User talk:Xaosflux/Archive41

Does Template:Update have a documentation= parameter?

I don't see a |documentation= parameter in the code for {{update}}. Am I missing something? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I just used it wrong, tweaked. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:38, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense. Templates with multiple unnamed and named parameters do not make sense, but that's a battle for a different day. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:47, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

bot task

Hi. I hope you are doing well.
I am actively back at WP:RM, and moving pages. Recently I closed a few moves, where I had to perform find & replace task through AWB (eg this, and this Bell TV RM). The first RM's page didn't have many incoming links. But the Bell TV page is going to be a dab page, and the article is going to be moved to Bell Satellite TV. So the bot will not be able to fix the redirects, and I have to update the links manually. As of right now, I am running a find & replace task on around 450 pre-parsed pages that link to Bell TV. Do you think requesting a bot task for that (find & replace tasks) would be appropriate? As I think I will be coming across such situations often in the future. Regards, —usernamekiran (talk) 14:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: can you give me an example of one or two of the diffs that you would want to run under a bot flag? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

[1], [2], [3]. I am currently doing it, so 100 or so edits under special:contributions//Usernamekiran (AWB) would be such edits. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Have you looked over the options/other bots that can already deal with this at Wikipedia:Requested moves? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there is a bot at RM for this. There might be some bot with this or similar task approved. But that would mean I will have to wait till the bot operator comes online. Whereas if I had the approval, I can do it whenever the need arises. As this is a basic, and uncontroversial task; I thought I should ask about it. —usernamekiran (talk) 15:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: most of these can't be that time sensitive - however if you want to you can file a WP:BRFA - as you are using something like AWB that means that all the account edits will be bot flagged, so you will want to use a dedicated account for this type of task (and only for BRFA approved tasks). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:04, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

thank you. Also, can you suggest me a username for the bot account? KiranBOT sounds way too uncool. I love DumDumBOT, but Primeface thinks it would look too similar to DumbBOT. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: User:KiranBOT seems fine, this bot is for quiet background updates - it doesn't need to be "cool". — xaosflux ^Talk 16:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

How about User:DumDumBOT? —usernamekiran (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: sounds bad - it niether describes the operator relationship or the function. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth they already have User:Usernamekiran BOT. Primefac (talk) 20:26, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: lol. You, and me both are sounding like kids telling on each-other to some older person. hehe But you guys are right, I think should go with KiranBOT. Not trying to argue, but I got the idea for DumDumBOT from DumbBOT. Thank you for your inputs, and apologies for me annoying you. See you guys around —usernamekiran (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Jeez

I know you were talking about global locking, but I have to say, seeing "GLOCK" in your edit summary on BN gave me a bit of a spook, because it made me think of something very different. We should really think of a better contraction as a community... Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:47, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@Writ Keeper: duck! On meta, think I normally just say "GL". — xaosflux ^Talk 16:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-34

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

Recent changes

• If you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an undo tag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else. [1]
• The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message. [3][4]

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

20:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Could not ping you, so...

Hello, Xaosflux. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Deindexing talk pages.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Aasim 23:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Awesome Aasim: thanks for the note, I added a bunch of technical notes there too - will be useful if it closes as successful or if anyone has any technical questions. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:32, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Partial blocks

If I apply a partial block to an article, does that block extend to the target article's talk page as well, or would that have to be enumerated separately? OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:52, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ohnoitsjamie: each would need to be listed individually. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Marvel Animated Universe

Can you remove the protection level for Marvel Animated Universe page as they officially confirmed it's existence.

To request a protection change, please see WP:RFPP. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:34, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

They're not listening to me.

@NoobMaster01: first please sign your posts so we know who to reply to, second the best way to show that your newly proposed article should replace a redirect is to write a good article to go there, you can go to Draft:Marvel Animated Universe and start anytime. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:50, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Marvel_Animated_Universe Okay, I have made the draft what should I do next?NoobMaster01 (talk) 14:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@NoobMaster01: I tagged your draft for a new article reviewer to review - you can track progress at the top of it. I don't normally volunteer in that area, so you will really just need to wait now. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:49, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

How much time I have to wait? NoobMaster01 (talk) 15:01, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@NoobMaster01: I don't know - like I said I don't volunteer in that area - it can take some time as Wikipedia:There is no deadline for articles. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:24, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-35

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).

