This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hello! I am assuming you have come over from the English Wikipedia, so you are probably familiar with the way this wiki works. I hope you like it here and decide to stay. Here are a few links to help you adjust:
There is much to do here. For example, there are a lot of articles that do not exist yet, which you can bring over from the English Wikipedia and simplify. Do have a look around and see what you would like to do. Thank you for joining us, and you know how to contact me if you need help. A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, this is a cross-wiki vandal that has been attacking me on multiple wikis. This is also a LTA vandal that is currently requested to be globally blocked. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody has seen him. Some people think that he is a spy. What is the point of sources if nobody knows anything much about him. He is like a legend, just like Robin Hood and King Arthur.
Hey Adotchar, since I have been granted Ethernet access in my school, I will still continue to fight vandalism at all costs. Cheers --DJ Perez (✉ - ✔) 12:34, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I am Internally, I can try to moved the Zee TV - Channel as a new title like, Zee TV but the page Olredy created so by mistake I can moved the page as User:Zee TV, I am sorry for it, can you please moved the page as Zee TV, thank you.
I was not aware that it was a good faith edit. I didn't know the IP would add more information. I'll be more careful in cases like this. Thank you for warnign me. Esteban16 (talk) 19:50, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for saving my talk page from the vandalism from the IP user who added a mass of smileys, and reverted other user's actions!!! Psl63107:30, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Vermont, I don't understand why you gave here final warning directly. Though the user might have done many vandal edits but was never been warned before so I think the warning should go in series from general note. So I hope you will consider it.Thanks.Regards-BRP ever18:50, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In most cases, yes, we do start from a level 1 warning. But, in cases like this where a new user makes about a dozen edits which could not possibly be construed to be constructive by any sense of the word, I left a final warning on their talk page. I believe that this action was correct due to the quantity and nature of their vandalism. Thank you for bringing this to my talk page, as discussion is always welcome :) Vermont | reply here18:53, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Two barnstars for you! Thanks for saving my talk page for another time from an IP editor for vandalizing my talk page. The next time you save my talk page or making so good changes, I should nominate you for an administrator! Thank you! Psl631TalkContributions15:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again! You reverting vandalism very many times, and you newly reported an vandal on the WP:VIP page. Thank you! I should recommend you to become an administrator. Do you want to become an administrator? If you want to become an administrator, you should go to the WP:RFA page and follow the instructions. Good luck! --Psl631TalkContributions09:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for undoing vandalism, making good changes and warning vandals on this Wikipedia. You are an very good editor, and I should nominate you for an administrator! Psl631TalkContributions17:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I will not currently accept a nomination in an RfA. Thank you for the barnstars, but we've kind of stopped using them. They're of little use in a small community like this. Vermont (talk) 17:50, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. If you want to become an admin, just request adminship when you want, becoming an admin gives many advantages, such as blocking users, protecting pages and deleting pages. Thank you for your contributions! Psl631TalkContributions17:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
People might not give barnstars often, but that doesn't mean we've stopped! I would say that it's easy for them to lose some of their meaning if they're given very often, or they're given for minor things, but I think we still give them. :) --Auntof6 (talk) 18:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad you could find a use for it, although please be aware that I use it for my own notes and to centralize information, and that it is not "official" per se. Vermont (talk) 13:28, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Vermont. I'd like to know why you changed the QD category on the above named page, please. It does, for the record, qualify as a G8, since it was a talk page with no parent page - there's no article there. I feel I was correct in categorising it as a G8. Thanks. DaneGeld (talk) 20:24, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I originally saw that it was the creation of a talk page to an article that doesn't exist, and thought that it would not qualify as G8, as G8 is for talk pages of deleted articles, and the article in question never existed. Evidently, G8 also applies to this. I have undone my error. Thanks for notifying me! Vermont (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I could see too that it was vandalised, but I went for the first one which came to mind since it didn't have an article attached! Thank you for undoing your edit :) DaneGeld (talk) 20:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to ask why you delted my page "Mina Sundwell" becaus i am new to wikipedia so i am not sure why. Thx WikiPro04 — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiPro04 (talk • contribs)
I did not delete it, as I am not an administrator, but I marked it for quick deletion. Basically, the article is copied over from your draft on the English Wikipedia. That draft uses complex language, and this is the Simple English Wikipedia. See WP:HOW for more on writing articles in simple English. Also, please do not make comments like the ones you did on the article's talk page. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 22:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thx so bqsiclly i am supposed to publish the article on the english wiki were i made my draft right?
