] The meeting will be on 19 July at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Page Previews, currently a Beta Feature, will be enabled for logged-out users for all remaining Wikipedias (with the exception of English and German) the week of 24 July. An A/B test will be run on English Wikipedia to collect data before approaching the community for further discussion. [284]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Comma
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Comma. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Whoops
The RfB wasn't yet closed when I started writing that comment; or at least my local cache hadn't updated to show the most recent version yet somehow :P ♠PMC♠ (talk) 13:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, July 2017
| Bots Newsletter, July 2017 | |
|---|---|
Greetings! Here is the 4th 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:
BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG!
We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
RevDel
Hi Xaosflux, regarding these two revision deletions [285] [286], I don't believe that RD6 applies. The intention of that criteria is that it applies to mistakes in previous redactions not administrator actions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:24, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Callanecc: I made some adjustments, - I referenced the wrong change reason the first time and didn't want that attached to that user unnecessarily - take a look at the public display that is now showing here: Special:UserRights/Polyporales. If you still object I'll revert that last one as well. — xaosflux Talk 11:20, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Case opened
You were recently listed as a party to or recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2/Evidence. Please add your evidence by August 6, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 16:59, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Please stop thte bot!
It is current changing "X architecture in New York" to "X architecture in New York (state)", but it needs to differentiate between places in New York state and places in New York City, otherwise someone is going to have to do it later. The ambiguity betwen "New York" meaning the city and "New York" meaning the state is not being solved with these changes, it is simply all being pushed into the state, which is not correct. Please stop the bot's run. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
- FYI, conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group#Bot_stop_needed. Black Kite (talk) 07:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Beyond My Ken: @Black Kite: - I replied at Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group#Bot_stop_needed. — xaosflux Talk 12:24, 24 July 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
- CSS in templates will be stored in a separate page in the future. This will make it easier to make templates look good on mobile devices. This now works on mediawiki.org and Wikitech. It will come to more wikis later. [287][288][289]
-
.mw-ui-constructivemodifier class is deprecated and has been removed. [290]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 July. It will be on all wikis from 27 July (calendar).
- It will be possible to restrict who can send you notifications on a wiki. This new feature will accessible in your preferences, in the Notifications tab, on Wednesday, July 26. Please see the documentation. [291]
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 25 July at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the Wikimedia Foundation July 2017 Metrics & Activities Meeting. The meeting is about how Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement are perceived and understood by the world. The meeting will be on 27 July at 19:00 (UTC). See the agenda and how to join.
Future changes
- New Filters for Edit Review, at the moment available as a Beta feature, will be released by default for the Recent Changes in September.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:58, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
"hide bots"
Can you tell me how to hide bots? I can't even figure out how to easily detect them, let alone hide them. If you just meant hide edits made under a bot flag, that's easy but almost useless: the complaints about Mag.* were substantially about edits made under his main account flooding watchlists, plus the perennial pseudo-debate about whether AWB is a bot (depending on what mode it's in etc). In the last Mag case I remember learning that lots of AWB edits are identified in the edit summary, but lots more aren't.
If I haven't looked at an article in a while, I like to look at its history since last time, to see how editors have changed it (i.e. the series of creative human decisions steering the article's development). That means I want to ignore every automated edit of any sort, not just the ones made under bot flags. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks.
173.228.123.121 (talk) 09:00, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
- Hi 173.228.123.121. Hidebots is not a standard feature of page histories, it is for Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlists. Watchlists are only available for editors with an account. Account holders can also use user scripts to hide things client-side on their watchlists, see Wikipedia:Customizing watchlists. You could possibly make a localhost set of javascripts/cascading style sheets to modify your client without an account. The 'bot assertion' flag is not stored in the page history, only in the recent changes tables used by watchlists recent changes feeds. It would be possible, but could be locally processing intense, for you to write a custom script that would hide page history based on string matches for usernames, or recursive queries of each editor to pull their groups. I don't recommend trying to hide only 'bots' on a history view - for example you would still have the line for vandals, but not the line showing that their vandalism was reverted (by a bot). — xaosflux Talk 11:38, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks, and good point about the vandal reversion bots, though there are only a few bots to do that, so I could make exceptions for them. I looked at recent changes just now and I do see a link to hide or unhide bot edits. But, I thought that only meant the edit was made under a bot flag: is that right?
- I thought that it was possible for bot operators (when using a bot account holding the bot permission) to turn off the bot flag for particular edits, when they do want the edits to be on recent changes. So the presence of a bot permission in the user rights doesn't always mean the edit would be hidden by recent changes under "hide bots". I'm not sure of this though.
- Is it possible to randomly access the recent changes log? I.e. can I easily tell from it whether a given 3 year old edit would have been hidden?
- One of the contentions in the ongoing arb case is about Magioladitis running bots on his main account. That account has never been in the bot group, so hide bots on recent changes wouldn't have hidden them.
- It sounds like not storing the bot assertion in the edit history is a loss of information that probably should be fixed in the server code.
- I have plenty of local processing power so the approach of getting the user groups is doable, but I don't see how to handle the case where a given account makes a mixture of bot edits and "real" edits, and I only want to see the real ones. "Hide bots" even if I could use it doesn't seem to help much with this problem. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 00:33, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
- Accounts with bot access "may" flag their edits as bot (and if they use the webapi it is the default); generally they are expected to with some specific exceptions. As far as editors you don't want to see - you can hide them from your watchlist with javascript, or you can hide things based on summaries (like "using AWB") - this is not foolproof. Some of these features are best done with integrated userscripts, but you will need to create an account to use that. For logged out users, bots are hidden by default on Special:RecentChanges - you can toggle it with the "show bots/hide bots" options. The recent changes tables are only 30 days old, 'bot assertions' are not part of attribution requirements and are not stored in page histories. In general, editors are not expected to make high-speed minor edits. Normal edits usually use the webui, so would not be flagged as "bot" - as they would have to specifically unflag every single edit use a uri parameter to not-flag an edit. — xaosflux Talk 00:44, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks again. Thinking about it further, what I really want amounts to a Turing test on edits, so I can't expect the wiki software to do that. I.e. I don't want to ignore all the edits of user XYZ, but only the automated ones, which requires being able to tell them apart, and there is no explicit metadata I can use for that (I can think up some heuristics). It's unfortunate that the bot assertion isn't stored in the page history: was that a deliberate decision? There's all kinds of important metadata in the page history that aren't needed for pure attributional purposes, and the bot assertion is something I'd have wanted to keep.
Separately, are you saying most automated edits these days are made by browser scripts through the web ui? I would have expected them to use the editing API, but that info doesn't seem to be preserved either. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 01:57, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
- From a statistical point, "most" automated edits would be made via the writeapi, and most common bot frameworks include using the bot assertion flag. If using the webui, they would specifically have to unflag an edit. For example I run a bot that performs various tasks on multiple projects and languages. Occasionally I will do the task manually using the webui, logged in as my bot - I don't have to specifically declare it as a bot edit. There are a collection on enhancement requests being discussed regarding history data and even hide bots. You can follow or join in the discussion at this phab:T18228 task, and its related tasks. Please note, adding to phabricator discussions does require creating an account. — xaosflux Talk 03:01, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks again. Thinking about it further, what I really want amounts to a Turing test on edits, so I can't expect the wiki software to do that. I.e. I don't want to ignore all the edits of user XYZ, but only the automated ones, which requires being able to tell them apart, and there is no explicit metadata I can use for that (I can think up some heuristics). It's unfortunate that the bot assertion isn't stored in the page history: was that a deliberate decision? There's all kinds of important metadata in the page history that aren't needed for pure attributional purposes, and the bot assertion is something I'd have wanted to keep.
