User talk:Pythoncoder/News/Archive 3
Archive 3: July–December 2019
Administrators' newsletter – July 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam1 • Flyguy649 • Fram2 • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe
- 1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
- 2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
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- A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.
- In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.
- The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
- The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
- A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.
- The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.
- In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.
Editing News #1—July 2019
[edit]Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/VisualEditor-logo.svg/200px-VisualEditor-logo.svg.png)
Did you know?
Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?
Every article has a pencil icon at the top. Tap on the pencil icon to start editing.
Edit Cards
![Toolbar with menu opened](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/EditCards-v.20.png/250px-EditCards-v.20.png)
This is what the new Edit Cards for editing links in the mobile visual editor look like. You can try the prototype here: 📲 Try Edit Cards.
Welcome back to the Editing newsletter.
Since the last newsletter, the team has released two new features for the mobile visual editor and has started developing three more. All of this work is part of the team's goal to make editing on mobile web simpler.
Before talking about the team's recent releases, we have a question for you:
Are you willing to try a new way to add and change links?
If you are interested, we would value your input! You can try this new link tool in the mobile visual editor on a separate wiki.
Follow these instructions and share your experience:
Recent releases
[edit]The mobile visual editor is a simpler editing tool, for smartphones and tablets using the mobile site. The Editing team has recently launched two new features to improve the mobile visual editor:
- Section editing
- The purpose is to help contributors focus on their edits.
- The team studied this with an A/B test. This test showed that contributors who could use section editing were 1% more likely to publish the edits they started than people with only full-page editing.
- Loading overlay
- The purpose is to smooth the transition between reading and editing.
Section editing and the new loading overlay are now available to everyone using the mobile visual editor.
New and active projects
[edit]This is a list of our most active projects. Watch these pages to learn about project updates and to share your input on new designs, prototypes and research findings.
- Edit cards: This is a clearer way to add and edit links, citations, images, templates, etc. in articles. You can try this feature now. Go here to see how: 📲Try Edit Cards.
- Mobile toolbar refresh: This project will learn if contributors are more successful when the editing tools are easier to recognize.
- Mobile visual editor availability: This A/B test asks: Are newer contributors more successful if they use the mobile visual editor? We are collaborating with 20 Wikipedias to answer this question.
- Usability improvements: This project will make the mobile visual editor easier to use. The goal is to let contributors stay focused on editing and to feel more confident in the editing tools.
Looking ahead
[edit]- Wikimania: Several members of the Editing Team will be attending Wikimania in August 2019. They will lead a session about mobile editing in the Community Growth space. Talk to them about how editing can be improved.
- Talk Pages: In the coming months, the Editing Team will begin improving talk pages and communication on the wikis.
Learning more
[edit]The VisualEditor on mobile is a good place to learn more about the projects we are working on. The team wants to talk with you about anything related to editing. If you have something to say or ask, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.
PPelberg (WMF) (talk) and Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter, Q2 2019
[edit]The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter
Volume 11, No. 1 — 2nd Quarter, 2019
Previous issue | Index | Next issue
Project At a Glance
As of Q2 2019, the project has:
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Content
(Delivered ~~~~~)
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 July 2019
[edit]- In the media: Politics starts getting rough
- Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban
- Arbitration report: A month of reintegration
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why?
- News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way
- Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect
- Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract
- Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 8
[edit]
News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (July 2019). Hello everyone and welcome to the 8th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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Hope everyone is having a good winter (or summer, for those in the northern hemisphere). Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 02:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – August 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).
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- Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
- A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.
- Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.
- Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
- The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.
Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.
The Signpost: 30 August 2019
[edit]- News and notes: Documenting Wikimania and our beginnings
- In focus: Ryan Merkley joins WMF as Chief of Staff
- Discussion report: Meta proposals on partial bans and IP users
- Traffic report: Once upon a time in Greenland with Boris and cornflakes
- News from the WMF: Meet Emna Mizouni, the newly minted 2019 Wikimedian of the Year
- Recent research: Special issue on gender gap and gender bias research
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
Administrators' newsletter – September 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
Bradv • Chetsford • Izno
Floquenbeam • Lectonar
DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana
Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime
- Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
- The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.