Hi! I asking, why did you revert my change, and when can I click the "clear reports" button in the page to clear reports? How old should reports be and when is it ok to click the restore button and save the change? -- Psl631 (T a l k) {C h a n g e s} 10:18, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your edit as you removed a report that had been dealt woth minutes before, and had only been placed on the page for about an hour. Auntof6 puts it quite nicely in regards to the removal of reports on WP:VIP, "The only reason they aren't cleared immediately is to give the people who made the reports time to see the resolution without having to go into the page history." Vermont (talk) 10:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@WestVirginiaIsCool: Hello! Welcome to the Simple English Wikipedia. Although I do not have much experience in article creation, I can try to help you. I noticed that your first edit to your user page added promotional advertisement-like content for a company evidently titled "My Pet Chicken". If you are being paid to edit, please review the Wikimedia Terms of Use section on paid contributions. You must disclose it, preferably on your user page, in the article's talk page, or in edit summaries. It may be beneficial to read WP:HOW as well, to learn how to write Simple English articles. Feel free to contact me here or ask on WP:ST if you have any questions :) Vermont (talk) 21:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For reverting the abuse. Alas, someone noticed I don't visit this version of Wikipedia very often and thought he could get away with the change. Worth keeping a watch on my user/talk page for the time being as twitter users have been doing their worst at @philipcross63 for the last couple of days. The best means of contacting me, if necessary, is via my Wikipedia talk page. Philip Cross (talk) 14:47, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It is in need of copyediting and more sources, but it is definitely not a copy-paste from the English Wikipedia as the QD template suggests, and thus is not able to be deleted per A3. Vermont (talk) 15:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I saw you tagged the article as A4. I changed that to G3 because I read en:Henry Lee III in English Wikipedia and found that Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee has notiong to do with horse. Besides, the sentence If somebody disrespected any horses around him he would hit them on their calves and buttocks. is vandalism. --dqwyy (talk) from zhwiki15:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
despite the disagreement in some things in Aboutrika article, but thanks for offering to help and restore it. regards MohamedTalk14:17, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This article was actually created by 108.180.194.7, but since I am globally blocked there, I decided to edit under another IP address. But I would love for you to add extra detail, upload an SVG file, put it on the article, and add it to enwiki! 209.52.88.14 (talk) 02:21, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, about that change, Al Mutakabbir (الْمُتَكَبِّرُ) doesn't always mean Thr arrogant one, It can also mean The Dominant one, like in that case, so the IP's change wasn't wrong, with my regards MohamedTalk12:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for informing me. Since a few IP's seemed to be battling over it, and Google Translate incorrectly said it was "the arrogant one", I was a bit confused. Vermont (talk) 12:04, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How do I create a bot that updates admin stats, finds reliable, secondary sources by machine learning whether it is official or not, and removes incorrect userboxes and adds correct ones? 154.5.169.5 (talk) 14:42, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it seems I misred it. Rather than you creating a registered account's user page, you created the user page of an IP address. It has been marked for deletion. Also, if you're going to leave a message on my talk page, please sign your comment. It's easy to do and helps in identifying who wrote what. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 18:53, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm so sorry I had no idea you went to RFA, Had I known you obviously would've had my full support :), Anyway congratulations :), –Davey2010Talk20:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations on your successful RfA. Take care of your new position, and do not be afraid to ask questions if you have a concern before taking any Admin actions. Also don't delete the Main Page. --Enfcer (talk) 20:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Vermont, congratulations to your successful RfA. Please go ahead and add a subscription request to the simple-admins-l. Mailman has a web-interface that is accessible at lists.wikiedia.org. When I see the subscription request, I will then approve it. --Eptalon (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I approved your subscription request, so you should be subscribed to the list now. As to IRC stuff, I am uninvolved with that... --Eptalon (talk) 21:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would be surprised if you find many if any admins in the IRC channel anyway, it mostly stopped being used like 5 years ago by admins for the most part other than the rare one. But its Barras who typically handles that. -DJSasso (talk) 16:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say it amuses me that you ran for Admin with a self-nom and then immediately are going on vacation haha. If I didn't know better I might think this was the most blatant hat collecting ever lol. -DJSasso (talk) 23:56, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry...I've had this trip planned for a while and although I love editing, it's going to be a nice break. It's not like I'm going to be editing elsewhere while on Wikibreak; my Internet use will be little to none. ([1]) I'll be back as soon as I can be, and will get back into my normal editing and anti-vandalism work. Vermont (talk) 00:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just a tip with Rfd. If you do the delete of the page manually instead of using twinkle it will auto-populate the delete reason with the actual Rfd link which is helpful for people later on down the road. -DJSasso (talk) 16:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations and condolences on getting the mop. :) May you still find time to do the things you want to do in between doing admin things.
I noticed that you closed an RfD... and overlooked the same things that many of us did when we closed our first one! First, you need to remove the noinclude tags around the in-progress template. Second, you sign right after the deleted or kept templates, whichever you use. If you close a request as kept, be sure to add the {{oldrfdfull}} template to the talk page. When you move a closed request, it's also a good time to remove requests that have been in the recently closed section for a while (my rule of thumb is over a day), but that's optional.