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17:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

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My recent edit

I like to respect closure discussions in general. I trust it won't surprise you to learn that my recent addition to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Please_remove_my_user_rights was composed before I saw that you had close the discussion. While I don't think the OP handle this in the best way possible. I interpreted the request for removal of rights as a way of saying the community has treated me wrong. I don't know whether there is merit to that of whether the present situation is recoverable but I do think it's worth a little checking to see if it could've been handled better.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:39, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I removed the archive wrapper from that thread as it is still being discussed. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux, Thanks S Philbrick(Talk) 15:23, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Technical Wishes: FileImporter

Hi @Xaosflux:, I was pretty late for my response to your question, so here it is (here is the link to the previous discussion):

We were trying to keep the documentation for FileImporter and all related documents in the same place, which is the reason why it is in the MediaWiki:Extension namespace. However, you should have full access to the config file with you global wiki account. -- For the Technical Wishes Team: Max Klemm (WMDE) (talk) 08:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

@Max Klemm (WMDE): thanks for the note, I think that's a bad idea but it's not up to me of course! (This configuration mostly impacts commons - so I think it probably belongs on commons: - where pages can be protected and monitored by that community if they are getting disrupted.) I think mw: is fine for documentation, just not running configuration. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Xaosflux:, thanks. I will discuss your feedback with my team and will contact you when there are news in those regards. -- For the Technical Wishes Team: Max Klemm (WMDE) (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Marvel Animated Universe (August 27)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Nathan2055 was: Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Marvel Animated Universe and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Marvel Animated Universe, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{Db-g7}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you do not make any further changes to your draft, in 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the reviewer's talk page or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 18:58, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Xaosflux! Having an article declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! Nathan2055talk - contribs 18:58, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks like you submitted this draft for NoobMaster01 (talk · contribs), I've copied this notification over to his talk page accordingly. Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 18:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not a Copy and Paste of Marvel Animated Universe as I am the one who created the article and the consensus was made at 2011 and it's 2020 now and they officially confirmed it's existence now. NoobMaster01 (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@NoobMaster01: sorry, but I really don't want to work on this at all - please follow up at the links that were placed on your draft. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:45, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Arameans article

Hello there, could you please place protection on the Arameans article again, which is highly in need of it, due to edit warring with a group of national vandalists. Many thanks in advance. --Optra2021 (talk) 08:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

[5] ——Serial 10:15, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Optra2021: to request a protection review you may post at WP:RFPP. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:09, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello there!

Hummm... It seems there have been rumors you have gained another talk page stalker... How amazing is that! I can offer to figure out who it is if you would like.:) Lindjosh (talk) 21:19, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I have 303, no big deal. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:31, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 August 2020

• News and notes: The high road and the low road

• In the media: Storytelling large and small

• Featured content: Going for the goal

• Special report: Wikipedia's not so little sister is finding its own way

• Op-Ed: The longest-running hoax

• Traffic report: Heart, soul, umbrellas, and politics

• News from the WMF: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online

• Recent research: Detecting spam, and pages to protect; non-anonymous editors signal their intelligence with high-quality articles

• Arbitration report: A slow couple of months

• From the archives: Wikipedia for promotional purposes?

• Obituaries: Marcus Sherman, Jerome West, and Pauline van Till

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Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Tech News: 2020-36

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

Problems

• This is a reminder. All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 14:00 and 15:00 UTC. Please check on the details on the announcement message. [6][7]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

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20:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020).

Administrator changes

Eddie891

Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes

SQL

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
• A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
• A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
• An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

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Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Tech News: 2020-37

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

Changes later this week

• Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere. [8]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
• All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlist instead of watch. This was inconsistent before. [9]

Future changes

• The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
• OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change. [10]
• The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users. [11][12]
• Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
• Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a .menu class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use nav ul instead. .vectorTabs and .vectorMenu will also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.

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

15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Interface admin on testwiki

Can I bug you to take a look at testwiki:Wikipedia:Requests/Permissions/Jackmcbarn? It's been there for about a month without any activity, and it's really painful to test script changes without it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:50, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Template talk:WikiProject Lebanon on a "Wikipedia technical issues and templates" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Help with regex

Xaos, hey there! :)

Can you help me set up a certain find and replace regex? I need to find all words that have space between them and then add one slash after the first word.

So, for example:

Text text

becomes

Text\ text

I used \w \w for the find part and it worked pretty good. Then I thought I would use \w\\ \w for the replace part but the result was way off of what I was hoping for. - Klein Muçi (talk) 15:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi: may depend on your interpreter but this may work:

FIND

([^ ]+) ([^ ]+)

REPLACE

$1\ $2

— xaosflux ^Talk 16:01, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Note, this will only work for the first and second words on a line - not between every word in a sentence. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:02, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

No, unfortunately it doesn't find the correct part I'm trying to find. Another user just suggested me I should use these patterns - the string is one of the real strings I'm trying to match/find and replace. That does the job. Any other way I can write the regex more "elegantly"? The user who gave me that wasn't quite secure about the writing style. Although, as I said, it does the job even like that. - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Like I said, these well all depend on your parser/software - lots of applications interpret regex their own ways. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:19, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm using Notepad++ to help me set up a find and replace pywikibot. But thank you anyway as I'm new to regex-es as you know and I have lots to learn. :)) - Klein Muçi (talk) 16:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Tech News: 2020-38

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

Problems

• The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [13][14]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).

