User talk:K6ka/Archive 27
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This week's article for improvement (week 34, 2020)
 An act is a division or unit of a theatre work, including a play, film, opera, and musical theatre. Pictured is a visual representation of the three-act structure.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: World map • New World crops Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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 you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an
undotag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else. [1] - The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems. [2]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).
Future changes
- All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message. [3][4]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Join the RfC to define trust levels for WikiLoop DoubleCheck
Hi K6ka/Archive 27,
you are receiving this message because you are an active user of WikiLoop DoubleCheck. We are currently holding a Request for Comments to define trust levels for users of this tool. If you can spare a few minutes, please consider leaving your feedback on the RfC page.
Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts. Your opinion matters greatly!
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
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RevDel question
Hi, can you explain your mass RevDel on User talk:Demonichellbringer? It looks like there was some discussion related to an IP hardblock affecting them, the user subsequently retired, and then you removed all of the edits containing the unblock discussion for "purely disruptive material". Please elaborate on your reasoning. If the reasoning has to do with WP:OS I think there's a separate RevDel reason/criteria for that. 2601:187:4581:7F50:BC46:ED6C:F749:A9A8 (talk) 02:17, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
- The reasoning was related to OS-related material. That is all I can say, due to the nature of the material revdelled. I will note that, as a rule, OS-related material should not be labelled as such in the revdel log; in practice RD3 is usually used. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 02:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 35, 2020)
 Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Pictured is a man delivering charcoal by bicycle in Uganda.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Act (drama) • World map Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 24 August 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 August 2020
- News and notes: The high road and the low road
- In the media: Storytelling large and small
- Featured content: Going for the goal
- Special report: Wikipedia's not so little sister is finding its own way
- Op-Ed: The longest-running hoax
- Traffic report: Heart, soul, umbrellas, and politics
- News from the WMF: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online
- Recent research: Detecting spam, and pages to protect; non-anonymous editors signal their intelligence with high-quality articles
- Arbitration report: A slow couple of months
- From the archives: Wikipedia for promotional purposes?
This week's article for improvement (week 36, 2020)
 Skurfing as a sport has two common forms: "water skurfing" and "street skurfing". Pictured is an example of water skurfing, water skiing on a surfboard.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Delivery (commerce) • Act (drama) Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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Editing news 2020 #4
Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter
Reply tool
The Reply tool has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.
- More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
- Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
- Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة. ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")[5]
The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).
The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.
New requirements for user signatures
- The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
- Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily. Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected. Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures. If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.
Next: New discussion tool
Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.
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
- This is a reminder. All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 14:00 and 15:00 UTC. Please check on the details on the announcement message. [6][7]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).
Administrator changes
CheckUser changes
Guideline and policy news
- Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
- A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors
must
orshould
use the articles for creation process. - A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.
Arbitration
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.
This week's article for improvement (week 37, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Skurfing (sport) • Delivery (commerce) Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 7 September 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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Growth team newsletter 14
Welcome to the fourteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Success with guidance
We deployed the "Guidance" feature on June 15.
This feature uses the help panel to explain what to do after selecting a suggested edit. For instance, if a newcomer selects a copyedit task, they are guided on what sorts of errors to look for. They can see examples of how to rewrite the text. You can try this feature on test.wikipedia.org. First enable the homepage and the help panel in your preferences there.
Since we launched "Guidance", the data we collected show good results (see image). Now, we see more users completing suggested edits than before Guidance was deployed.
Structured tasks
Structured tasks is a project that aims to break down editing workflows into a series of steps. We hope newcomers can accomplish these tasks easily.
In the previous newsletter, we asked for feedback from community members on the idea. We had a good discussion in six languages with 35 community members (summary here). We have now posted new design mockups. We hope community members can check the mockups out and react to them (in any language). They are posted along with some of the main questions we are thinking about as we continue to refine our plans.
Other technical updates
- We are currently working on Variants C and D (adjacent image) of the homepage. The goal is to increase the number of newcomers who start the newcomer tasks workflow. This is the team's main project at the moment.