- Accounts with bot access "may" flag their edits as bot (and if they use the webapi it is the default); generally they are expected to with some specific exceptions. As far as editors you don't want to see - you can hide them from your watchlist with javascript, or you can hide things based on summaries (like "using AWB") - this is not foolproof. Some of these features are best done with integrated userscripts, but you will need to create an account to use that. For logged out users, bots are hidden by default on Special:RecentChanges - you can toggle it with the "show bots/hide bots" options. The recent changes tables are only 30 days old, 'bot assertions' are not part of attribution requirements and are not stored in page histories. In general, editors are not expected to make high-speed minor edits. Normal edits usually use the webui, so would not be flagged as "bot" - as they would have to specifically unflag every single edit use a uri parameter to not-flag an edit. — xaosflux Talk 00:44, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks, and good point about the vandal reversion bots, though there are only a few bots to do that, so I could make exceptions for them. I looked at recent changes just now and I do see a link to hide or unhide bot edits. But, I thought that only meant the edit was made under a bot flag: is that right?
- Especially: phab:T13181. — xaosflux Talk 03:02, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks once more! I'll look at those Phab tickets. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 03:05, 30 July 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.
Problems
- Some pages show the error
Lua error in mw.wikibase.entity.lua at line 34: The entity data must be a table obtained via mw.wikibase.getEntityObject. This problem happens on pages with a Lua module that uses Wikidata. The developers are working on fixing the problem. You can fix a page by opening it for editing and then saving without changing anything. [292] - Wikidata and German Wikipedia could not be edited for an hour on 28 July. You can read why and how we could avoid it in the future in the incident report.
Changes later this week
- Some wikis already have the larger and brighter OOjs UI edit page buttons. All remaining wikis except Commons will have these from 1 August. [293]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 August. It will be on all wikis from 3 August (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 1 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The default font in the edit window will soon change for some users. Instead of using the browser default it will be monospace. Users can change this in their preferences. This should only change this for some users on Macs and iOS devices. [294]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:45, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – August 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2017).
Administrator changes
- Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 (first RfA to reach WP:300)
- Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem
Guideline and policy news
- Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
- A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
- An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.
Technical news
- LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
- The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 2 August 2017 (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) 12:01, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
The file File:T136375-bad1-Capture.PNG has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
orphaned personal image, no foreseeable use
While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.
Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jon Kolbert (talk) 02:02, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 5 August 2017
- Recent research: Wikipedia can increase local tourism by +9%; predicting article quality with deep learning; recent behavior predicts quality
- WikiProject report: Comic relief
- In the media: Wikipedia used to judge death penalty, arms smuggling, Indonesian governance, and HOTTEST celebrity
- Traffic report: Swedish countess tops the list
- Featured content: Everywhere in the lead
- Technology report: Introducing TechCom
- Humour: WWASOHs and ETCSSs
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 see which Wikipedia language versions are read in a specific country. This tool is called Wikipedia Views Visualized. [295]
- The Architecture Committee is now the Wikimedia Technical Committee. You can read the charter. [296]
Problems
- You can get an email when a page on your watchlist was edited. You can choose not to get emails for minor edits. There is a bug that means that you then don't get an email when someone does a normal edit after a minor edit. The developers are working on fixing this. Until it has been fixed you can activate "Email me also for minor edits of pages and files" at the bottom of "User profile" in your preferences if you want to. [297]
- The thanks button sometimes didn't work for mobile users. This was because of a new bug and has now been fixed. [298]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 August. It will be on all wikis from 10 August (calendar).
Future changes
- Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP. [299]
- Links to sections on Wikipedia don't work well in languages that don't use the Latin script. The URL in the address bar in your browser shows Latin characters like
.D0.A1.D1.81.D1.8B.D0.BB.D0.BA.D0.B8instead of the section heading in the wiki's language. Links to sections in non-Latin scripts will be in the script of that wiki in the future. This will happen in the next few months. [300][301] - Wiki pages printed by the web browser "Print" function will have an updated style. This new style will be similar to the when you download a page as PDF. It will be better at showing tables, infoboxes and headings. [302][303]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:45, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Interesting
I'm assuming this is your playground — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.186.67.54 (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
- Hello. This is a User talk page. Every editor has one and it can be used to ask questions, leave messages, etc. — xaosflux Talk 15:49, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
Yobot 53
Since I replied to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 53. Should we revive the discussion about approving it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:24, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Magioladitis: as task 53 is only marked as expired, feel free to revert the expiration and relist at anytime or create a new task if it will be significantly different - whichever works best for you. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 21:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. Feel fee to comment. I am trying to focus on re-organising the non-controversial tasks. Especially, the non-CHECKWIKI ones. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Question about the "Oversight" revisions you have there
Hello there,Xaos. I noticed as of lately that there has been a recent Revdelete action here on your talkpage. I checked that IP,and apparently,it says in the filter log about some sort of a "Customer service ticket" transcription. And apparently,it has been removed by Oversight due to it being "Purely disruptive material",as you said it. Could you please elaborate? As i dont see why such an edit about a customer service ticket should be revdeleted. I thought that was reserved for blatant viruses and personal attacks only. 78.98.82.157 (talk) 17:10, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
- Yes there was a revdel, no there was not an oversight (suppression). What was removed was a large non-wikipedia related copy/paste that has been placed on multiple pages in a purely disruptive manner that potentially contains inappropriate material. As for the abuse log, please specific about which exact entry in Special:AbuseLog you are referring to. — xaosflux Talk 21:34, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Hmmm,upon closer inspection,i see that the stuff about that "Martha Partridge" was originally some sort of an post on the nosleep subreddit. Apparently,it details a series of weird occurings at a most likely fictional website called happygames.com. It seems that IP was quite obsessed with it as a matter of fact. Probably someone who got too immersed,perhaps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.98.82.157 (talk) 08:04, 13 August 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
- Bureaucrats can now set users as confirmed. Previously only stewards could do this on most wikis. Nothing will change for wikis that have previously decided to let administrators set users as confirmed. [304]
Problems
- The symbols in the language list that show that an article is good or featured in that language doesn't work. Links to the Commons category in the sidebar doesn't work either. The developers are working on fixing it. [305][306]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 August. It will be on all wikis from 17 August (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:29, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
Misbehaving bot
Hello. As a member of the Bot Approvals Group, you may be able to assist me with a problem. User:Cydebot has merged "Category:Social Democratic Party (Serbia) politicians" into "Category:Social Democratic Party (Serbia 2001–10) politicians". The parties, however, are not the same. Have you any suggestions on the best way to correct this situation? CJCurrie (talk) 00:52, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) First, there appear to be only three affected articles, so any changes can simply be done manually. Second, the category name "Category:Social Democratic Party (Serbia 2001–10) politicians" is not compliant with MOS:DATERANGE. It should be "2001–2010". Third, it looks like the recent merge was performed by Merge bot, not Cydebot. Have you tried posting to Merge bot's talk page? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:20, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) @CJCurrie: The Cydebot change was three years ago and there are only a couple of pages, the "best way" would be to just create whatever category is appropriate and updates the articles by hand. The actual recent deletion is a one-off job to clean up old Cydebot moves, if you create a new you should not run in to it repeating. — xaosflux Talk 01:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Template talk:Infobox television channel
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox television channel. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 17 August 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
- You can now test the new Timeless skin on the test wiki and mediawiki.org. You can turn it on in your preferences. You can report bugs in Phabricator. It will come to more wikis soon. [307][308]
- Your watchlist can now have the option to unwatch pages. You have to turn this on in your preferences. [309]
- If a table has several columns you can often choose which column you want to use to sort the table. This has not worked for some columns for readers who have used Firefox or Safari. This has now been fixed. [310]
- The RelatedArticles extension has shown related pages on Wikivoyages. You will now see the related pages at the end of the article together with an image. Previously the links were in the sidebar. Wikis that want this extension can request it on Phabricator.