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

16:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Red link reply

@xaosflux: Thank you very much for your reply, however, can you clarify what this means?:

Wikilinks to the special page, Special:Badtitle, are being styled with class "new" - although this is a valid target. However, it still doesn't explain why it is a red link. Is it like example.com/404, where there's no actual page, but just an error message? Gioguch (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gioguch: not sure how much you know about web layout, but when Special:Badtitle is being processed server side, it gets transformed in to: <a href="/wiki/Special:Badtitle" class="new" title="Special:Badtitle (page does not exist)">Special:Badtitle</a>. Part of that transform is adding that class=new" tag, and a cascading style sheet is then telling your browser to style it red. I think that part is getting added erroneously by the wiki parser, and the development ticket I opened is asking to have that class tag removed from that link when used. Without that styling, the link will use the default colors for other links (blue). — xaosflux ^Talk 18:31, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Xaosflux. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 00:24, 19 September 2020 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

@Jackmcbarn: ==>  Done — xaosflux ^Talk 00:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Template editor permission

Hello – unfortunately due to non-virutal world circumstances, I missed the opportunity last month to request my template editor permission (that you granted) be extended. Can that permission be regranted? Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:31, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: please drop a request at WP:PERM. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:55, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-39

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

Recent changes

• There is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [15][16]

Changes later this week

• The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [17]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).

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

21:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

• Special report: Paid editing with political connections

• News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

• In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

• Featured content: Life finds a Way

• Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

• Traffic report: Is there no justice?

• Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:48, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 September 2020

• Special report: Paid editing with political connections

• News and notes: More large-scale errors at a "small" wiki

• In the media: WIPO, Seigenthaler incident 15 years later

• Featured content: Life finds a Way

• Arbitration report: Clarifications and requests

• Traffic report: Is there no justice?

• Recent research: Wikipedia's flood biases

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Xaosflux. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Gioguch (talk) 01:39, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-40

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

Recent changes

• Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [18]
• Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [19]

Problems

• Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [20]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes

• You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
• The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
• In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see Apps as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [21]
• You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
• You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

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21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

your assistance please...

Could you please help me understand what is going on at User talk:DBigXray?

Yes, I see there is OTRS ticket 2020031010005932 out there, and that may limit what you can reveal.

Has DBigXray been indefinitely blocked? Or has he been given an opportunity for a fresh start, under a new wiki-ID?

I know individuals' request to have their User space pages deleted, as a courtesy, routinely have their requests agreed to. But it was my impression that requests to delete their User_talk pages were almost always denied, because those pages often contained important revisions recording discussions of policy matters that other contributors could need to consult.

Even his contributions can't be tracked.

DBigXray spent a couple of months wikistalking me, in 2012. His wikistalking was so flagrant that an uninvolved third party took the issue to WP:ANI.

The WPANI discussion was highly contentious.

Uninvolved third parties wrote that they found his extraordinary focus on my contributions to be questionable. They wrote that it looked like he was particularly targetting me, as part of a personal vendetta.

DBigXray claimed he had no previous interaction with me.

I provided some diffs to show his claim he had no previous interaction with me was completely false.

In response, he retired that ID, for a year or more.

Are we still under an obligation to try to assume good faith when individuals have been indefinitely blocked for disruptive behaviour?

I am considering arguing for undoing some of the damage he did, while he was wikistalking me. Being able to consult discussions we had on User talk:DBigXray could be helpful, if I end up doing that.

FWIW, I considered the possibility that individual had been employing sockpuppetry.

My first interaction with DBigXray was in a couple of discussion of Template:Kashmir separatist movement -- here and here. Short version - DBigXray tried to claim non-collegial edit summaries constituted a civil discussion, and I explained why controversial or complicated edits had to be explained in the Talk namespace.

When I came across that discussion I found half a dozen individuals who weren't really hiding their bias, their support of India's position in the Kashmir dispute. In the eight years since then several other individuals who shared his views, like Darkness_Shines and Vibhijain, were indefinitely blocked. I did consider the possibility that there was sockpuppetry or meat-puppetry behind that clique. Geo Swan (talk) 22:29, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• https://xtools.wmflabs.org/pages/index.php?name=DBigXray&namespace=4&redirects=noredirects also not working... Geo Swan (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Geo Swan: As far as I am aware, that editor has permanently left the project. That editor was not blocked. The extraordinary user_talk deletion was made following review by the oversight team - you can appeal that privately to ArbCom if you feel it needs additional review but I can't discuss the details. As far as any content disputes you may have had with the editor, as they have left I would not expect you to have to come to any compromise with them - if your content edits are contentious you should discuss them at the relevant talk pages with whomever is disagreeing with your improvements. If you think there is current sockpuppetry occurring please open an investigation request at WP:SPI. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:21, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the quick reply.