You also don't necessarily get to have one as an admin either. Admins are subject to all the same requirements and restrictions as a non-admin when it comes to getting a bot. -DJSasso (talk) 10:43, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
In the Wikipedia app for Android or iOS users can create reading lists. The reading lists can be seen on different devices if you are logged in to your account. There is now a browser extension so you can add pages to your reading list from a web browser. At the moment it works with Firefox and Chrome. [2]
There is a new version of Pywikibot. Pywikibot is a tool to automate tasks on MediaWiki wikis. [3]
Problems
The MonoBook skin was changed to make it work better for mobile users. This caused some problems. The change was rolled back to fix them. The new version is now back on the wikis. MonoBook users can opt out from the new responsive design. [4]
Changes later this week
The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. For most wikis this will happen on 18 June. For the rest it will happen on 25 June. [5][6]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 June. It will be on all wikis from 14 June (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the Readers Web team IRC office hour. There you can discuss tools to contribute on the mobile web for the existing MediaWiki skins. The meeting will be on 18 June at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 12 June at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Remember not to be so quick on deleting something copied from en.wiki. We allow copying from en.wiki and then working on the page to make it simple. Generally I wait like 20 minutes or so to see if they make any further edits. -DJSasso (talk) 15:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nah I don't figure he intended to anyway. I just wanted to point it out because a lot of people (myself included) work that way when creating articles and with new editors it can sometimes scare them away if you delete to fast. Generally if its not vandalism it can afford to wait a little while to see if anything is being done with it. And no need to apologize, I know there is a pull in wanting to use the tools once you have them. I think everyone goes on a bit of a tear for the first couple weeks when they get them. There is definitely a learning curve, and don't take any hints I give as being mad or anything, just helpful hints that in some cases can avoid headaches in the future. Been doing this too long so seen all kinds of things done. -DJSasso (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 has been a beta feature on Wikimedia wikis with text written from left to right. It is now a normal feature. It is based on CodeMirror. [7]
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 19 June 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 June at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Some old web browsers will not be able to read the Wikimedia wikis. This is because they use an insecure way to connect to them. This means that we get less security for everyone else too. This affects about 0.08% of all traffic to the Wikimedia wikis. This affects for example those who read Wikipedia on a PlayStation 3. [8][9]
The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. Because there is no new MediaWiki version this week it will happen on 25 June for most wikis. For the rest it will happen in early July. [10][11]
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 database for tags will be changed. This will happen on 2 July on French Wikipedia and 9 July on all other wikis. Please report if recent changes get slower or you can't save edits. This could especially affect editors who use the database on ToolForge. [13]
Problems
Last week's MediaWiki update was rolled back. This was because of a database problem. [14]
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 3 July 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 4 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
WebM video files have smaller file size but still be of the same quality. Creating WebM files will take longer time. [15]
The new filters for edit review tools and interface for watchlists will leave beta. This was supposed to already have happened but was delayed. For most wikis this will happen on 9 July. For the rest it will happen on 16 July. [16]
When you rolled back an edit it could get both the Rollback and Undo tags. This has been fixed. [18]
Rollbacks from autopatrolled users were not marked as patrolled. This has been fixed. [19]
Changes later this week
When you edit a link in the visual editor there will be two separate buttons to change which page the link goes to (target) or its text (label). [20][21]
On the mobile version you can find a link to an editor's contributions from their user page. Now this will work even if they haven't created a user page. [22]
When you edit a discussion on the mobile version you sometimes get your signature automatically added. This will now not happen if you have already added a signature manually. This is to avoid double signatures. [23]
When you look at Wikimedia code in Gerrit there will be a new interface. It is on by default for new users. This is also true for developers. This is to make it easier to understand what is happening. [25]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 July. It will be on all wikis from 12 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 10 July 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 11 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Today all administrators can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. There will be a new user group for editing CSS and JavaScript. Administrators will no longer automatically be able to do this. This is because it is a security risk when all administrator accounts can edit JavaScript even if they never plan to or do not know how it works. You can read more. [26]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
You can now see a new log of pages being created at Special:Log/create. It includes pages which are later deleted. It is now available on all Wikimedia wikis except Commons and Wikidata. [29]
You can see how many pageviews a wiki had from specific countries. The Wikistats2 maps have now been updated. [30]
Changes later this week
Your watchlist will show changes from the last seven days instead of three. If you have already set a length preference it will not change. [31]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 17. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from July 18. It will be on all wikis from July 19 (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 July 17 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 July 18 at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Some articles have messages to readers about problems with the article. For example that it does not cite sources or might not be neutral. Readers do not see these messages on the mobile version. The developers now want to show them. You can read more and leave feedback.
You can use <inputbox> to create search boxes for specific pages. For example to search the archives of a community discussion page. Instead of prefix:Page name you will see a text that explains which pages are being searched. You can read more and leave feedback.
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 log in to your account you can choose to keep being logged in. This checkbox now works better than before on the mobile version for users without JavaScript. [32]
Wikis that use Citoid can automatically generate citations for Swedish news sites. This only works in the visual editor. This now works for Swedish public service radio. More will come. Others could use this to add news sites in other languages in the future. [33]
Editors can do max 90 edits per minute. This is new since last month. This does not affect bots or administrators. [34]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 July. It will be on all wikis from 26 July (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 25 July at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 design on Special:Log has changed. It will change again soon. Developers are working on fixing problems. [35]
Problems
Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.13 has been partially delayed. All deployments have been resumed and successfully done after bug fixes. [36][37]
Deployment of 1.32.0-wmf.14 has been partially delayed. [38][39]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 July. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 August. It will be on all wikis from 2 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 31 July 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 August at 15:00 (UTC) as well as at 23:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [41][42]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.