Changes later this week
- Videos will now be played in the WebM format in all browsers. Previously some browsers used Ogg Theora (.ogv). If you use Safari, Internet Explorer or Edge you may see slower playback speed at high resolutions. Instead we will get better quality and smaller file size. You can still upload video as Ogg files. They are automatically converted to WebM. This doesn't affect Ogg audio files. [311]
- The default font in the edit window will change for some users this week. Instead of using the browser default, it will be monospace. Users can change this in their preferences. This should only change this for some users on Macs and iOS devices. [312]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 August. It will be on all wikis from 24 August (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- 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 22 August at 19:00 (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.
18:01, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
Request
I want you to restore my userrights which you had removed last year.[313] —MBlaze Lightning T 06:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- Done @MBlaze Lightning: Welcome back. — xaosflux Talk 10:43, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks! —MBlaze Lightning T 15:42, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Family Guy
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Family Guy. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Help with AWB
Hi. I hope you are well. I need a little help with AWB, the original discussion can be found at User talk:Koavf#WikiProject tagging on talk pages. Kindly ping me when you reply. Thanks a lot in advance —usernamekiran(talk) 21:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Usernamekiran: your best bet for building a complex AWB ruleset is to start at: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. — xaosflux Talk 22:34, 25 August 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
- Syntax highlighting is now a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It will come to right-to-left wikis later. This beta feature is based on CodeMirror. [314][315]
- You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can turn this off or choose to get an email notification in your preferences. You can also turn on to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address. [316]
Problems
- Some pages show the error
Lua error in mw.wikibase.entity.lua at line 34: The entity data must be a table obtained via mw.wikibase.getEntityObject. This problem happens on pages with a Lua module that use Wikidata. This has now been fixed and no new pages will get this problem. You still need to fix pages that were broken before and still show the error message. You can see how on this page. [317]
Changes later this week
- You can block users from sending you notifications. [318]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 August. It will be on all wikis from 31 August (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 29 August at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can join the next meeting with the Technical Committee. The topic this week is Migrate to HTML5 section ids. The meeting will be on 30 August at 21:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- In the future you will have global preferences. This means you could set something in your preferences to work in the same way on all wikis. You will not be forced to use global preferences. The developers are now asking if editors need exceptions. This is where you want to use global settings on almost all wikis, but have some wikis where you want it to work in a different way. If you want this you need to tell the developers now. You can do so on the talk page. [319]
- New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September. [320]
- The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 in September 2017. Wikis can ask on Phabricator to get it early, so they can help find and solve problems now.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:10, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2017).
Administrator changes
- Nakon • Scott
- Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee
Guideline and policy news
- ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
- Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.
Technical news
- You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
- Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
- In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.
Arbitration
- Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.
A missing Madman, an unattended bot task
Madman is still radio silent - I hope they are well, though other pursuits seem to have called them away. I emailed them a little while ago asking for the source code for the Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity report but have not received any response. Probably we eventually need to replace the ailing Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MadmanBot 13 as well unless they are able to find time for coding bots.
As best I can tell, no bureaucrats unquestionably fail to meet the activity requirements but as days turn to weeks, months, and years, the report will be needed at some time in the future. Do you think you could work on sourcing a replacement?
- The last report available looks like Special:Permalink/691208262.
- It was created following this request: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#Bureaucrat activity table.
- It was refined with this communication: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#re: Bureaucrat activity table.
- The last communication regarding a feature request is here: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity redux which followed up Special:Diff/695024478.
Good luck =) –xenotalk 04:13, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: Hey, so... happened to think to check on my talk page and bot activity out of the blue... gratified to see things are still going on without me, not as gratified to see it looks like e-mails are no longer working and you had to do August 2017 manually. What can I do to help? I'm hoping that the e-mail issue is a simple framework change that I can resolve by verifying the bot's address or some such. And I'll add my enwiki e-mail address to my phone so I have greater visibility on notifications in the future. As I'm sure you know, I've been away for a while but should have a little bit of time to make some revisions before I'm caught up in madness again. V/r, — madman 01:12, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, I see that the call is for a bureaucrat activity report vs. fixing administrator activity report, but would be happy to do both. Looking into the former; I should still have the source code. — madman
- @Madman: actually both - thanks for the note, had @JJMC89: looking in to replacing the admin report - but if you are up for repair and continue that's ok too - don't think we should have 2 bots doing that, so JJMC89 if this is back may need you to stand down on task 13 - but thank you for considering!!! — xaosflux Talk 02:31, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Madman: The API has been returning the incorrect response when an email is successfully sent. (See phab:T171416.) xaosflux, I'll wait a bit before withdrawing the task. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:45, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, I see that the call is for a bureaucrat activity report vs. fixing administrator activity report, but would be happy to do both. Looking into the former; I should still have the source code. — madman
- Okay, so a.) I found that the notify2 task had been commented out in the inactive-admins crontab; usually I do this when I had to do the second notification on a date other than the 25th for some reason, but I must have forgotten to uncomment it. Rookie mistake... b.) I removed -o and -e on the jsub so all standard output and error will go to a file on the report (it goes through the logging framework anyway), removed the redirection to /dev/null on the crontab entries, and the e-mail from cron will be redirected to my personal e-mail when I get it. I see that the report ran on the 1st but I don't see an attempt to edit the page, which is weird. This may happen when a task exceeds its memory limit so I bumped the memory limit by 25% and we'll see how it goes on the 1st. — madman 02:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
- Note, there is not a specific fixed "2nd date", though practice is generally "a week before". The 25'th satisfies the "again several days" requirement even for February. — xaosflux Talk 11:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
- Looks like you want me to tweak the template so there's a line break after each of the iarows? Just a guess... ;) I know how that kind of OCD can be and will tweak after the run I'm monitoring in 7m. Thanks, — madman 00:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
- Nah, not really :d I would rather that "removed rows" don't leave gaps - or that everything has gaps. I was trying to get rid of an unwanted whitespace, but it was actually the TOC at the resolution I was in! — xaosflux Talk 01:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
- Mmm, okay; let me know if you want me to revert the new month template changes (I got them in before the clock ran out, though I missed a linebreak after iarow/b and that did bother me). We'll see how a removed row looks when the update task runs and I may tweak the template manipulation functions. The report and notify1 tasks seem to have run without a hitch. — madman 01:20, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
- Nah, not really :d I would rather that "removed rows" don't leave gaps - or that everything has gaps. I was trying to get rid of an unwanted whitespace, but it was actually the TOC at the resolution I was in! — xaosflux Talk 01:16, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