- We've made it easier to hide the help panel when not needed. [8]
- The welcome survey has a new question for people who created their account: language skills. The goal is to find out how many newcomers know multiple languages, so that we can learn whether it is a good idea to integrate Content Translation as a newcomer task. To make room for this question, we removed one that is not being used. [9]
Community outreach
- We continue to engage with more communities. We recently deployed the Growth features to Persian, Hebrew, and Russian Wikipedias. Learn more about getting the features.
- If your community is having a remote event, and you are interested in hearing from the Growth team, please contact us! We have already participated to two community events online:
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
09:33, 7 September 2020 (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
- Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere. [10]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlistinstead ofwatch. This was inconsistent before. [11]
Future changes
- The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
- OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change. [12]
- The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users. [13][14]
- Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
- Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a
.menuclass. This will not work in the future. Scripts can usenav ulinstead..vectorTabsand.vectorMenuwill also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 38, 2020)
 The history of Asian art includes a vast range of influences from various cultures and religions. Pictured is Buddhist Temple in the Mountains, 11th century, China, ink on silk, by Li Cheng.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Grease (song) • Skurfing (sport) Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 14 September 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Problems
- The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [15][16]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 39, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Asian art • Grease (song) Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 21 September 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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
- There is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [17][18]
Changes later this week
- The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [19]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 September 2020
- Special report: Paid editing with political connections
- News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki
- In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later
- Featured content: Life finds a Way
- Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests
- Traffic report: Is there no justice?
- Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases
This week's article for improvement (week 40, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Pig Latin • Asian art Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 28 September 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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
- Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [20]
- Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [21]
Problems
- Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [22]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
- The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
- In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see
Appsas one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [23] - You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
- You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).
Administrator changes
Ajpolino • LuK3
Jackmcbarn
Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM
There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime
Guideline and policy news
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created
.
- A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely
Technical news
- The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).
Arbitration
- The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
- Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.
Miscellaneous
- The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
- Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.
This week's article for improvement (week 41, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: August 2016 Aden bombing • Pig Latin Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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
- There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
- You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [24]
Problems
- There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [25]
- Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [26]
- Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
- Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in
[[Child]]renis linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [27]
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [28]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 42, 2020)
 Many species can live at high altitudes. For example, the Himalayan pika lives at altitudes up to 4,200 m (13,800 ft).
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Trout Mask Replica • August 2016 Aden bombing Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Problems
- Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [29][30][31]
Changes later this week
- Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [32][33]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).
Future changes
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 43, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Organisms at high altitude • Trout Mask Replica Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).
Future changes
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [35]
- In the AbuseFilter extension, the
rmspecials()function will be updated soon so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses ofrmspecials()withrmwhitespace()wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [36] - Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID
#jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either#siteSubor#mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:29, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 44, 2020)
 Institutions and organizations of the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Reader Rabbit • Organisms at high altitude Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Problems
- You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [37]
- Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [38]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [39]
- There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [40]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [41]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Growth team updates #15
Welcome to the fifteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Variants C and D deployed
Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We hope they will increase the number of users using suggested edits. They both make suggested edits the clear place where newcomers should get started on the page. They have some differences in their workflows, because we want to test which design is better. We deployed these variants on October 19; half of newcomers get each variant. After about 5 weeks, we will analyze the data from the tests. The goal is to determine which variant is helping more newcomers to make more suggested edits. We will identify the better variant and then use it with all newcomers.
Structured tasks: add a link
As we discussed in previous newsletters, the team is working on our first "structured task": the "add a link" task. After community discussion on design ideas, we ran user tests on the mobile designs. We decided on the design concept we want to use moving forward: Concept A. We're now engineering the backend for this feature. Next, we will be running user tests for desktop designs.
Learn more about the findings.
Community news
- We recently deployed the Growth features to Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish Wikipedias. 18 wikis now have Growth features. Learn more about getting the features.
- Have you recently checked if all interface messages are translated for your language?
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
10:09, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).
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Guideline and policy news
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet
, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.
- Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection
Technical news
- Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
- Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
- Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.
Arbitration
- The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
- The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.
Miscellaneous
- A reminder that
standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people.
(American Politics 2 Arbitration case).