- A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
- A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.
New Page Review newsletter September-October 2019
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Wikipedia_New_page_reviewer.svg/120px-Wikipedia_New_page_reviewer.svg.png)
Hello Pythoncoder/News,
- Backlog
Instead of reaching a magic 300 as it once did last year, the backlog approaching 6,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.
- Coordinator
A proposal is taking place here to confirm a nominated user as Coordinator of NPR.
- This month's refresher course
Why I Hate Speedy Deleters, a 2008 essay by long since retired Ballonman, is still as valid today. Those of us who patrol large numbers of new pages can be forgiven for making the occasional mistake while others can learn from their 'beginner' errors. Worth reading.
- Deletion tags
Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon (you will need to have 'Nominated for deletion' enabled for this in your filters) may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders using Twinkle. They require your further verification.
- Paid editing
Please be sure to look for the tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. WMF policy requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.
- Subject-specific notability guidelines' (SNG). Alternatives to deletion
- Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves once more with notability guidelines for organisations and companies.
- Blank-and-Redirect is a solution anchored in policy. Please consider this alternative before PRODing or CSD. Note however, that users will often revert or usurp redirects to re-create deleted articles. Do regularly patrol the redirects in the feed.
- Not English
- A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, and if they do have potential, tag as required, then move to draft. Modify the text of the template as appropriate before sending it.
- Tools
Regular reviewers will appreciate the most recent enhancements to the New Pages Feed and features in the Curation tool, and there are still more to come. Due to the wealth of information now displayed by ORES, reviewers are strongly encouraged to use the system now rather than Twinkle; it will also correctly populate the logs.
Stub sorting, by SD0001: A new script is available for adding/removing stub tags. See User:SD0001/StubSorter.js, It features a simple HotCat-style dynamic search field. Many of the reviewers who are using it are finding it an improvement upon other available tools.
Assessment: The script at User:Evad37/rater makes the addition of Wikiproject templates extremely easy. New page creators rarely do this. Reviewers are not obliged to make these edits but they only take a few seconds. They can use the Curation message system to let the creator know what they have done.
DannyS712 bot III is now patrolling certain categories of uncontroversial redirects. Curious? Check out its patrol log.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
TheWikiWizard - September 2019
[edit]Hello, Pythoncoder! Here is the September 2019 issue of TheWikiWizard.
- A big thank you! (TWW is now 1 years old!)
- What's Hot! (Can you solve the riddles?)
- Articles (Assume Good Faith, The Teahouse)
- The Wikipedian
- News about Wikipedia! (Wikipedia News and Events!)
- Editor's Notes (New Sections to Main Page!)
- Activity Page (Fun Activities, and answers to last time's questions...)
- Ads (Ads)
We Hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 21:44, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 30 September 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Where do we go from here?
- Special report: Post-Framgate wrapup
- Traffic report: Varied and intriguing entries, less Luck, and some retreads
- News from the WMF: How the Wikimedia Foundation is making efforts to go green
- Recent research: Wikipedia's role in assessing credibility of news sources; using wikis against procrastination; OpenSym 2019 report
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
Administrators' newsletter – October 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).
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- Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which
applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories
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- Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which
- As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.
- The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
- The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC
focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future
, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.
- The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.
Global watchlist - Update 1
[edit]Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:
- General announcements
- Management has migrated to phabricator; to report a bug or request a feature, please create a new task with the script's tag
- Message translation has been reduced; for common messages that are already translated in mediawiki core, the system translations are used, in order to reduce duplication of efforts
- Recent additions
- New pages are shown at the start of a site's feed
- Log entries are shown at the end of a site's feed
- Basic validation has been added to user settings, applied before saving
- Site validation has also been added; a site (excluding unique projects like wikidata, meta, commons, etc.) is considered to be valid if it is the form of "language.project", where both the language code and project name are valid. It does not, however, check that the actual site is valid; only that it could be. In other words, even though
sco.wiktionary
refers to a site that doesn't exist, it is considered valid, becausesco
is a valid language code (sco.wikipedia
is a working site) andwiktionary
is a valid project.