- Looks like you want me to tweak the template so there's a line break after each of the iarows? Just a guess... ;) I know how that kind of OCD can be and will tweak after the run I'm monitoring in 7m. Thanks, — madman 00:54, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
- Note, there is not a specific fixed "2nd date", though practice is generally "a week before". The 25'th satisfies the "again several days" requirement even for February. — xaosflux Talk 11:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
I see what you're saying about an {{iarow}} being removed for an administrator who's resumed activity but the line break being left. The template library I wrote is pretty generic– it removes the first character of the template instance through the last character, because no other behavior can guarantee formatting doesn't get broken. But I think I can special-case this one in, maybe add an optional parameter to remove a line break following if present. It certainly does look relatively ugly as is. I'll let you know when I make that change. Cheers, — madman 23:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Salvidrim RfB
As you were the one who protected the page, would you consider adding my "support" vote? I had originally intended to support, but was given pause by some of the "opposes". After some investigating and much reflection, I decided my "support" vote was still appropriate; the request was taken down literally as I was in the process of voting. I realize it's not customary to add votes to a closed discussion, but this is largely a technicality. Obviously this isn't a major issue, but in the spirit of IAR, as well as the precedent set by allowing a vote to be stricken after the close, I feel my request is reasonable. Thank you for considering this matter. Joefromrandb (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
- @Joefromrandb: this is highly unusual, and normally votes added after a closing are reverted. That discussion is over, there is no benefit in continuing the consensus building exercise as the candidate withdrew. My suggestion to you at this point is to leave your comment on the RfB talk page, on the candidate's user talk page - or some sort of message on each. It will be available for anyone reviewing at a later time. — xaosflux Talk 22:12, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
- Again, this situation is somewhat of an anomaly, as I was in the process of voting when the RfB was taken down. It's not as though I'm attempting to add my voice to a closed discussion (OK, I kind of am, but you get my point; it was a bizarre sequence of timing that precluded my vote from being registered). I did, in fact add a note to the talk page explaining this. I realize it doesn't change anything, and it's not an exceptionally big deal. I just felt that since precedent has been set in allowing a "support" vote with which the voter was no longer comfortable to be stricken, my request isn't as unusual as it would otherwise be. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
- Incidentally, I did not in any way mean to insinuate foul play. A user made a reasonable request that his vote be stricken, in light of new information of which he was previously unaware, and Salvidrim, in a show of class, struck the vote. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Objection - ADMINACCT
I discovered this [321]. Please WP:ADMINACCT for greenlighting a further interaction ban violation instead of blocking for breaching the interaction ban with the question. Legacypac (talk) 13:51, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- @Legacypac: I felt this was in spirit of the original ban that allows each of you to comment on discussions started by the other about third parties, without directly interacting with each other. I do not feel that asking for clarification of the ban components is block worthy. If after reviewing this you still object I will post at AN for review by other admins. Please reply here. — xaosflux Talk 14:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- Arguably there should have been no comment on the Taku thread at all as I'm pretty heavily involved with User:Hauster in trying to rationalize Taku's drafts.
His first comment is essentially discussing my editing, as I'm the most active person clearing Draft space and that activity takes up a large percentage of my edits.(the edit I recalled was to another thread) If a person feels the need to ask for permission, it suggests they know it's against the rule, and they are moving into forbidden territory. I don't mean to be difficult, I'm just VERY interested in fully protecting a restriction I took a lot of abuse and an unfair editing restriction to finally achieve. Legacypac (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2017 (UTC)- @Legacypac: Without getting into the substance of this, please note that there is no need or reason to reference "ADMINACCT" in asking an administrator a question about one of his or her comments or actions. Most, if not almost all, admins will gladly respond to such questions, so there is no need to preemptively remind them via a policy citation that they are supposed to do so. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:42, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- xaoflux is a good admin, but Admins generally have recently failed miserably at protecting me from Abuse. One of them is now at ArbComm partly for adding to the abuse. "unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools" was why I linked to policy. At this point I'm not interested in taking this issue to ANi. I apprecite xaosflux's detailing of his thought process, and I hope he will appreciate why I find his action frustrating. Perhaps he will consider if the post he greenlighted went beyond the limited permission he granted. See you all next time the IBAN is pushed or broken. Legacypac (talk) 14:54, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- @Legacypac: I did consider that the posting would be in a gray area and watched to see what was posted. I understand this is a delicate situation. Please note, had you wanted to make a similar post my response would have been the same. Additionally, if this becomes a recurring trend I won't be as supportive and will note on the other greenlight that it was for that instance only. — xaosflux Talk 15:23, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- xaoflux is a good admin, but Admins generally have recently failed miserably at protecting me from Abuse. One of them is now at ArbComm partly for adding to the abuse. "unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools" was why I linked to policy. At this point I'm not interested in taking this issue to ANi. I apprecite xaosflux's detailing of his thought process, and I hope he will appreciate why I find his action frustrating. Perhaps he will consider if the post he greenlighted went beyond the limited permission he granted. See you all next time the IBAN is pushed or broken. Legacypac (talk) 14:54, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- @Legacypac: Without getting into the substance of this, please note that there is no need or reason to reference "ADMINACCT" in asking an administrator a question about one of his or her comments or actions. Most, if not almost all, admins will gladly respond to such questions, so there is no need to preemptively remind them via a policy citation that they are supposed to do so. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:42, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
- Arguably there should have been no comment on the Taku thread at all as I'm pretty heavily involved with User:Hauster in trying to rationalize Taku's drafts.
ACTRIAL
Hi Xaosflux. The trial goes live in just 5 days on 7 Sept. We're still looking for an admin to volunteer to make the changes to the site interface. The list of changes is at Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial#User interface messages. It's only a few minutes work. Any chance you could help? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:12, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: I'll check on my work scheduled, it looks like the new interface messages can be made in advance (nothing is calling them now). Admin Scottywong already did initial work on this - don't want to step on his toes if he is already on deck? — xaosflux Talk 01:09, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I've asked Scott as well, but as he's retired I don't really want him to feel he has to do it if he doesn't want to. We just need to be sure an admin will be around to do it - and knows what he is doing. I'm out of town most of this coming week. Danny Horn has assured me this morning that the WMF is on schedule so, yes, it could be done any time now really. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I look over it tomorrow and do as much in advance as possible. — xaosflux Talk 01:47, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Soounds good. Thank your very much. I have an alt account that has never edited that can do some checking for function. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:08, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I look over it tomorrow and do as much in advance as possible. — xaosflux Talk 01:47, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I've asked Scott as well, but as he's retired I don't really want him to feel he has to do it if he doesn't want to. We just need to be sure an admin will be around to do it - and knows what he is doing. I'm out of town most of this coming week. Danny Horn has assured me this morning that the WMF is on schedule so, yes, it could be done any time now really. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:45, 2 September 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.