- A reminder that
The Signpost: 1 November 2020
- News and notes: Ban on IPs on ptwiki, paid editing for Tatarstan, IP masking
- In the media: Murder, politics, religion, health and books
- Book review: Review of Wikipedia @ 20
- Discussion report: Proposal to change board composition, In The News dumps Trump story
- Featured content: The "Green Terror" is neither green nor sufficiently terrifying. Worst Hallowe'en ever.
- Traffic report: Jump back, what's that sound?
- Interview: Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner
- News from the WMF: Meet the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year
- Recent research: OpenSym 2020: Deletions and gender, masses vs. elites, edit filters
- In focus: The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia
This week's article for improvement (week 45, 2020)
Hello, K6ka.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Organization • Reader Rabbit Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 2 November 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
|---|
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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [42]
- There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the
{{formatnum}}parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g.{{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that{{formatnum:123,456}}is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [43]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
- Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [44]
- The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [45]
Future changes
- A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of
{{formatnum}}when it is given a negative argument. [46] - In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 46, 2020)
 An example of Chinese folklore is The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, a Chinese folk tale. Pictured is a depiction in the tale of the reunion of the couple of The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd on the bridge of magpies. The artwork displayed is in the Long Corridor of the Summer Palace in Beijing.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Cultural exchange • Organization Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 9 November 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
|---|
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.
Future changes
- You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [47]
- From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [48][49]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 47, 2020)
 An illustration of the Pre-Columbian abacus, the Nepohualtzintzin, one of the many pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of indigenous Americans.
The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection: List of pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of indigenous Americans Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: Chinese folklore • Cultural exchange Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
|---|
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
- Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [50][51]
Changes later this week
- If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [52]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).
Future changes
- The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
New, simpler RfC to define trust levels for WikiLoop DoubleCheck
HI K6ka/Archive 27,
I'm writing to let you know we have simplified the RfC on trust levels for the tool WikiLoop DoubleCheck. Please join and share your thoughts about this feature! We made this change after hearing users' comments on the first RfC being too complicated. I hope that you can participate this time around, giving your feedback on this new feature for WikiLoop DoubleCheck users.
Thanks and see you around online,
María Cruz
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:05, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
If you would like to update your settings to change the wiki where you receive these messages, please do so here.
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
- Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [53]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
Future changes
- The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [54]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 48, 2020)
 In macroeconomics, an industry is a branch of an economy that produces a closely related set of raw materials, goods, or services. Pictured is a cement factory in Malmö, Sweden, which is a part of the manufacturing industry.
The following is WikiProject Articles for improvement's weekly selection: Please be bold and help to improve this article! Previous selections: List of pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of indigenous Americans • Chinese folklore Get involved with the AFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 20:33, 23 November 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
|---|
ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message
| | Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed 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 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add |
The Signpost: 29 November 2020
- News and notes: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready"
- Op-Ed: Re-righting Wikipedia
- Opinion: How billionaires re-write Wikipedia
- Featured content: Frontonia sp. is thankful for delicious cyanobacteria
- Traffic report: 007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election
- News from Wiki Education: An assignment that changed a life: Kasey Baker
- GLAM plus: West Coast New Zealand's Wikipedian at Large
- Wikicup report: Lee Vilenski wins the 2020 WikiCup
- Recent research: Wikipedia's Shoah coverage succeeds where libraries fail
- Essay: Writing about women
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).
Future changes
- The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [55][56]
- The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database
JOINSwill no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [57]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 49, 2020)
 in 2013 Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was celebrated for being the artist in Latin music with the most records sold in history.
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Industry • List of pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of indigenous Americans Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 23:16, 30 November 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
|---|
Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).
Administrator changes
- Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.
Technical news
- Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
This week's article for improvement (week 50, 2020)
 Some traditional foods in Bengali cuisine
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Latin music (genre) • Industry Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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Growth team updates #16
Welcome to the sixteenth newsletter from the Growth team!
The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in mid-size Wikimedia projects.
Growth features show impact
Newcomer task experiments results
The team recently published our analysis of the impact of newcomer tasks. We are happy to announce that we found that the Growth features, and particularly newcomer tasks, lead to increased editing from newcomers.