- Announcements
- BREAKING CHANGE: Backwards compatibility supporting the use of sites as
*.*.org
(like 'en.wikipedia.org' or 'meta.wikimedia.org'), deprecated in version 1.7.5, will be removed soon; all sites should now be saved as*.*
(like 'de.wikinews' or 'fr.wikisource') - BREAKING CHANGE: Storing user sites as
window.GlobalWatchlistSites
, deprecated in version version 1.11.11, will be removed soon; all settings should be stored in thewindow.GlobalWatchlistConfig
object - Both of these breaking changes will be implemented alongside version 4.0; until then, any use of the config page (m:Special:BlankPage/GlobalWatchlistConfig) will result in saving settings in the newest format
- Next release
Version 4.0 should be released in around a week. It will include the new features mentioned above, as well as removal of backwards compatibility for settings and sites.
I've sent this first message to users that participated in the discussion at m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Watchlists/Revive Crosswatch tool or otherwise shown interest in the script. To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 9
[edit]News and updates associated with user scripts from the past two months (August and September, 2019).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 9th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
Sorry for falling behind a bit. Please let me know if I missed any new scripts. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC) |
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WikiProject Video games Newsletter Q3
[edit]The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter
Volume 11, No. 2 — 3nd Quarter, 2019
Previous issue | Index | Next issue
Project At a Glance
As of Q3 2019, the project has:
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Content
(Delivered ~~~~~)
Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019
[edit]Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter
Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.
Help
[edit]What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!
Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.
Talk Pages
[edit]The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.
The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.
Mobile visual editor
[edit]The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Edit_Cards-before-v3-comparison.png/486px-Edit_Cards-before-v3-comparison.png)
- On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
- There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and target.
- Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Toolbar-comparison-v1.png/486px-Toolbar-comparison-v1.png)
- In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
- One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
- New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
- Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
- Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.
Wikimania
[edit]The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.
Looking ahead
[edit]- Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
- Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
- Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.
– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
TheWikiWizard - October 2019
[edit]Hello, Pythoncoder! Here is the September 2019 issue of TheWikiWizard.
- What's Hot! (Turkey Overload, Federal Election...)
- Articles (Cite reliable sources!)
- The Wikipedian
- News about Wikipedia! (Wikipedia News and Events!)
- Editor's Notes (New Main Page Planning)
- Activity Page (Fun Activities, and answers to last time's questions...)
- Ads (Cool Ads)
We hope you like this month's issue! If you'd like to discuss this issue, please go to this issue's talk page. Happy Reading! --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 01:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 02:05, 23 October 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)
The Signpost: 31 October 2019
[edit]- In the media: How to use or abuse Wikipedia for fun or profit
- Special report: “Catch and Kill” on Wikipedia: Paid editing and the suppression of material on alleged sexual abuse
- Interview: Carl Miller on Wikipedia Wars
- Community view: Observations from the mainland
- Arbitration report: October actions
- Gallery: Wiki Loves Broadcast
- Recent research: Research at Wikimania 2019: More communication doesn't make editors more productive; Tor users doing good work; harmful content rare on English Wikipedia
- News from the WMF: Welcome to Wikipedia! Here's what we're doing to help you stick around
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
New Page Review newsletter November 2019
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Wikipedia_New_page_reviewer.svg/100px-Wikipedia_New_page_reviewer.svg.png)
Hello Pythoncoder/News,
This newsletter comes a little earlier than usual because the backlog is rising again and the holidays are coming very soon.
- Getting the queue to 0
There are now 808 holders of the New Page Reviewer flag! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog but it's still roughly less than 10% doing 90% of the work. Now it's time for action.