Tech News
- We are asking Tech News readers five questions to make the newsletter better. You can answer the questions here. We are grateful for every reply we get.
Recent changes
- The RevisionSlider user interface has changed. You can now select revisions by clicking on the bars. You can move the blue knob past the yellow one and the yellow one will move along, and the other way around. [322][323]
Problems
- Some users have problems loading very large watchlists. It is working better than earlier but the problem has not been solved. The developers are working on fixing it. Until it has been fixed you can turn on "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" in your preferences and see if it helps. [324]
Changes later this week
- New filters for edit review is a beta feature to improve recent changes pages. It will work on watchlists from 5 September. [325]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 September. It will be on all wikis from 7 September (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 5 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- You can see a presentation about and discuss the new Technical Committee on 5 September at 17:30 (UTC). There will be a presentation on YouTube and a discussion in
#wikimedia-officeon Freenode. You can use the web chat. [326]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:15, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 6 September 2017
- From the editors: What happened at Wikimania?
- News and notes: Basselpedia; WMF Board of Trustees appointments
- Featured content: Warfighters and their tools or trees and butterflies
- Traffic report: A fortnight of conflicts
- Special report: Biomedical content, and some thoughts on its future
- Recent research: Discussion summarization; Twitter bots tracking government edits; extracting trivia from Wikipedia
- WikiProject report: WikiProject YouTube
- Technology report: Latest tech news
- Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 4 wrap-up
- Humour: Bots
Please comment on Talk:Moors
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Moors. Legobot (talk) 04:34, 7 September 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
- You can get a notification when a page you created is connected to a Wikidata item. You can choose to get these notifications in your preferences. Some wikis already had this option. It is now available on all wikis. [327]
- The Newsletter extension is now on mediawiki.org. The newsletter extension is for newsletters where you can subscribe by getting a notification when a new issue has been published. It will come to more wikis later. [328]
- The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. There is now a new high-priority category:
tidy-whitespace-bug. This usually affects templates with horizontal lists. You can read more about using Linter and the Tidy whitespace bug. [329]
Problems
- Tech News 2017/36 reported about new filters for edit review coming to watchlists. This was planned to happen last week. It will happen next week instead. [330]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 September. It will be on all wikis from 14 September (calendar).
- OOjs UI will be updated. This could affect some icons. You can read more about the changes.
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
- 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 September at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- You can't use OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can use Electron instead. Most PDFs are already created with Electron. Electron will get missing features before 1 October. You can create books but they will not have all planned features until November or December. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
- New filters for edit review are available now on recent changes as a beta feature. Some of those filters and other features will be deployed as default features in the coming weeks. Users will be able to opt out in their preferences. [331]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
If you liked that...
...you're gonna just love this... :D — fortunavelut luna 12:43, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
Invitation to Admin confidence survey
Hello,
Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.
The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.
To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.
We really appreciate your input!
Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.
For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television. Legobot (talk) 04:36, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
File:Octagon-warning.svg listed for discussion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Octagon-warning.svg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination.
ATTENTION: This is an automated, bot-generated message. This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 23:55, 14 September 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
- You can now see contributions from an IP range at Special:Contributions. Before you could only see contributions from single IP addresses. Some older contributions from IP ranges could be missing at first because it will take some time to add them. [332][333]
- Flow has been re-scoped to become Structured Discussions and the development has restarted. Phabricator projects and repositories have been renamed. [334]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 September. It will be on all wikis from 21 September (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 19 September 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 20 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- We are replacing Tidy on Wikimedia wikis. Editors need to fix pages that could break. You can read the simplified instructions for editors. Some wikis have already switched. If your wiki would like to switch to the new format now, you can file a task.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Re:
Hi Xaosflux, I think the owner just forgot to put the BRFA in the right place. I thought it was a compulsory step which would also focus your attention on various attempts to pursue the same objective. But well, I learnt I was wrong, cheers! --Vituzzu (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Quick question
This seems to be something that you would know: is there currently a bot that monitors inactive users for user rights that have an activity requirement. I'm thinking page mover and NPR since those are the two I deal with the most, but I think template editor also has one. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
- @TonyBallioni: there was one that published to Wikipedia:Database_reports, but it has gone inactive. In many cases, there are many legit alt accounts so while an "informational" report may be useful, it shouldn't be treated like this page. I have a quarry I run from time to time to check on these, see quarry:query/18989. There are a handful of 'legacy' patrollers that could be removed, think I'd want to give them notice first though. — xaosflux Talk 01:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for the quick response. There has been some discussion at WT:NPR about those not using the right so I was curious. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:07, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 25 September 2017
- News and notes: Chapter updates; ACTRIAL
- Humour: Chickenz
- Recent research: Wikipedia articles vs. concepts; Wikipedia usage in Europe
- Technology report: Flow restarted; Wikidata connection notifications
- Gallery: Chicken mania
- Traffic report: Fights and frights
- Featured content: Flying high
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
- Wikitext syntax highlighting is a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. This beta feature is based on CodeMirror. You can now search through the entire article with
CTRL+Forcmd+Fwhen you edit. Before it just searched through a part of the article. The developers are also fixing a couple of other bugs. [335][336] - Administrators on wikis that use Structured Discussions as a beta feature or by default can now create and move Structured Discussions boards. Structured Discussions was previously called Flow. [337]
Changes later this week
- You now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device or IP address that have logged in to your account before you will be notified after five failed attempts. For security reasons you will soon get an email by default when someone tries to log in to your account and when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address. This can be turned off in your preferences. [338]
- Users with extremely old browsers (for example Netscape 2–4, released from 1995–1997) which do not support Unicode will no longer be able to edit. They should try to install a new browser. [339]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 September. It will be on all wikis from 28 September. (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Foundation Readers department has proposed changing the mobile website. You can read more on mediawiki.org. This would be a big change.
- You can't use OCG to create PDFs after 1 October. This is because of technical problems. You can still create PDFs. Tech News 2017/37 said the function to create PDFs from books would still work. It is now clear it will not work for the next few months. The developers are working on fixing this. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:00, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Glock pistols
Template:Glock pistols has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:42, 28 September 2017 (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) 01:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – October 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2017).
Administrator changes
- Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem
- Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box
Guideline and policy news
- Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
- Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.
Technical news
- You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.