In November 2019, the Growth team added the "newcomer tasks" feature to the newcomer homepage. After six months, we collected data from Arabic, Vietnamese, Czech, and Korean Wikipedias. We analyzed the overall impact of the Growth features, including newcomer tasks.
This analysis finds that the Growth features lead to increases in:
- the probability that newcomers make their first article edit (+11.6%)
- the probability that they are retained as editors
- the number of edits they make during their first couple of weeks on the wiki (+22%)
We also find that the quality of their edits, as measured by revert rate, is comparable to that of a control group.
-
The number of suggested edits completed by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020, with a line for the total. -
The number of distinct users completing suggested edits by each wiki each week, going from December 2019 to November 2020.
Because of these results, we think all Wikipedias should consider implementing these features. Learn more about how to get them.
You can find more details about this experiment on the report page. Please post any feedback or questions on the talk page
General metrics
As of November 2020, across all wikis where the features have been deployed:
- more than 5,000 newcomers have made more than 40,000 edits using Newcomer tasks.
- more than 14,000 questions have been sent to volunteer mentors by more than 11,000 users.
- more than 2,000 questions have been asked on help desks by more than 1,500 users.
Learn more about Growth results here, and please post any feedback or questions on the talk page.
Variants C and D
Variants C and D are two new arrangements of the newcomer homepage. We deployed them in October. After six weeks of these variants being deployed, we can see that they have led to increased interactions with newcomer tasks. Next, we will determine which variant is best and use that for all newcomers.
News for mentors
A separate list for workshops hosts
During workshops organized by education programs through the communities, workshops hosts like to mentor people they train on wiki. Several wikis requested to have a way to claim their mentees without having other newcomers being randomly being assigned to them. To address this need, a separate list can be created on wiki, for mentors that wish to claim mentees, but prefer not to have random mentees being assigned to them. Learn more about this feature.
Claiming multiple mentees at once
Mentors can use Special:ClaimMentee to claim a newcomer as their mentee. The feature now allows mentors to claim multiple newcomers at once.
Community news
The help panel allows people to post a message to the local help desk while editing. Previously, the tool always posted messages to the bottom of help desks. Wikis are now able to configure it to display new messages at the top of the help desk page. T261714
Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
14:22, 7 December 2020 (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 put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [58][59]
Changes later this week
- Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [60][61]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).
Future changes
- You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Precious anniversary
 | |
| Six years! |
|---|
- I brought an image of two women to the Main page, DYK? ... after the article of one was proposed for deletion? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Gerda Arendt: Shouldn't that be four years? (Although I will gladly accept six as I was indeed fighting vandalism with music in 2014!) —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
- You are right, but I'll leave it ;) - Six is the template, DYK? I forgot to change. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 51, 2020)
Hello, K6ka. The article for improvement of the week is:
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Bengali cuisine • Latin music (genre) Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 14 December 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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
- There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [62]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
21:33, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 52, 2020)
 Some (hopefully) edible things
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Christmas ham • Bengali cuisine Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 21 December 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • |
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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.
Tech News
- Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.
Recent changes
- The
{{citation needed}}template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [63]
Changes later this week
- There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
Future changes
- You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
- Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a
<langconvert>tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [64] - Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [65]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
20:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Yo Ho Ho
Donner60 (talk) is wishing a foaming mug of Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!
Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec20}} to your friends' talk pages.
- @Donner60: Danke! We haven't interacted in a while, good to see you're still alive after this carnival ride. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 16:03, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks. Strangely enough given lockdowns, I was a little less active, at least in terms of edits, earlier this year. I did create some articles and add to my online library pages which accounts for some of that. Glad to see you are safe and active. Donner60 (talk) 23:17, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
Merry Christmas, K6ka!!
Hello K6ka: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, TheSandDoctor Talk 16:30, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
Yo Ho Ho
Denisarona (talk) is wishing a foaming mug of Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!
Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec20}} to your friends' talk pages.
— Preceding undated comment added 10:33, 26 December 2020
This week's article for improvement (week 53, 2020)
 Fish processing is a significant part of the fishing industry. Pictured is frozen Tuna being cut using a band saw in the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Edible • Christmas ham Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 28 December 2020 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • |
|---|
The Signpost: 28 December 2020
- Arbitration report: 2020 election results
- Featured content: Very nearly ringing in the New Year with "Blank Space" – but we got there in time.