Appeal the extraordinary deletion of User talk:DBigXray to Arbcom? Hmmm. I'll consider it.

Yes, I am afraid there may be ongoing sockpuppetry. Geo Swan (talk) 02:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, ArbCom is the only place to raise an oversight deletion appeal that has already gone to the general oversight team. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:50, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2020).

Administrator changes

Ajpolino • LuK3

Jackmcbarn

Ad Orientem • Harej • Lid • Lomn • Mentoz86 • Oliver Pereira • XJaM

There'sNoTime → TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment found consensus that incubation as an alternative to deletion should generally only be recommended when draftification is appropriate, namely 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created.

Technical news

• The filter log now provides links to view diffs of deleted revisions (phab:T261630).

Arbitration

• The 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place from September 27th to October 7th.
• Following a request for comment, sitting Committee members may not serve on either the Ombuds Commission or the WMF Case Review Committee. The Arbitration Committee passed a motion implementing those results into their procedures.

Miscellaneous

• The Universal Code of Conduct draft is open for community review and comment until October 6th, 2020.
• Office actions may now be appealed to the Interim Trust & Safety Case Review Committee.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

User:Arjoccolenty/schools

Can you please e-mail me the content of this page that was deleted? Once again I promise I won't repost it to Wikipedia. Arjoccolenty (talk) 14:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 23:10, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-41

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

Recent changes

• There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
• You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [22]

Problems

• There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [23]
• Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [24]
• Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
• Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [25]

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [26]

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

16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Tech News: 2020-42

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

Problems

• Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [27][28][29]

Changes later this week

• Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [30][31]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).

Future changes

• A new stable version of Pywikibot is coming soon. [32]

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

15:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Request revision delete- very libellous

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dhruv_Rathee&oldid=983661085 Should this revision be deleted? 4thfile4thrank (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: at the least it was disruptive vandalism, and has been revdel'd. Thank you for the report. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

@CAPTAIN RAJU: thanks - guess I've moved in to the Wikipedia:Fifteen Year Society! — xaosflux ^Talk 18:35, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Can this revision be deleted?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alex_de_Campi&oldid=984066295

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 01:08, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-43

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [33]
• In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function will be updated soon so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses of rmspecials() with rmwhitespace() wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [34]
• Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID #jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either #siteSub or #mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.

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

16:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Mass message question

Hello, I am currently attempting to restart the Newsletter for WikiProject Spaceflight, I have noted this on the Project talk page however I am unsure how many people would actually see these talk page notes. I was wondering if a one time mass message to active members of the WikiProject substituting a note of the revival of the newsletter that I could make in my sandbox for example, would be acceptable or not. I ask this since the Wikipedia page on this appears vague to me on mass messages, Thanks. Terasail^[Talk] 22:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@Terasail: that seems OK, assuming you actual check if people are "active" somehow first and only include those already on the project "active" sheet (which would mean they have opted-in to the project). You will need to build an addressable mailing list first, I've started one for you here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Members/Mailing list. After that is ready, you will need to formulate the message you want to send - then request the mailing at WT:MMS. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:17, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: thanks for setting up a mailing list for the project, and getting back to me so quickly. I appreciate it. I will make sure to check who is active, create a message and then request it. Terasail II^[Talk] 23:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Timelinesinhistory.com

Why did you move my proposal?

Jroehl (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jroehl: see the top of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals) - your posting was more of an "announcement" (even though it partially read like an advertisement) - you were not presenting a proposal for something for the English Wikipedia to add or change about the way we do things, which is what VP:PR is about. If you wanted us to take some specific action here, I suggest you work it up at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab) first (for example, "We should add timelinesinhistory.com links on every article"). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:29, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I reposted the message in a format that I hope is more appropriate to the forum it is in.

I am not an expert at these type of things.

I agree with your assessment after further contemplation.

Thanks Jeff Roehl

Jroehl (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

WT:MMS

Hello, I have submitted a request at WT:MMS two days ago and I was just wondering if you know how often the page gets checked by WP:RFP/MMS users? Thanks Terasail^[Talk] 17:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Terasail: usually within a few days, if it is still open this weekend, ping me and I'll go take a stab at it. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:43, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Ah, ok, thanks Terasail^[Talk] 17:45, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-44

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

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [35]
• Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [36]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [37]
• There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [38]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [39]

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

17:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2020).

Administrator changes

John M Wolfson

Bduke • Nilfanion • Philosopher • Rspeer • Yunshui

Interface administrator changes

Ragesoss

TonyBallioni

CheckUser changes

EdJohnston • Oshwah • Yamla

Yunshui

Oversight changes

Anarchyte

Yunshui

Guideline and policy news

• Community sanctions now authorize administrators to place under indefinite semiprotection any article on a beauty pageant, or biography of a person known as a beauty pageant contestant, which has been edited by a sockpuppet account or logged-out sockpuppet, to be logged at WP:GS/PAGEANT.