Arbitration
- Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
- A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
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 preload features in the visual editor. This means you can create links to create new pages and some text will already be in the edit window when someone clicks on it. [340]
Changes later this week
- If you have turned on "Automatically enable most beta features" you will now get the 2017 wikitext editor. Before this you had to turn it on manually even though it is a beta feature. [341]
- Special:Block and Special:Unblock will get the OOUI look. [342]
- The jQuery library will be upgraded to version 3 on all Wiktionary wikis from 2 October. It will be on all non-Wikipedia wikis from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October. [343]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 October. It will be on all wikis from 5 October (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 3 October at 19:00 (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 4 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- A new feature called Reading Lists are coming to the Wikipedia mobile apps. First it will be in the Android version. Reading Lists are a private user preference where you can see lists of articles on multiple devices. You can give feedback on this feature. [344]
- The search function has used fallback languages for language analysis. This means a language could be analysed with the grammar of a completely unrelated language to find related words. This will be removed from most wikis the week starting with 9 October. You can read more and give feedback.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
23:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Template:Middle East conflicts detailed map
Dear xaosflux, Will you allow me to try to convince you to change your opinion/vote at ”Templates for discussion”? I am the inventor of war map templates/modules. No one loves these maps more than I do. I have been working on developing them for the last 5 years and have written their rules, their documentations, a top 10 style explanation of rules, etc. I fought hard to establish the maps when no one believed in them and many were trying to delete them. I then fought hard to keep the maps in conformity with Wikipedia rules, especially in terms of reliable sourcing etc. I also spent quite some time getting POV pushers, edit warriors, sockpuppets warned, reverted, blocked… I am quite proud of what we (many participants over time) have achieved. Today, I need your help to allow me to cut one bad branch (Template:Middle East conflicts detailed map) so that the maps “tree” would grow better and prosper. The template in question does not contain any datapoint, so no information will be lost. The template only combines the data in the other individual country templates. I will not bore you again with all the details about why this template is so bad. I just ask you to trust me on this. The removal of this template will allow the maps area to gain in credibility and be on more solid footing to continue to prosper and expand in the future. Tradediatalk 21:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @xaosflux: Indeed, “there is no use for data on this”. I have included to the right a picture with a screenshot of Module:Middle East conflicts detailed map which draws the template in question. As you can see, the module code is 2 parts. The first part invokes country modules which contain the datapoints (orange oval). The second part is simply a caption with an explanation for the different colored icons (blue oval). Therefore, this template/module has no datapoints, and just adds together all the datapoints from the other country modules. If you are now convinced by this, would you be able to strike the “keep” from your vote or even put in a “delete”? I am afraid that the discussion might be confusing to the admin trying to close it. Thank you again for your time. Tradediatalk 03:01, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
- I noted that keep was conditional and will let the closing admin sort it out. Please note, that you can argue on the article talk page that the template shouldn't be used without actually requiring that it be deleted. — xaosflux Talk 03:14, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Filter 642
Why does this filter allow vandals to remove OTRS tags, but disallow the restoration of them? Shouldn't it (or another filter) prevent vandals from removing them in the first place? Sakura Cartelet Talk 00:27, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Sakura Cartelet: 642 is a bit touchy, its purpose was just to prevent falsely flagging files as OTRS logged, my latest touch to it was to allow admins to add these tags - primarily for special housekeeping efforts for non-OTRS admins. So this leaves a bit of a gap you have noticed. There is a messy way to restore these tags you could do - but its the "wrong way", so that leaves you stuck if you run across this type of vandalism. You can make a talk-page edit-request (ala {{sudo}}) to request a patrolling admin restore any you run across. If you are seeing this happen frequently, we can create a companion filter to prevent the removal of OTRS permissions tags; if you see it frequently drop a note at WP:EFR. Hope that answers your question! — xaosflux Talk 02:05, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Closing EFH requests
Hi Xaosflux, I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but EFH states The discussion will be open at least 3 days.
? Dane made a request at 03:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC) and the request was closed as successful at 11:41, 5 October 2017 (UTC) -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 11:49, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
- @There'sNoTime: you are not, I closed early in error and have already reversed. — xaosflux Talk 12:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
RevDel Request
Hello! I have privacy concerns and I need to remove all my history from my user page and my talk page. This is my user page history in this link and my talk page in this link. Could you please help me? Thanks! 😊 Lunajav (talk) 13:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Lunajav: Your entire userpage history has been deleted. Per the deletion policy (Wikipedia:User_pages#Deletion_of_user_talk_pages) entire user talk pages are generally not deleted - and I see your talk history includes communication with other editors regarding article content. Is there a specific history version of your talk page that you have concerns with? — xaosflux Talk 13:21, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for deleting my user page history. (Redacted). To be specific, I need your help to remove starting from Sept 10, 2017 at 21:58 to Oct. 1, 2017 at 03:09 in this link if you would agree. Thank you again. Lunajav (talk) 16:46, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Lunajav: I've removed version where you discussed your academic level, and will request oversight purges for those; the other version do not appear to fall within the deletion policy. If you have major privacy concerns still, please use the contact form at WP:OVERSIGHT. — xaosflux Talk 17:09, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for deleting my user page history. (Redacted). To be specific, I need your help to remove starting from Sept 10, 2017 at 21:58 to Oct. 1, 2017 at 03:09 in this link if you would agree. Thank you again. Lunajav (talk) 16:46, 6 October 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
- The number of active users listed by
{{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}and on Special:Statistics will now only include Wikidata edits as activity on Wikidata and not on other wikis too. [345] - Previously you could create wiki links starting with two colons. Now you need to use one colon. [[::File:X.jpg]] now has to be [[:File:X.jpg]]. There is now a new Linter category. You can see a list on Special:Linterrors/multi-colon-escape. The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. You can read more about using Linter. [346]
Problems
- You will not be able to edit or upload files to Commons for around 30 minutes on 11 October. This will start at 06:00 UTC. This is because of work to let Commons show 3D models. [347]
Changes later this week
- The font in the edit window is monospace by default. Today you can change preferences to another font family or use "the browser default" instead of monospace. Switching to the browser default has only changed the font on Macs. The option to use browser default will be removed this week. [348]
- If you want to print a page or make a PDF of a page you can do so in the side menu. The way the pages look when you do this will change. You can read more on mediawiki.org.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).
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 10 October at 19:00 (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 11 October at 15:00 (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.
14:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
Precious three years!
| |
| Three years! |
|---|
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:54, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:White
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:White. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Removal of user groups
The Kostas RfA was correctly snow closed after a few hours by a bureaucrat. It was closed while I was doing my research and before I could make my vote (which is now superfluous anyway). However, many of the votes, incuding those of admins, claimed hat collecting as the major issue. Time line of the candidates PERMS and ORCP:
- 5 April 5 Rollbacker
- 14 April 2017 1st ORCP (users advise against RfA)
- 14 April 2017 pending changes reviewer
- 18 April 2017 page mover
- 24 April 2017 new page reviewer
- 2 June 2017 Subscribed to the Admins' Newsletter
- 18 July 2017 2nd ORCP (users strongly advise again against RfA)
- 11 October 2017 mass message sender
- 11 October 2017 RfA (no significant edits at all during the 5 months preceding the RfA.