- Traffic report: 2020 wraps up
- Recent research: Predicting the next move in Wikipedia discussions
- Essay: Subjective importance
- Gallery: Angels in the architecture
- Humour: 'Twas the Night Before Wikimas
This week's article for improvement (week 1, 2021)
 Cooked pork chops
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Fishing industry • Edible Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 4 January 2021 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • |
|---|
Administrators' newsletter – January 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).
|
|
|
Guideline and policy news
- Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.
Technical news
- You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.
Arbitration
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes)
. The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason). - Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.
- By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized
UTRS #39085
Hi,
Could you please take a look at this appeal number on UTRS? You are the blocking administrator and I'd really appreciate some input from you before I decide whether or not to restore TPA.
I hope 2021 is a better year for you :)-- 5 albert square (talk) 01:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- @5 albert square: Given the length of time that it's been (and since I'm guessing they're just a young'un who didn't have the maturity then but is willing to learn and grow up now), I'm fine with restoring TP access or even unblocking, whichever fits your judgement. Best wishes, —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 03:21, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Happy Adminship Anniversary!
Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!
Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 09:45, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 2, 2021)
Hello, K6ka. The article for improvement of the week is:
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Pork chop • Fishing industry Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 11 January 2021 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • |
|---|
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 be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [66]
- You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [67]
- Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
- The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [68]
- Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [69]
- When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
- There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [70]
- Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the
watchlisttowatchwill still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [71] - Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [72]
- CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [73]
- There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 January. It will be on all wikis from 14 January (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
15:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
... got deleted under CSD U2 ... thought you should know. Graham87 07:50, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, my dear silly Primefac :P —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 13:49, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 3, 2021)
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Lumbersexual • Pork chop Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • |
|---|
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).
Future changes
- The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
- You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [74]
- MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
16:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Editing news 2021 #1
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Reply tool
The Reply tool is available at most other Wikipedias.
- The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
- It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.
Research notes:
- As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
- There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[75]
- The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[76] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
A large A/B test will start soon.[77] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.
New discussion tool
The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[78] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.
Next: Notifications
During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.
False claim of administrator rights
@K6ka: The top user box at the user page User:JzG identifies him as an administrator on the English Wikipedia, and contains a hyperlink to verify. However, when I click that link, it displays user rights not for JzG, but for K6ka. This is very confusing, and may lead unwary users to mistakenly conclude that JzG is indeed, as he falsely claims, an administrator. Please, what is going on here? NedFausa (talk) 17:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hello NedFausa.
- There are two key points in explaining this puzzle:
- JzG is a former administrator, as his user rights log confirms. He voluntarily requested desysop in November 2020 (source). I am guessing he forgot to remove references to adminship on his user page.
- The reason why my name is listed when you select "Verify" is because the log displays users starting at the given name. For example, if you entered "Jimbo Wales", it would give you the list starting at Jimbo Wales, and then every matching username after that in alphabetical order. In this case, JzG was the last admin whose username started with the letter "J", with "Jwrosenzweig" coming before him. As JzG is no longer an admin, "Jwrosenzweig" is now the last admin whose username starts with the letter "J". "Jw" comes before "Jz", so the list does not show him; as such, it goes on to the letter "K". I am the first admin whose username starts with the letter "K", so it starts with me.
You can see this when viewing a longer list. The "verify" link can sometimes be misleading because it only shows one list entry. If the target user is an admin, then it works and everything is hunky dory; if the target user isn't, it will show the username of the next admin on the list, rather than an error message (as would normally be expected).
- Hopefully that makes sense! —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 17:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
- @K6ka: Thanks for your prompt explanation. I will report this false claim at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. NedFausa (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
- That's honestly going way too far. Just let JzG know he still has the userbox. It's innocent. -- ferret (talk) 19:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
- @K6ka: Thanks for your prompt explanation. I will report this false claim at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. NedFausa (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
This week's article for improvement (week 4, 2021)
Hello, K6ka. The article for improvement of the week is:
Please be bold and help improve it! Previous selections: Mountain pass • Lumbersexual Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • |
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