Technical news

• Sysops will once again be able to view the deleted history of JS/CSS pages; this was restricted to interface administrators when that group was introduced.
• Twinkle's block module now includes the ability to note the specific case when applying a discretionary sanctions block and/or template.
• Sysops will be able to use Special:CreateLocalAccount to create a local account for a global user that is prevented from auto-creation locally (such as by a filter or range block). Administrators that are not sure if such a creation is appropriate should contact a checkuser.

Arbitration

• The 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections process has begun. Eligible editors will be able to nominate themselves as candidates from November 8 through November 17. The voting period will run from November 23 through December 6.
• The Anti-harassment RfC has concluded with a summary of the feedback provided.

Miscellaneous

• A reminder that standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. (American Politics 2 Arbitration case).

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 November 2020

• News and notes: Ban on IPs on ptwiki, paid editing for Tatarstan, IP masking

• In the media: Murder, politics, religion, health and books

• Book review: Review of Wikipedia @ 20

• Op-Ed: Anti-vandalism with masked IPs: the steps forward

• Discussion report: Proposal to change board composition, In The News dumps Trump story

• Featured content: The "Green Terror" is neither green nor sufficiently terrifying. Worst Hallowe'en ever.

• Traffic report: Jump back, what's that sound?

• Interview: Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner

• News from the WMF: Meet the 2020 Wikimedian of the Year

• Recent research: OpenSym 2020: Deletions and gender, masses vs. elites, edit filters

• In focus: The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Request for Courtesy Vanishing

@Xaosflux please read below. I would like this account closed as I no longer use this. Please delete any data associated with it too. Thanks Bryce M (talk) 22:37, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Tornadosurvivor2011: there is no facility to "delete any data associated with it too" - your former contributions that you released under CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL require certain data to be maintained. You may request that your username is changed to something such as "Vanished user 4556414564028974" if you never intend to edit anymore. To request that, please use this form: meta:Special:GlobalRenameRequest. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:59, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

If that form says you are not logged in, refresh the page after it loads. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I already did it using your link. Thanks Bryce M (talk) 00:51, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-45

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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [40]
• There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the {{formatnum}} parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g. {{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that {{formatnum:123,456}} is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [41]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
• Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [42]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [43]

Future changes

• A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of {{formatnum}} when it is given a negative argument. [44]
• In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.

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

16:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Does this edit need to be revision deleted?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lalu_Prasad_Yadav&diff=prev&oldid=986737174&diffmode=source#2015%E2%80%93current:_Conviction_in_2_fodder_scam_cases 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 18:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: I've removed that revision from the history, thanks for the report. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:21, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Does this need to be deleted?

Draft:Materialscientist Absolutely no sign of notability. Wikipedia admins do not get articles unless they are notable. 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 15:52, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: I deleted it as an implausible redirect, in the future you can just use a speedy deletion nomination tag on pages like that. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:26, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Yes, but then this occurred, and I want to know when drafts should be speedied or not. 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 18:27, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: you'll learn with experience, if it feels right nominated CSD, if not sure, nominate xFD - patrolling admins will normally let you know if it isn't CSD-worthy. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:59, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Should this edit be revision-deleeted?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jay_Beatty&diff=prev&oldid=987246431&diffmode=source 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 20:54, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: I don't think that is needed - it seems to be blatant generic vandalism, and reversion is the primary method to deal with that. If some other admin were to rev-del it as "purely disruptive", I wouldn't complain though. See WP:REVDEL for more details on what it is normally used for (..RevisionDelete does not exist to remove "ordinary" offensive comments and incivility,..) — xaosflux ^Talk 21:01, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: What is the line between revdel and simply revert? This looked like a threat, so I asked. 4thfile4thrank {talk} :?

@4thfile4thrank: they are not either/or things, any bad edit can be reverted - ones that are also egregiously bad may also be revdeled. This is generally admin discretion. I don't think that is a "threat" as there wasn't a claim that the editor was going to cause the negative action. If you feel this is a legitimate threat of harm, please follow the directions at Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm and a foundation employee will review the report. Another way to get a review from other admins as to if it should be rev-deled is to report it at #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 21:52, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

licensing

Why are your contributions licensed as non-commercial? Wikipedia prohibits non-free content.4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 13:57, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: I'm not following you, with the exception of some specific uploads, my contributions are licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL, just like everyone else. Additionally, I also multi-license contribution with additional licenses. Anyone is free to reuse a multi-licensed contribution under any single of the applicable licenses. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux:

Multi-licensed with Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike License version 2.0

Licensing, Disclaimers, etc

Licensing, Disclaimers, etc Minor edits multi-licensed into the public domain I agree to multi-license my eligible text contributions marked as minor edits, unless otherwise stated, under Wikipedia's copyright terms and into the public domain. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my minor edit contributions in the public domain, please check the multi-licensing guide. and/or All rights released to all minor edits I agree to release all rights, unless otherwise stated, to all my English Wikipedia text contributions marked as minor edits, enabling anyone to use them for any purpose. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to freely use my minor edit contributions, please check the multi-licensing guide.