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 7 August 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 8 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [43]
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 14 August 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 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [44]
user:Vermont I have made significant improvements to all the three articles you restored in my sandbox. You can now kindly review per changes as was advised in the conversation. I am to believe they are fine now. Best regards MyPeople76 (talk) 23:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think any of the 3 articles are notable, and so I do not think they should be moved to mainspace. But, there is nothing stopping you from moving it yourself, as they were previously deleted by a QD and not a discussion. Vermont (talk) 23:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 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 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The 2018 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [45]
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 moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [46]
Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [47]
Problems
Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [48]
Changes later this week
The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [49]
AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [50]
Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [51]
Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [52]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 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 28 August 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 29 August at 15:00 (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 up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
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 user right for users who can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. Before this all admins could edit CSS and JavaScript. This was a security risk. This group is called interface administrators. Administrators can delete user CSS and JavaScript pages. [53][54]
There will be an A/B test on the Wikipedia mobile website. It starts this week. It tests how we show templates that show information about an article. The test will last two weeks. [55][56]
You can now use different CSS rules for different skins when you edit templates. This is because of TemplateStyles. [57]
When you get a new message on your talk page you get a yellow message in the toolbar. The preference to show or not show this has been removed. [59]
Problems
UploadWizard had problems with campaigns. Users could not upload files. This has now been fixed. [60]
You can get a notification when a link is made to a page you created. This has not worked since June. It was fixed last week. [61]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 September. It will be on all wikis from 6 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 5 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation Readers department will work on advanced mobile editing. You can read more about this and other things they plan to work on over the next year. You can also see the presentation.
Hi Vermont, Hope all is well,
I was wondering if you could please revdel this, this and then your reverts[63] - I can live with being called every swear word under the sun but death threats I cannot, Many thanks, –Davey2010Talk14:16, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 added or edited a template with the visual editor the input boxes were very big. This has been fixed. The input boxes will now be smaller until you click on them. Then they will change size to fit the text. [64]
Problems
Some diffs showed lines in the wrong order. This was fixed last week. [65]
Marking a cross-wiki notification as read didn't work every time. The other wiki was not updated. This has now been fixed. [66]
<maplink> did not work for a few days. This was because of a bug. This has now been fixed. [67]
{{subst:REVISIONUSER}} is used by some templates. For a period edits saved with {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} would save the previous user's name and not your username. This is now fixed. Edits made before the bug was fixed will still be wrong and need to be corrected. [68]
When you move a page the title still shows the old page name. The developers are working on fixing this. [69]
Changes later this week
Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.
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 Septmber 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 12 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Since you were getting heat elsewhere (Commons? Meta?), I thought I should tell you that I think you've been doing a great job as a sysop so far. StevenJ81 (talk) (not a sysop here, but definitely elsewhere) 15:26, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! :) FYI, most of the "heat" is an LTA that has been vandalizing since 2005. The rest of it are from various LTA's/vandals. To my knowlege, no constructive editors have made any complaints about me. If you've seen otherwise please tell me where so I can address their concerns. Thank you for this kind note, Vermont (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 mobile app has a new version. Images uploaded using Nearby are now automatically added to the associated Wikidata item. You can browse other images on Commons. You can see your achievements and your upload statistics. It has also fixed some bugs. [70]
MediaWiki web requests now have a time limit of 60 seconds for GET requests and 200 seconds for POST requests. [71]
Problems
You could not see the menu on the notifications page on the mobile version. This has now been fixed. [72]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 September. It will be on all wikis from 20 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 19 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 September. It will be on all wikis from 27 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 26 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Hello, Vermont. You have a new email! Please check it at your convenience. Message added 20:12, 30 September 2018 (UTC). You can take off this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{YGM}} 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
Ordinary pages can no longer be loaded as javascript. You could do this using ?action=raw&ctype=text/javascript in the URL. Only fully protected pages in the MediaWiki: namespace or user javascript subpages can be loaded as javascript now. This is for better security. [75][76]
Problems
New and updated translations from translatewiki.net will not reach the wikis for a while. You can still translate messages on translatewiki.net. The Wikimedia wikis will be updated with the new translations later. This is because of work on the translation system. [77][78]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 October. It will be on all wikis from 4 October (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 3 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
You can join the meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation Search Platform team. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 UTC. See how to join if you want to know how the search function works or have questions.
Future changes
Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
Hello,
I would like to patrol, but I do not understand.
There is no tool : rollback, testn° message, return to a version, marked as patrolled ...
Just cancel ?