Exactly one year ago there were 'only' 3,650 unreviewed articles, now we will soon be approaching 7,000 despite the growing number of requests for the NPR user right. If each reviewer soon does only 2 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by every reviewer doing only 1 review every 2 days - that's only a few minutes work on the bus on the way to the office or to class! Let's get this over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
Want to join? Consider adding the NPP Pledge userbox.
Our next newsletter will announce the winners of some really cool awards.
- Coordinator
Admin Barkeep49 has been officially invested as NPP/NPR coordinator by a unanimous consensus of the community. This is a complex role and he will need all the help he can get from other experienced reviewers.
- This month's refresher course
Paid editing is still causing headaches for even our most experienced reviewers: This official Wikipedia article will be an eye-opener to anyone who joined Wikipedia or obtained the NPR right since 2015. See The Hallmarks to know exactly what to look for and take time to examine all the sources.
- Tools
- It is now possible to select new pages by date range. This was requested by reviewers who want to patrol from the middle of the list.
- It is now also possible for accredited reviewers to put any article back into the New Pages Feed for re-review. The link is under 'Tools' in the side bar.
- Reviewer Feedback
Would you like feedback on your reviews? Are you an experienced reviewer who can give feedback to other reviewers? If so there are two new feedback pilot programs. New Reviewer mentorship will match newer reviewers with an experienced reviewer with a new reviewer. The other program will be an occasional peer review cohort for moderate or experienced reviewers to give feedback to each other. The first cohort will launch November 13.
- Second set of eyes
- Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work, especially while some routine tagging for deletion can still be carried out by non NPR holders and inexperienced users. Read about it at the Monitoring the system section in the tutorial. If you come across such editors doing good work, don't hesitate to encourage them to apply for NPR.
- Do be sure to have our talk page on your watchlist. There are often items that require reviewers' special attention, such as to watch out for pages by known socks or disruptive editors, technical issues and new developments, and of course to provide advice for other reviewers.
- Arbitration Committee
The annual ArbCom election will be coming up soon. All eligible users will be invited to vote. While not directly concerned with NPR, Arbcom cases often lead back to notability and deletion issues and/or actions by holders of advanced user rights.
- Community Wish list
There is to be no wish list for WMF encyclopedias this year. We thank Community Tech for their hard work addressing our long list of requirements which somewhat overwhelmed them last year, and we look forward to a successful completion.
To opt-out of future mailings, you can remove yourself here
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – November 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).
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- An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.
- The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).
- A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.
- Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 10
[edit]News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (October 2019).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 10th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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Have a great November, --DannyS712 (talk) 22:18, 7 November 2019 (UTC) |
Global watchlist - Update 2
[edit]Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:
- General notes
- To report a bug or request a feature, please create a new task on Phabricator with the script's tag
- Recent additions
- Site validation has been tightened. Previously, only the language code and project name had to be valid - now, they must be a valid combination (i.e.
en.wikiversity
exists, and so is valid, butsco.wikiversity
is not valid, because no such wiki exists). - When the global watchlist feed is loading, an OOUI widget will be shown, rather than an animated gif.
- An option has been added to no longer group edits to the same page. For now, this isn't very useful, since metadata for the edits (editor, summary, tags, etc.) are not yet shown, but they will be soon. Until then, ungrouped edits are treated the same as pages with only 1 edit - the minor and bot flags are displayed if applicable. If edits are grouped, the minor and bot flags are only shown if they apply to all of the edits.
- Upcoming changes
- Starting with version 5.0, there will be an option at the settings page to switch to and from a "stable" version of the script. When activated, the script import in your global.js should be replaced, and then the page refreshed with the new script loaded. The stable script will live at m:User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/stable.js, and will be updated with each full release. Otherwise, it shouldn't be edited, providing a version that is less prone to bugs as the script is developed.