4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 14:11, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: yes, as I mentioned above, as a content author I can license my contributions any way I want, I can make 100 different license options available for things that I own the copyright to, and so long as these include the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL, they are fine here. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-46

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

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• You can see reference previews. This shows a preview of the footnote when you hover over it. This has been a beta feature. It will move out of beta and be enabled by default. There will be an option not to use it. The developers are looking for small or medium-sized wikis to be the first ones. You can let them know if your wiki is interested. [45]
• From November 16 the categories will not be sorted in order for a short time. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the internationalisation library. They will use a script to fix the existing categories. This can take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [46][47]

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

15:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Does this need to be revdelled?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Sears&curid=46758559&diff=988248542&oldid=980610627&diffmode=source 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 00:40, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

It already was. Please keep in mind, a better and more private way to report revdels is to use #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:12, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Revdel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=JonTron&curid=50059087&diff=988349155&oldid=987690822&diffmode=source 4thfile4thrank {talk} :? 16:54, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

@4thfile4thrank: I'm not somewhere that I can deal with these now, and posting these links on my page isn't really a good way to regularly report such concerns - please use #wikipedia-en-revdel ^connect for assistance on this and future similar issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-47

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

Recent changes

• Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 16 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for most languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [48][49]

Changes later this week

• If you merged two pages in a namespace where pages can't redirect this used to break the merge history. This will now be fixed. [50]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 November. It will be on all wikis from 19 November (calendar).

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey is now open for proposals. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 16 to 30 November. You can vote on proposals from 8 December to 21 December.

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

15:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Request

Hello, Please unblock my bot (User:Omar2040Bot) for testing, thank you --Omar2040 (talk) 14:23, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Omar2040: hello, you may request a bot trial at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval - in your request note that your bot account needs to be unblocked and it can get handled all at once. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you --Omar2040 (talk) 18:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-48

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

Recent changes

• Timestamps in Special:Log are now links. They go to Special:Log for only that entry. This is how timestamps work on for example the history page. [51]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from 1 December. Unclaimed projects can be deleted from 1 January. [52]

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

17:17, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:20, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Emily W. Murphy

Hi Xaosflux, I'm just letting recent contributors to Emily W. Murphy know that I've dropped the protection level to extended confirmed and added a consensus required restriction. Please see my explanation on the talk page for more information. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2020

• News and notes: Jimmy Wales "shouldn't be kicked out before he's ready"

• Op-Ed: Re-righting Wikipedia

• Opinion: How billionaires re-write Wikipedia

• In the media: Relying on Wikipedia: voters, scientists, and a Canadian border guard

• Featured content: Frontonia sp. is thankful for delicious cyanobacteria

• Traffic report: 007 with Borat, the Queen, and an election

• News from Wiki Education: An assignment that changed a life: Kasey Baker

• GLAM plus: West Coast New Zealand's Wikipedian at Large

• Wikicup report: Lee Vilenski wins the 2020 WikiCup

• Recent research: Wikipedia's Shoah coverage succeeds where libraries fail

• Essay: Writing about women

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-49

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 December. It will be on all wikis from 3 December (calendar).

Future changes

• The iOS Wikipedia app will show readers more of the article history. They can see new updates and easier see how the article has changed over time. This is an experiment. It will first be shown only to some iOS app users as a test. [53][54]
• The Wiki Replicas can be used for SQL queries. You can use Quarry, PAWS or other ways to do this. To make the Wiki Replicas stable there will be two changes. Cross-database JOINS will no longer work. You can also only query a database if you connect to it directly. This will happen in February 2021. If you think this affects you and you need help you can post on Phabricator or on Wikitech. [55]

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

17:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).

Administrator changes

Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

Interface administrator changes

Izno

Guideline and policy news

• There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news

• Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Email

YGM, but you can now diregard it. It was handled in the meanwhile. Sorry :-( —MarcoAurelio (talk) 20:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: no worries, you may always ask! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Was Xaosflux2a created by you?