Best regards. --Eihel (talk) 01:49, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont: Sorry to bother you all the time. I saw on Special:ListGrants patrol rights. Do I have to ask for this right? Could you tell me how to proceed, please? I would also be interested in the right rollback . Your answer did not get me too far: what user permission? Could I have a little more explanation (How and where to mark others' edits as patrolled), please? I'm already patrolling on frwiki, WD and enwiki with rollback, without having any problem. Why this feature is not very useful ? It is in frwiki to prevent patrollers from patrolling in the same place. Regards. --Eihel (talk) 02:07, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
┌─────────────────────────────────┘
You can request permissions at WP:PERM, although you are not yet experienced enough to be granted rollback or patrol rights (you have 20 edits). Marking edits as patrolled really isn't necessary when patrolling recent changes. You can enable Twinkle without any user permissions (well, autoconfirmed). The reason marking pages as patrolled manually (I find it easier to review NewPages when all non-autopatrolled users are highlighted, which is automatic) isn't very useful is because page creation is low, and most pages created are by experienced editors, or are quickly deleted. Anyways, I'm about to sleep and if you leave any messages I'll get to it in the morning. Regarding you apologizing about bothering me, it's no bother; I'm always happy to answer questions. Vermont (talk) 02:16, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Txs. Yes, yes of course, it is for the future, because the "head" of the Help pages is different from other wikis. So you are closer to England or Europe than to the United States (if you speak French youpiii). Good night or sleep well anyway.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There was a problem when you copied and pasted from a table with the visual editor. It could add href where it shouldn't be. This has now been fixed. [80]
Changes later this week
Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix. [81]
Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again. [82]
Changes later this week
When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message. [83]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).
Meetings
There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal. [84]
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 23 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 October. It will be on all wikis from 25 October (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 24 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
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 post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
The wikis now have a content security policy report. This means that you might get a warning in your javascript console when you load external resources in your user scripts. For security reasons it is recommended that you don't do this. It might not be possible to load external resources in your scripts in the future. [85]
Problems
Your watchlist can show which changes you have already seen. This did not work for a few days. It has been fixed. [86]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 October. It will be on all wikis from 1 November (calendar).
The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer available. It will be removed from Special:Preferences. It has not been the standard editor for a long time. It was replaced by the 2010 wikitext editor. [87][88]
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 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
I don't know DaneGeld, I don't know if you know DaneGeld, I don't know if DaneGeld respects you, I don't know why DaneGeld is acting this way, I don't know if he's always been like this. I guess I don't know many things.
But here's a crazy thought: block DaneGeld for a few hours (at least until he'll have to go to sleep in his time zone). Not as punishment - absolutely not. Merely to prevent his blood pressure from skyrocketing over this. If he can't do anything anymore, hopefully that'll force him to go do something that doesn't make his blood boil. He'll possibly be angry at first, but it may be better in the long term for him.
I'm not going to block him for this. I'm about to go to sleep myself, and I will only block if someone reverts again (edit warring) without an established consensus. I'll note that he used to be a very active editor, except lately he's been more active in other projects related to Wikimedia. I respect him, and I hope it's mutual, but I will not use that as an implement to block him for voicing his thoughts. Vermont (talk) 02:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I made myself clear. I don't suggest blocking him for his behavior or to protect this wiki. I suggest possibly blocking him for his own sake, because getting this worked up over a crop can't be healthy. But I leave it to you, I don't actually know DaneGeld so I trust your judgment. Alexis Jazz (talk) 02:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences. [89]
Changes later this week
You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result. [90]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 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 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
If you have questions you can direct them to WP:ST. We have very few noticeboards and discussion boards; ST is usually best for content/article-based issues like this. Vermont (talk) 12:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [91]
Problems
You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [92][93][94]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 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 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [95]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There is an A/B test for sameAs data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks. [96]
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 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated. [97]
The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page. [98]
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 wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use / to create a new page: /wiki/Page/Subpage. The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages. [99]
Changes later this week
The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia. [100]
Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word__EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__. [101]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 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 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The mw.util.jsMessage() function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warningUse of "mw.util.jsMessage" is deprecated in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains mw.util.jsMessage. There is a migration guide. It explains how to use mw.notify instead. [102]
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 will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki. [103]
You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow. [105]
When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back. [106][107]
Yes. As that account is 2 years old and did not vandalize, it is likely that the creator of the Jeebak account (and of the other vandal-accounts in the last few hours) are unrelated to Deepak. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 12:34, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (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 12 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [108][109]
When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off. [110]
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 7 January 2019.
Recent changes
Some templates that show notices about the content of the page will now be shown on the mobile website. In many cases they were hidden before. [111][112]
Admins can no longer unblock themselves, except for self-blocks. A blocked admin can block the user who blocked them but no one else. This is so no one can block all admins on a wiki without being stopped. [113]
The ParserMigration extension has been removed. It compared the result of two versions of the MediaWiki wikitext parsing pipeline. It was used when we moved to the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy.