- Announcements
- WARNING: Starting with version 5.1, the option to mark the pages of a site as seen be implemented using the
entirewatchlist
API option, rather than manually listing the titles. This is being done to simplify the implementation code. This will result in the same functionality as marking all pages as seen via Special:Watchlist (i.e. even if the page isn't visible due to your filter choices, it will still be marked as seen). If you would like to keep using the current method for a while, please switch to the stable branch.
- Next release
Version 5.0 has just gone live. It includes the new features mentioned above.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Global watchlist - Update 3
[edit]Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:
- Survey
- I am investigating adding more context to each entry that is shown (such as the edit summaries, tags, patrol marks, the user who made the edit, etc.). Is there any desire for such additions? If so, what should be added first, and what is a low priority? Please leave feedback on the relevant phabricator task, phab:T238300.
- Recent additions
- Site validation has been overhauled. Rather than hard-coding a list of valid sites, users will be able to watch any site where they have an attached local user account. If a site is rejected as invalid, please ensure that there is indeed a local account attached to your global account.
- Users will now be alerted regarding the results of attempting to update their settings.
- Live updates have been added - when activated, the script will refresh in the background, and then load the new feed, every 7.5 seconds. In the future, this frequency may be configurable.
- OOUI icons have been added to most buttons.
- There is now an option to eliminate the confirmation dialog when marking all sites as seen.
- Announcements
- WARNING: Starting with version 6.1, site aliases currently used when saving settings will be removed, and only sites in the form of `lang.project` will be accepted.
- As noted in the last update, marking a site as seen now uses
entirewatchlist
, which means that any changes to watched pages between when the watchlist was loaded and when the site was "marked as seen" may be ignored.
- Next release
Version 6.0 was just finalized for the development and stable branches of the script.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Scripts++ Newsletter – Issue 11
[edit]News and updates associated with user scripts from the past month (November 2019).
Hello everyone and welcome to the 11th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter:
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Enjoy your thanksgiving --DannyS712 (talk) 08:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Special Notice for TheWikiWizard
[edit]Dear Reader, You may have noticed that you did not receive a mailing for the November 2019 Issue, this is due to thegooduser being very busy with schoolwork and other important life issues. We do apologize that you have not received the November issue, and we will continue to work very hard to deliver to you the December Special Issue for 2019. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you like hearing about Wikipedia News and events, don't forget that The Signpost (our rival paper) does cover such events, in case we do not publish an issue on time. Thank you for subscribing and we will work very hard to deliever the December Issue. Best, --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 02:39, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 04:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)
The Signpost: 29 November 2019
[edit]- From the editor: Put on your birthday best
- News and notes: How soon for the next million articles?
- In the media: You say you want a revolution
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- Arbitration report: Two requests for arbitration cases
- Traffic report: The queen and the princess meet the king and the joker
- Technology report: Reference things, sister things, stranger things
- Gallery: Winter and holidays
- Recent research: Bot census; discussions differ on Spanish and English Wikipedia; how nature's seasons affect pageviews
- Essay: Adminitis
- From the archives: WikiProject Spam, revisited
Administrators' newsletter – December 2019
[edit]News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/ANEWSicon.png/150px-ANEWSicon.png)
EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂
Interface administrator changes
- An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
- Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.
- Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)
- Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive
.
- The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF
Global watchlist - Update 4
[edit]Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:
- Recent additions
- A new "fast" mode has been introduced. When used, the watchlist serves as just a list of pages that have been modified, and no longer includes context about the edits themselves.
- More information has been added to entries. When edits are not grouped by page, or when there is only 1 edit to a page, minor and bot flags are shown, as well as the user who made the edit, the summary used, and any tags that were applied. When multiple entries are grouped, bot and minor flags are only shown if all of the grouped edits were made by bots or where marked as minor. If only 1 user edited the page, that user's name is still shown, but no summaries or tags are included.
- All watchlists are now fetched in parallel, rather than in series, greatly reducing load time.