I want to make sure just in case... I blocked it as an impersonator but I wanted to also ask. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Oshwah: yup it was me, see: Special:Redirect/logid/113219318. That being said, it was a one-time test and I never plan to use that account so it can stay blocked. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Hey thanks for letting me know! I'm so sorry that I blocked the account so quickly. When I see an account creation like this, in most cases, it's sock puppetry or impersonation. I've unblocked the account since the log says that it was "sock puppetry". Feel free to re-block it; I do this for all doppelgänger accounts I've created for myself. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Oshwah: no worries, thanks for the heads up! — xaosflux ^Talk 00:30, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

User Aaa11769

Hello, I want to report a user named "User: Aaa11769" who is constantly tried to vandalize the Guardians of the Galaxy (TV series) page previously and now vandalizing the Spider-Man (2017 TV Series) page with wrong information despite being said many times. Can you please block this user from editing the Spider-Man (2017 TV Series) page?

@NoobMaster01: to report immediate vandalism, please see WP:AIV. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:37, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50

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

Recent changes

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function. [56][57]

Changes later this week

• Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki. [58][59]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 December. It will be on all wikis from 10 December (calendar).

Future changes

• You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

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

16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Autumn (Australian band)

I've started the article. Thanks for your comments. Have a better one.shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 19:38, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-51

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

Recent changes

• There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too. [60]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 December. It will be on all wikis from 17 December (calendar).

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

21:33, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello there! Shearonink (talk) wishes you & yours the very best of the season!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
Festivus (for the rest of us!) or even the Saturnalia,
here's to
hoping your holiday time is wonderful
and that the New Year will be an improvement upon the old.
CHEERS!

Share these holiday wishes by adding {{subst:User:Shearonink/Holiday}} 20:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC) to your friends' talk pages.

20:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Shoot...I didn't realize I had put the timestamp in the card itself! I tested it in my sandbox, really I did. So. Please tell me what I did wrong at User:Shearonink/Holiday. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 20:31, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@Shearonink: I made some edits, try sending it to just me again below (just edit this page and add that one line to subst it in). — xaosflux ^Talk 20:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux Wow, a lot of changes but, ok yeah I'll try. am going through all your edits and trying to understand lol. Sadly I am kind of a toddler on these things "me *do*!" and I do it and then I usually kind of understand...So there it is below and it works on your page but...ummm...what is going on at the page User:Shearonink/Holiday? Why does it have your user name there, on the page itself? Please just tell me how to fix it, heh it's ok if you explain it like you would to a child. One who doesn't understand html. Very much at all... Shearonink (talk) 21:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

@Shearonink: I put extra "magic" in it, but also made some errors along the way. You can make it refresh that 'last user' field on your own page by editing the page and saving it. (e.g. add some white space in the categories or something else in the noinclude section). Feel free to experiment and change however you want of course! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:02, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello there! Shearonink wishes you & yours the very best of the season!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
Festivus (for the rest of us!) or even the Saturnalia,
here's to
hoping your holiday time is wonderful
and that the New Year will be an improvement upon the old.
CHEERS!

Share these holiday wishes by adding {{subst:User:Shearonink/Holiday}} to your friends' talk pages.

(Sent: 21:22, 15 December 2020 (UTC))

ArbCom SecurePoll page

What is Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2020/Coordination/SecurePoll/formated/4 and why does it contain a link to a locally blocked and globally locked account? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: it was one of the initial reviews of the electoral rolls for the arbcom elections this year, a draft of "eligible voters"; keep in mind this list did not include the eligibility requirement to not be blocked/locked as that element was only necessary at the instant someone voted - 2 other technical controls checked for this. All voter vote records (but not vote choices) are public, you can verify that this editor (or any other inelligible editor) did not actually get a vote counted by viewing this list. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:27, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Clear, thanks. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:34, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Deleted articles

Hey xaosflux. Here are the links to the articles that were deleted. I can assure you that there were no copyright issues since I was the owner and founder of those record labels and that band.

• Abridged_Pause_Recordings
• Mortification_Records
• Throne_Of_Mortality

Would the edit log/changes be something you'd send me via email? Otherwise, how would I see them on here? --AbridgedPause (talk) 21:36, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

re on your talk. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:48, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much!!!! I really appreciate it.--AbridgedPause (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to trouble you with this again but after going through the batch of logs that you sent me, I was able to find a few more pages related to my research; all of which I had created around the same time and were deleted for non-notability. Virkelig Død, Virkelix and Vision Éternel (the 2010-deleted version, I don't need the 2018 version). Would I be able to receive the edit logs for those as well please? I hope that I am not imposing on you. --AbridgedPause (talk) 17:27, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

• N Virkelig Død (@AbridgedPause: this was only a redirect to Virkelix). — xaosflux ^Talk 17:53, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
• Virkelix
• Vision Éternel

 Doing... — xaosflux ^Talk 17:50, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done See your email. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:59, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much once again! --AbridgedPause (talk) 19:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

Hello there! Shearonink (talk) wishes you & yours the very best of the season!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa,
Festivus (for the rest of us!) or even the Saturnalia,
here's to:
hoping your holiday time is wonderful
and - especially -
that the New Year 2021 will be an improvement upon the old of 2020.
CHEERS!