Problems
<ref> tags can use parameters such as "name" or "group". For example <ref name="adams" group="books">. If a <ref> tag has more than two parameters all parameters are ignored. You don't get a warning that they don't work. This will soon be fixed. [114]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 December. It will be on all wikis from 20 December (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 19 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation Android app team are working on making it easier to edit on mobile phones. You can read more about these plans. If you have an Android phone and speak at least two languages you can help testing in English. Tell Dchen (WMF) you want to be part of the testing by writing on her talk page or email her.
tiles.wmflabs.org and wma.wmflabs.org will stop working. They have no maintainers and run an old operating system. Tools which use it could stop working. This includes the mapnik gadget, hill shading, and hike and bike layers. New maintainers could help out and keep it going. [115]
User:Indian Peninsula User:IBP149 are ducked blocked to User:Adam Asrul. The first and last are globally locked while the middle is pending at SRG. Duck blocked at zhwiki. If you could compare their contributions, I think is a good duck case here too. User:IBP149 is still creating poor articles here. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 11:47, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully but perhaps is the festive season all the meta boards are really backlogged terribly. Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and a Blessed New Year.--Cohaf (talk) 17:44, 18 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As an IP, duck blocked at zhwp. The behaviour here is quite similar, 2404:160:810c:433e:c5e3:6f8a:c956:39de. I am wondering will a range block helps ? Will a local CU here be helpful? Just puzzling.--Cohaf (talk) 05:27, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for informing me. It doesn't look like anything short of a /32 will work, which is too large a range for me to support blocking. Vermont (talk) 11:08, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
once more as User:Thigil5, duck blocked at Chinese Wikipedia, now awaiting global lock at SRG. Their article I RFD as QD may not be that good. Regards, --Cohaf (talk) 11:04, 29 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Jin Jing was created by a sock IP of theirs which is now blocked on Chinese Wikipedia. We also established a LTA page there already w:zh:WP:ADAM. Advice on how to proceed on this page. I can fix it if needed. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Vermont, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas
and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year,
Thanks for all your help and thanks for all your contributions to the 'pedia,
Hi Vermont. For an idea of an automated daily switch for DYK I've created a mockup at User:Mifter/sandbox. In short, it uses the #time ParserFunction (mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions##time) and thus counts from 1 to 7 and then resets. The code currently used is {{Did you know/Queue/{{#time:N|}}}} and the sandbox is setup with {{Did you know/Queue/{{#time:N|+1 day}}}}, {{Did you know/Queue/{{#time:N|+2 day}}}}, etc. to show all the Queues (as well as the currently not existing Queue 7). Let me know if you have any questions. Best, Mifter (talk) 04:44, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've created a seventh queue and tweaked the formatting so they would all display correctly on the Main Page. I'm looking through some of the DYK nominations that were already made to try and make a neutral/balanced set of sets, if we aren't going to be changing them frequently news events/obscure trivial likely is not something to lock in for rotation. Best, Mifter (talk) 04:55, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, you might think that YouTube was banned in most schools because it distracts them from lessons, but when I was a spanish teacher, YouTube was banned in my school for a different reason. They banned it because of profanity, profanity from both english and spanish. SeptorA person who grew up in the 70s and 80s.
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 writers, editors and translators wish you a pleasant 2019 year.
Recent changes
RelatedSites extension has been undeployed. It was used to create interwiki links on Wikivoyage, now handled by Wikidata. [116]
MediaWiki logstash logging is moving to a new infrastructure. This is an ongoing deployment. [117]
codesearch.wmflabs.org has been updated, with new and updated repositories and a new search options for code. [118]
On several wikis, an account named "Abuse filter" has been created on December 17 to perform some technical maintenance on AbuseFilter. This account has sysop rights but it's a system user and no human can use it. The account already existed on wikis where AbuseFilter can perform blocks, which are issued using this account. See T212268 for more information and future plans.
Problems
In AbuseFilter, the "Throttle" action takes three parameters: count, period and groups. They must now strictly respect the requirements listed on mediawiki.org. A list of broken filters is on Phabricator. If you're familiar with AbuseFilter, please take a look and fix them. [119]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 8. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from January 9. It will be on all wikis from January 10 (calendar).
Meetings
Search Platform Office Hours is rescheduled to January 9. Check the details for time and date.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
You can now add captions to files on Commons. Captions are short descriptions of the file. They can be translated to all languages we use. They can't use wikitext markup.
Earlier a quoted HTML attribute had to be followed by a space. Now it doesn't. This means that some pages could look different when you save them even if you didn't edit that part of the text. [122][123]
Templates with <templatestyles> could not show the difference between the live template and the sandbox version when they were tested. This has now been fixed. <templatestyles> has a new wrapper parameter now. You can use it for selectors like .mw-parser-output <wrapper parameter value> <selector from CSS page>. [124]
Problems
When you see an edit in the recent changes feed or in the history of a page some of them have tags. Some tags are added automatically. You can also add tags manually. Tags for edits that have been added manually can be edited. This didn't work for a little while. This has now been fixed. [125]
Users who could cause more damage to the wikis if someone took over their account have to have more secure passwords. This includes administrators and other user groups. They can't use passwords that are in a list of common passwords. Accounts with common passwords are easy to take over. The list of common passwords was made longer a few weeks ago and has a different error message. Some user groups have been added to those who can't use common passwords. This is to protect all accounts with user rights that could cause damage. [126]
The AbuseFilter variable minor_edit has been removed. It was deprecated in 2016. Now you can't use it. You can fix the filters using it. You can find them if you use the search bar on Special:AbuseFilter.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from January 15 17:55, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi, I saw your change summary "Didn’t notice the move in hist (and no comment on the page)". I did indicate on my !vote that I moved it from support. Did I do something wrong? Do point out as I need to know to improve. Thanks.--Cohaf (talk) 07:20, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Cohaf: You didn’t do anything wrong, although it would have been easier to follow what happened (most people don’t read through the page history, and just the page) if you added to your comment when you moved it something along the lines of, “Moved from support section.” Thanks, Vermont (talk) 10:13, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You mean when I readded to the comment section I should include a change summary of move from support? When I readded the comment, I did indicate that I moved from support, see the first line. Or is it I should indicate at the end that comment. On this issue, I also wondered why moral support is not allowed? Regards, --Cohaf (talk) 10:17, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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
Some people did not get last week's issue of Tech News. This was because of a problem with MassMessage. If you did not get last week's issue, you can read it on Meta. [127]
Recent changes
The content translation tool can now use version 2 as the default version for users who turned on the beta feature. For example it adds the tracking category Pages with unreviewed translations to translations that might have used machine translations without fixing the problems. This is so others can find them. You can find this category in Special:TrackingCategories on Wikipedias.