The need for these tools has never been properly demonstrated, in particular, only one single New Page Review has been made. Even applying as much AGF as I can, I also find this looks very much like blatant hat collecting. I'm inclined to revoke some of these permissions. Thoughts? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:54, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Kudpung: I'd check with each of the granting admins if there is not a clear revocation reason. I recently processed that MMS, and it did follow a prior WT:MMS request that was successfully completed. Absent any misuse I'm not too worried about that one - I usually ask for a few WT:MMS requests but it does appear to be tied to a limited to work at DRN. WP:ADMINNEWS is open to anyone, and posted publicly, don't think I'd call it a 'hat'. — xaosflux Talk 03:08, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. No, there doesn't appear to be any mis-use anywhere; the problem is mainly no, or little use, which leads to the opinion of many that this is all a hat collecting exercise. I think we'll have to leave things as they are. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:32, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) I too have felt concern over the progression outlined by Kudpung, to which I would add their repeated offers to nominate other users for various toolsets: here, here, here, and here. There's also this and this. Nothing inappropriate, in isolation; but screaming "hat-collecting" when taken in sum. Vanamonde (talk) 06:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- There's also being Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Clerks. power~enwiki (π, ν) 13:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, I forgot that one. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- There's also being Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Clerks. power~enwiki (π, ν) 13:23, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) I too have felt concern over the progression outlined by Kudpung, to which I would add their repeated offers to nominate other users for various toolsets: here, here, here, and here. There's also this and this. Nothing inappropriate, in isolation; but screaming "hat-collecting" when taken in sum. Vanamonde (talk) 06:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. No, there doesn't appear to be any mis-use anywhere; the problem is mainly no, or little use, which leads to the opinion of many that this is all a hat collecting exercise. I think we'll have to leave things as they are. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:32, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Follow up regarding Confirmed WP permission request
Hi there, just wanted to quickly follow up with my ping of you on the WP Requests for permission/confirmed page as I non-admin marked a request as "not done" per what you said above to another account and based on the fact that the request was the only contribution (that I can see at least) that the account in question has made. I hope that was okay of me to do in this case. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 02:39, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- @TheSandDoctor: in general yes, we don't early confirm just to bypass semi-protection. There are always exceptions (for example if someone is a long-term heavy contributor on another project), in this case sending them to the request an edit process is what I would have done. — xaosflux Talk 12:26, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for the clarification. Want to help out wherever possible, but at the same time do not want to overstep my role/boundaries. So (just to confirm) you are saying that it is okay to assist with the Confirmed requests which are obvious/quick fail from time to time (like my example)? --TheSandDoctor (talk) 16:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- For the most part, WP:PERM doesn't need clerking and requests should be closed by admins - anyone is welcome to comment on any request. — xaosflux Talk 16:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- Noted. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 17:19, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- For the most part, WP:PERM doesn't need clerking and requests should be closed by admins - anyone is welcome to comment on any request. — xaosflux Talk 16:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you for the clarification. Want to help out wherever possible, but at the same time do not want to overstep my role/boundaries. So (just to confirm) you are saying that it is okay to assist with the Confirmed requests which are obvious/quick fail from time to time (like my example)? --TheSandDoctor (talk) 16:43, 13 October 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
- When you edit a template with the visual editor it follows the template's
formatconfiguration on how to save it. You can now change the format in more powerful ways if your wiki wants it. [349][350] - The TwoColConflict extension is a new way to solve edit conflicts. It makes it easier to copy and paste the relevant text to the text field. It has been a beta feature for the last five months. You can now try out the new interface on a page where you will actually get simulated edit conflicts. You can give feedback to the developers.
Problems
- There is a problem with recent changes pages and your watchlist that show a large number of pages. Until it is fixed, Wikidata edits will not be shown on recent changes or in your watchlist on Commons or Russian Wikipedia. If necessary, Wikidata edits will be removed from all wikis. [351]
- Notifications are not working for some actions. For example some users don't get a notification when they are mentioned. The developers are working on fixing this. [352]
- Users on some wikis could not change their preferences. This has now been fixed. [353]
Changes later this week
- Editors and readers who still use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP will not be able to use Wikipedia from 17 October. Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP can't connect securely to the wikis. When we allow them to do so it means that we get less security for everyone else. If you use Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP you can install Firefox 52 ESR instead. Around 0.1% of the traffic to the Wikimedia wikis comes from Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP. [354]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).
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 17 October at 19:00 (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 18 October at 15:00 (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.
15:31, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Red
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Red. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Permissions
Hi I am the new media Officer at Shillingstone-railway-project.org.uk, signed in as Johncurfin3 and would like permission to update the photo gallery currently being shown on the Shillingstone railway project page. I have updated some of the text on 17th October and expect to add more in next few days! Thank you (Johncsurfin3 (talk) 18:14, 17 October 2017 (UTC))
Hello Sir!
Why I'm not able to Extended confirmed user, I had asked for permissions so that I could not reverted the wrong edit. I saw that without any account, many users do wrong editing which I can not get reverted, and I can not undo it Because it is under the rule of Wikipedia, I am very diligent for my work, I respect you very much. I do not see the reverse button in my desktop screen if I get this permit I do not see a revert button in my desktop screen if I could get this permit, maybe it could be reverted somewhere. . And sorry for wasting your time. Pl98 (Talk to me) 16:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
And sir only give me a permission only one week So that I can understand it well, and I will show you my best work. Thanks sir Pl98 (Talk to me) 17:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
- Hi @Pl98: I don't think you fully understand this account flag. Can you provide me an example of something you are unable to do right now? — xaosflux Talk 17:11, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
I can't do this Reverted the wrong editing. Pl98 (Talk to me) 17:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Pl98: I need you to be much more specific please. On what page are you trying to make an edit? What happens when you try? Can you point to the edit you are trying to revert? — xaosflux Talk 17:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
If someone has done wrong editing then I can undo it. Can not be reverted. Pl98 (Talk to me) 17:51, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
- In general, reversions have nothing to do with "extended confirmed" user access - which is mostly related to making edits to some very heavily contested content areas. For lots of information on reverting, please see Help:Reverting, for semi-automating part of that task you may also be interested in Wikipedia:Twinkle. — xaosflux Talk 17:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
- For more general use questions, you may find more help at Wikipedia:Teahouse as well. — xaosflux Talk 17:56, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you very very much my good Administrator You are the best sir nice talking to you. And again Thanks for giving to me guidelines. Pl98 (Talk to me) 18:01, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
And Sorry sir Wasting Your time :-( Pl98 (Talk to me) 18:02, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 23 October 2017
- News and notes: Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!
- Featured content: Don, Marcel, Emily, Jessica and other notables
- Humour: Guys named Ralph
- In the media: Facebook and poetry
- Special report: Working with GLAMs in the UK
- Traffic report: Death, disaster, and entertainment
Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Autoconfirmed issue
I've contacted one of the WMF people working on ACTRIAL in case it's connected to that, so I'll wait to hear back before posting elsewhere. Best, SarahSV (talk) 05:00, 23 October 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
- You can use
ccnorm_contains_anywhen you create an abuse filter. This can be used to look for multiple words or phrases within a string. It will find words where some characters have been replaced. You can read more in the documentation. [355]
Changes later this week
- When you search in some languages the search function could use specific other languages if the first language didn't work. This is called a fallback language. This didn't work properly and created bad searches. The search index is being fixed to work better. [356]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 October. It will be on all wikis from 26 October (calendar).
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 24 October 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 25 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- There is a Structured Commons community focus group for Commons and Wikidata contributors who want to give input on structured data on Wikimedia Commons. You can sign up to join it. [357]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:18, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
You've got mail!
Message added 04:30, 24 October 2017 (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.
TheSandDoctor (talk) 04:30, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- @TheSandDoctor: replied. — xaosflux Talk 04:48, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- Same. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 05:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- @TheSandDoctor: replied. — xaosflux Talk 13:22, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- Same. Also, I will see if you replied as I routinely check that email ;-) --TheSandDoctor (talk) 19:43, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
- Replied. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 07:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
- Replied. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 03:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
- Replied. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 07:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
- Same. Also, I will see if you replied as I routinely check that email ;-) --TheSandDoctor (talk) 19:43, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
EFH
Hello, I was wondering if anything else needed to be done at Wikipedia:Edit filter noticeboard#Request for EFH bit for Nihlus in order to finish the process. Thanks. Nihlus 00:29, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Re-protection request of User:TweetCiteBot/status & User:TweetCiteBot
Since TweetBot was renamed to TweetCiteBot, could you please protect the destination (control) page (redirect is now what is protected & same with User:TweetCiteBot)? Thanks! --TheSandDoctor (talk) 06:08, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- @TheSandDoctor: the protections were preserved during the move. — xaosflux Talk 11:30, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
- Oh, it didn't look like they were accordant the page logs, sorry. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 13:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Halloween cheer!