- Technical notes
- Most of the source code is now annotated with jsdoc notes, allowing others to more clearly understand and review the code.
- I will be looking into creating guidelines to let others contribute to the script; see phab:T238298.
- Translations
- There is now proper qqq documentation for translations. Translation takes place at m:User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/Translate, and help is appreciated.
- Newly translated messages are added to the script when I notice them; if you have translated messages that aren't showing up, please let me know at m:User talk:DannyS712.
- Next release
Version 7.0 was just finalized for the development and stable branches of the script.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.
Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 04:37, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
New Page Review newsletter December 2019
[edit]- Reviewer of the Year
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/New_page_reviewer_of_the_year_cup.svg/200px-New_page_reviewer_of_the_year_cup.svg.png)
This year's Reviewer of the Year is Rosguill. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in August 2018, they have been a regular reviewer of articles and redirects, been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult.
Special commendation again goes to Onel5969 who ends the year as one of our most prolific reviewers for the second consecutive year. Thanks also to Boleyn and JTtheOG who have been in the top 5 for the last two years as well.
Several newer editors have done a lot of work with CAPTAIN MEDUSA and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) being new reviewers since this time last year.
Thanks to them and to everyone reading this who has participated in New Page Patrol this year.
Rank | Username | Num reviews | Log |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Rosguill (talk) | 47,395 | Patrol Page Curation |
2 | Onel5969 (talk) | 41,883 | Patrol Page Curation |
3 | JTtheOG (talk) | 11,493 | Patrol Page Curation |
4 | Arthistorian1977 (talk) | 5,562 | Patrol Page Curation |
5 | DannyS712 (talk) | 4,866 | Patrol Page Curation |
6 | CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk) | 3,995 | Patrol Page Curation |
7 | DragonflySixtyseven (talk) | 3,812 | Patrol Page Curation |
8 | Boleyn (talk) | 3,655 | Patrol Page Curation |
9 | Ymblanter (talk) | 3,553 | Patrol Page Curation |
10 | Cwmhiraeth (talk) | 3,522 | Patrol Page Curation |
(The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here)
- Redirect autopatrol
A recent Request for Comment on creating a new redirect autopatrol pseduo-permission was closed early. New Page Reviewers are now able to nominate editors who have an established track record creating uncontroversial redirects. At the individual discretion of any administrator or after 24 hours and a consensus of at least 3 New Page Reviewers an editor may be added to a list of users whose redirects will be patrolled automatically by DannyS712 bot III.
- Source Guide Discussion
Set to launch early in the new year is our first New Page Patrol Source Guide discussion. These discussions are designed to solicit input on sources in places and topic areas that might otherwise be harder for reviewers to evaluate. The hope is that this will allow us to improve the accuracy of our patrols for articles using these sources (and/or give us places to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to nominating for deletion). Please watch the New Page Patrol talk page for more information.
- This month's refresher course
While New Page Reviewers are an experienced set of editors, we all benefit from an occasional review. This month consider refreshing yourself on Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). Also consider how we can take the time for quality in this area. For instance, sources to verify human settlements, which are presumed notable, can often be found in seconds. This lets us avoid the (ugly) 'Needs more refs' tag.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost: 27 December 2019
[edit]- From the editors: Caught with their hands in the cookie jar, again
- News and notes: What's up (and down) with administrators, articles and languages
- In the media: "The fulfillment of the dream of humanity" or a nightmare of PR whitewashing on behalf of one-percenters?
- Discussion report: December discussions around the wiki
- Arbitration report: Announcement of 2020 Arbitration Committee
- Traffic report: Queens and aliens, exactly alike, once upon a December
- Technology report: User scripts and more
- Gallery: Holiday wishes
- Recent research: Acoustics and Wikipedia; Wiki Workshop 2019 summary
- From the archives: The 2002 Spanish fork and ads revisited (re-revisited?)
- On the bright side: What's making you happy this month?
- WikiProject report: Wikiproject Tree of Life: A Wikiproject report