When a template was edited with the visual editor, it would sometimes put all information on one line. This makes it difficult to read for editors who use the wikitext editor. It also makes it more difficult to see what happened in a diff. This problem affected edits made between 8 and 17 January and is now fixed. [128]
MassMessage is used to post a message to many pages. It has not been working reliably. Some messages have not been posted to everyone. [129][130]
Because of a database problem that had to be fixed immediately you could not edit most wikis for a couple of minutes on 17 January (UTC). This has now been fixed. [131]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 January. It will be on all wikis from 24 January (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 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 February. It will be on all wikis from 7 February (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 6 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 the amboxCSS class to show page issues to mobile readers. When you use ambox there are classes you can use.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 February. It will be on all wikis from 14 February (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 13 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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 thank someone on the mobile web you will now have two seconds to cancel the thank. This is in case you clicked on the thank button by accident. [134]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 February. It will be on all wikis from 21 February (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 20 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
There is a proposal to add a red link to mobile search results if there is no page with that name. This is how it works on desktop. You can leave feedback. [135]
The Wikimedia Foundation is planning a global consultation about communication. The goal is to bring Wikimedians and wiki-minded people together to improve tools for communication.
We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis, whatever their experience, their skills or their devices.
We are looking for input from as many different parts of the Wikimedia community as possible. It will come from multiple projects, in multiple languages, and with multiple perspectives.
We are currently planning the consultation. We need your help.
We need volunteers to help talk to their communities or user groups.
You can help by hosting a discussion at your wiki. Here's what to do:
Next, create a page (or a section on a Village pump, or an e-mail thread – whatever is natural for your group) to collect information from other people in your group. This is not a vote or decision-making discussion: we are just collecting feedback.
Then ask people what they think about communication processes. We want to hear stories and other information about how people communicate with each other on and off wiki. Please consider asking these five questions:
When you want to discuss a topic with your community, what tools work for you, and what problems block you?
What about talk pages works for newcomers, and what blocks them?
What do others struggle with in your community about talk pages?
What do you wish you could do on talk pages, but can't due to the technical limitations?
What are the important aspects of a "wiki discussion"?
You can also help build the list of the many different ways people talk to each other.
Not all groups active on wikis or around wikis use the same way to discuss things: it can happen on wiki, on social networks, through external tools... Tell us how your group communicates.
Hi Vermont. My apologies if I removed those flags against standard policy. From a personal standpoint, I would appreciate not being lumped in with any sock puppetry which may actually be going on with that article. You can see my account, while new, was created a month before that article even existed, and I have been participating in the RfD process on EN Wikipedia before this article was created or flaged for RfD. Would you be kind enough to remove the notice from my vote in the discussion? It's not going to sway the decision in any way but it matters to me. I would appreciate it. --PhobosIkaros✉18:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank's so much, Vermont! I used to contribute to Wikipedia a long, long time ago and a lot of things have changed getting back into it. I appreciate your kindness. EDIT: Also the fact that you were willing to support my request to remove the tag next to my signature despite having a different opinion on the discussion shows your integrity. --PhobosIkaros✉18:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Vermont: Yes, I did back in the early 2000s. I couldn't remember my username and password, and my email address has changed several times since then. It's no big deal. It's nice to start fresh sometimes. --PhobosIkaros✉03:57, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [137]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 February. It will be on all wikis from 28 February (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 February at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.
I don't see how it's created as a test. I checked with Earwig's copyvio tool, and it does not seem to be a copyright violation. If you want to pursue deletion, please use a RfD. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 04:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (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 6 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
The mobile website will use the standard fonts on your computer or phone instead of a generic font. This will make it easier to read text in many scripts. [138][139]
You indeffed this user for repeated copyright violations, then unblocked because "Agreed offwiki not to re-add copyright violations". However, since being unblocked the user again added copied information, so I have indeffed him again. --Auntof6 (talk) 09:32, 6 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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
Pages can use geocoordinates from Wikidata with the mw.wikibase.entity:formatStatementsLua function or the #statementsparser function. If they do, they will now be shown using a Kartographer <maplink> if the wiki can use Kartographer. You can report bugs or ask questions on Phabricator.