Hello Xaosflux:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– —usernamekiran(talk) 21:00, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Talk:Harjit Sajjan
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Harjit Sajjan. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
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Halloween cheer!
Hello Xaosflux:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– TheSandDoctor (talk) 22:29, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
BAG Edit
Hey Xaosflux, I was confused by this edit. BetacommandBot3 still operates within the channel and was actually how I saw your edit. Am I missing something here? Nihlus 05:20, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Nihlus: Nope, I was just flat out wrong there, I had my channels confused - thank you for the correction! — xaosflux Talk 13:29, 30 October 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
- You can now block users from emailing you through the Wikimedia wikis. [358]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).
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 31 October 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 1 November 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.
00:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
User:Pankoken/Jan Oltmanns
Hi, thx for importing Jan Oltmanns from de to en. I translated the article an then tried to move it from User Space to Article Space. In de I did this very often, but here I think the result is very wrong. We now have a User:Jan Oltmanns, which was never planned. Can you pls help me? Sorry for the inconvinience. Regards --Pankoken (talk) 15:04, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2017).
Administrator changes
- Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
- Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite
Technical news
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
- A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.
Arbitration
- Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
- Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.
Obituaries
- The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 5 November 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
- You will no longer see the patrol log on Special:Log unless you specifically select it. [359]
Changes later this week
- The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 6 November. You can post proposals from 19:00 UTC and until November 19.
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future 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 will soon be fixed. Old links will still work. [360][361]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
18:45, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). Legobot (talk) 04:28, 12 November 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.
Changes later this week
- The diff you see when you compare two different versions of a page has changed on MediaWiki.org and the test wiki. This is to make it easier to find a text change in a moved paragraph. It will hopefully soon come to more wikis. You can report bugs in Phabricator. [362]
- A new user group on Commons will be able to upload MP3 files. The plan is to have this user group from 17 November. [363]
- Wikis using Flagged Revisions will get the New filters for Edit Review by default on the recent changes pages. It will be possible to opt-out in user preferences. [364]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 November. It will be on all wikis from 16 November (calendar).
Meetings
- You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Support for uploading and viewing 3D models is coming soon to Wikimedia Commons. The feature will support the .STL file format. You can see an example on the test wiki. [365]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:19, 13 November 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) 04:31, 19 November 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
- If you use the Chrome web browser on Android you can see a download icon on the mobile website. You can download a formatted PDF. It will work in other mobile browsers in the future. [366]
- The abuse filter now has a function called
get_matches. You can use it to store matches from regular expressions – one of each capturing group. You can read more in Phabricator.
Problems
- Last week's MediaWiki version didn't come to all Wikipedias because of a database crash. It will be on all wikis on 20 November. [367][368][369]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
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 21 November 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 22 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
- Language converter syntax will no longer work inside external links. Wikitext like
http://-{zh-cn:foo.com; zh-hk:bar.com; zh-tw:baz.com}-must be replaced. You will have to write-{zh-cn: http://foo.com ; zh-hk: http://bar.com ; zh-tw:http://baz.com }-instead. This only affects languages with Language Converter enabled. Examples of such languages are Chinese and Serbian. This will happen next week. [370][371]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
19:19, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Just a quick question would this article qualify for the A3 CSD category? Whispering 04:05, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Whispering: Strictly speaking, no. WP:CSD#A3 is for "no content" and that page does have content, assuming this all are actually "Papua New Guinea national rugby league team players". It is certainly in need of work, but such lists appear to be generally tolerated (c.g. List of England national rugby league team players and List of Ireland national rugby league team players for examples as well as Category:Lists of rugby league footballers). — xaosflux Talk 04:35, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Edits to invitation template. —usernamekiran(talk) 08:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 November 2017
- News and notes: Cons, cons, cons
- Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely
- Technology report: Searching and surveying
- Interview: A featured article centurion
- WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects
- In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution
- Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate
- Featured content: We will remember them
- Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text
Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot
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SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. We appreciate that you have signed up to receive suggestions regularly; your contributions make Wikipedia better — thanks for helping!
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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Your reverting my edit
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles&oldid=prev&diff=812390364 Why? Andrewa (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Andrewa: my apologies, it was in error (inadvertent rollback click); I have reversed my edit! — xaosflux Talk 16:36, 27 November 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
- You can now test the new advanced search function beta feature on mediawiki.org. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It will come to German and Arabic Wikipedia this week. It will come to more wikis later. [372]
- You can now upload large files with the Internet Archive upload tool. Previously you could not upload files larger than 100 MB. [373]
- You can now use the Timeless skin on all wikis. You can choose skins in Special:Preferences#Appearance. [374]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 November. It will be on all wikis from 30 November (calendar).
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 28 November 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 29 November 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.
20:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
|
The Original Barnstar |
| A barnstar for you! Tallahassle (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2017 (UTC) |
A barnstar for you!
|
The Teamwork Barnstar |
| Thanks for your help with the technical aspects of ACTRIAL. Its truly been a team effort getting the implementation done, and you've been an important part of it. Hope all is well and that you are recovering from the hurricane. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:31, 15 September 2017 (UTC) |
A kitten for you!
Thanks for all your hard work on the 'Pedia.
Sario528 (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day!
|
Hey, Xaosflux. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! –Miles Edgeworth Talk 00:23, 15 October 2017 (UTC) |
|
ANI Experiences survey
Beginning on November 28, 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) will be conducting a survey to en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.
The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:
If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.
Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 21:12, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
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)
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. [375]
- 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. [376]
- There is an experimental onion service for Wikimedia projects. [377]
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. [378]
- 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. [379][380]
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. [381]
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. [382] - 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. [383]
- If you use Chrome on Android, you can now use the print to PDF button to create a PDF of an article. [384]
- 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. [385]
- 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. [386]
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. [387]
- 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!
 |
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.
|
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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Seasons' Greetings
...to you and yours, from the Great White North! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Merry Christmas!!!
|
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.
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. [388][389]
- 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. [390]
- 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. [391]
- 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. [392][393]
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. [394]
- 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. [395]
- 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). [396] - 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. [397]
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. [398]
- 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. [399][400]
- 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. [401]
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)
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. [402]
- 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. [403]
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. [404][405]
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. [406][407]
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
- Filters on Special:RecentChangesLinked will get the new look similar to on the recent changes page. Special:RecentChangesLinked will also get some new features. [408][409]
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. [410]
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. [411]
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. [412]
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. [413]
- The Wikidata vandalism dashboard is a new tool to monitor vandalism on Wikidata labels and descriptions. It is filtered by language. [414]
- 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. [415]
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. [416]
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. [417]
- 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. [418] - 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. [419] - 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. [420]
- 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. [421][422]
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)