Some wikis will not be able to edit for a short period of time on 19 March (UTC). This will start at 15:00 UTC. It will last up to 15 minutes but probably shorter. You can see the list of affected wikis. This is because of network maintenance. You can still read the wikis.
Editors who use Firefox to edit with the visual editor had a problem with copying text. When they tried to select text that included footnotes, templates or block images in the middle they would often only get part of the text. This has now been fixed. [140]
Some maps didn't work for a while on 8 March. This has been fixed. [141][142]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (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 13 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
When you use rollback you will be able to get a confirmation prompt on most wikis. It asks you if you wanted to do the rollback. This is to avoid misclicks. You will have to opt in to get it. On German Wikipedia it will be an opt-out feature from 28 March. [143][144]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (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 20 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Admins will be able to block someone from editing a page or a namespace. This already works on a few Wikimedia wikis. You can read more. If your wiki wants to be an early tester of this, you can tell the developers. [145]
Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools.
Can I suggest a block on the range for a little while? It is school vandalism and part of a /24, though seems a little more concentrated, and I didn't see any useful edits. Billinghurst (talk) 22:04, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Given that there hasn't been more than a handful of constructive edits from the range since 2015, I'll block the range for 3 months. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 22:08, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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 new version of the content translation tool will be used for all new translations. The older version will still be used for translations that were started with it. Most users won’t see any change. More than 80% of the published translations are already using the new version. [146]
Problems
There was a problem with editing with Safari on iOS. When you wrote an edit summary you couldn't save the edit. This has now been fixed. [147]
The editing toolbar sometimes disappears when you scroll on iOS devices. This will be fixed soon. [148]
Wikis can over-ride interface messages on-wiki. A problem meant that sometimes an old versions of any changed messages were shown instead. This included the sitenotice and other important parts of the interface. This was fixed at around 2019-03-22 16:00 (UTC). Logged-out users may still get the wrong message. Purging the page should fix it for them. [149]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (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 March at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
Notifications tell you about things that happen on the wiki. You can turn on notifications about new links to pages you created. For performance reasons you can no longer get e-mails about this. [150]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (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 3 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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
More wikis are now testing visual editor section editing for mobile users. You can read more.
A map update caused some problems on 29 March and 30 March. It was rolled back. [154]
Pages on some Wikivoyages had problems with the top headline. This has been fixed. [155]
Changes later this week
When you add an edit summary the VisualEditor will search your recent edit summaries in case you want to re-use one. This works in both the visual and wikitext modes on desktop. It also works on the mobile site. [156]
The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it will return "" (empty string). When you read a page it will return "-" (dash). For now this will only affect content namespaces. [158]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (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 10 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
You will be able to preview references. This means that when you hover over the link you will get a popup that shows you a preview of the reference. It will work much like page previews. This is so you don't have to go to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will now be available as a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia. [159][160]
The Wikidata JSON output will change. Empty containers will be serialised as empty objects. This is a breaking change that will affect tools that use JSON outputs and APIs. It will happen on 30 April. You can read more and see how to test your code.
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
All wikis now have the TemplateWizard for the wikitext editor.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (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 17 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Wikidata will get a new constraint status called suggestion. This will change how the WikibaseQualityConstraints constraint checking API works. [161][162]
You can test the depicts property for structured data on Commons.
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 advanced search function URL now shows which namespaces you search in. The namespace field is collapsed by default on the search page. You can also add new fields to the search interface through a hook. [163][164][165]
The wikis now look slightly different in the mobile web version. [166]
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 23 April at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Wikipedia articles will have the sameAsmeta property. It adds structured data. This makes it easier for search engines to find Wikipedia articles. It also makes it easier to reuse content. There will an A/B test. [167][168]
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 Wikipedia app for Android now invites users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. [169][170]
Problems
Tech News was late last week because of a MassMessage bug. Other newsletters had the same problem. [171]
Changes later this week
You will see when you last refreshed the recent changes page. This is so you can see how recent the changes are. [172]
When you write a comment in Structured Discussions but have not posted it yet your web browser will save it in local storage instead of session storage. This means you do not lose them even if you close your web browser. Structured Discussions used to be called Flow. [173]
You will be able to turn off milestone notifications. Milestone notifications congratulate you when you have made certain numbers of edits. [174]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (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 1 May at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
The Wikidata wb_terms table will be dropped. This will affect some Wikidata tools. They need to be updated. The table has become too big which is causing problems. This will happen on 29 May. You can read more. You can ask for help if you need it.
Wikimedia wikis will soon use a token when you log out. This changes how the API works. Some tools might need to be updated. [175]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
When someone moves a page to a name that already exists that page that had the name the article is moved to is deleted. For a couple of months this didn't always work. Some users saw an error message instead. This has now been fixed. [176]
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 30 January at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
There is a new version of Pywikibot. Pywikibot is a tool to automate tasks on MediaWiki wikis. [3]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 June. It will be on all wikis from 14 June (calendar).
you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences. [89]
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
18:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