Share these holiday wishes by adding {{subst:User:Shearonink/Holiday}} to your friends' talk pages.

(Sent: 04:05, 18 December 2020 (UTC))

InTheNews

Hi, Xaoflux, I've a suggestion for the main page, the Portrait of a Young Man holding a Medallion by Sandro Botticelli will be put on auction at Sotheby's in January 2021, but do not really know where and how to bring it in the discussion adequately. Then also, there is the question if or when to include it in the main page, or as the POTD. If the painting achieves a good price at the auction, it would be probably news worthy, if not, it would still be worth for a POTD, but then when ever someone wants. I've worked quite a bit on the article and a lot of the info which was to be found is currently included in the article. The article is more informative than the Portrait of a Man (Baldung), the POTD of the 25 November 2020. About the notability of each painting, opinions might differ. I've not had a suggestion for content at the Main Page yet and I'd be grateful for some advice how to proceed.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:04, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

@Paradise Chronicle: hello! I don't do a lot of "content" updates to the Main Page, but there are several avenues to getting content to the main page:

• For POTD, the entry to MP is about the actual image, not the article about the image. To qualify, first the image would need to be considered a Featured Picture (Wikipedia:Featured pictures). At that point you could ask over at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day for how to schedule a FP on a special date related to a special event about the picture. This will be one of the "harder" ways to get to the MP.
• To be the Featured Article, first your article would need to meet the Wikipedia:Featured articles requirements, then it can be scheduled. This is a "hard" way to get on the MP as well.
• If there is something newsworthy going on and we have an up to date article about it, a nomination can be placed at WP:ITNC to have a listing in the "In the News" section of the MP. This can not be done until the newsworthy event has actually occurred. If it is a slow news week, this can be an easier way to get on the MP.
• If something interesting happens and an article is updated to include it, it could get to the main page via Wikipedia:Did you know. This has less prominence, but is also one of the easier ways to get to the MP as there is a lot of content that cycles through this page.

Keep in mind, with the sheer size of the project being the displayed featured article or featured picture is quite rare - but that doesn't mean your article can't still be excellent! If you think your article is well developed one of the first "big" recognition's it would usually get is "GA" (Wikipedia:Good articles). This is usually the path taken along the way to becoming a featured article and would be a place you could start having your article reviewed now. I hope all this helps, happy editing! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:33, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, xaosflux, well the painting is thought to achieve a new record for a Sandro Botticelli of who very few paintings are on the market. I guess I wait for the auction and see how the news are then. To get a GA, the article still needs some info, I'll see what I can add.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 11 January 2021.

Recent changes

• The {{citation needed}} template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added. [61]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes

• You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
• Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a <langconvert> tag that can convert a piece of text on a page. [62]
• Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January. [63]

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

20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

~~~ Merry Christmas! ~~~
Joyeux Noël! ~ Buon Natale! ~ Vrolijk Kerstfeest! ~ Frohe Weihnachten!
¡Feliz Navidad! ~ Feliz Natal! ~ Καλά Χριστούγεννα! ~ Hyvää Joulua!
God Jul! ~ Glædelig Jul! ~ Linksmų Kalėdų! ~ Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus!
Häid Jõule! ~ Wesołych Świąt! ~ Boldog Karácsonyt! ~ Veselé Vánoce!
Veselé Vianoce! ~ Crăciun Fericit! ~ Sretan Božić! ~ С Рождеством!
শুভ বড়দিন! ~ 圣诞节快乐！~ メリークリスマス！~ 메리 크리스마스!
สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส! ~ Selamat Hari Natal! ~ Giáng sinh an lành!

Hello, Xaosflux! Thank you for your work to maintain and improve Wikipedia! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 15:39, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove and leave other users this message by adding {{subst:Multi-language Season's Greetings}}

Elio Deejay's article!

Hello! I have created an article for Elio Deejay can i ask you to review also suggest me to make it better? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xhoel.m (talk • contribs) 19:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't normally review articles of that topic, please follow the directions on the submission template for the next steps in the standard process. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 December 2020

• News and notes: Year-end legal surprises cause concern, but Public Domain Day is imminent

• In the media: Concealment, data journalism, a non-pig farmer, and some Bluetick Hounds

• Arbitration report: 2020 election results

• Opinion: How to make your factory's safety and labor issues disappear

• Featured content: Very nearly ringing in the New Year with "Blank Space" – but we got there in time.

• Traffic report: 2020 wraps up

• News from the WMF: What Wikipedia saw during election week in the U.S., and what we’re doing next

• Recent research: Predicting the next move in Wikipedia discussions

• Essay: Subjective importance

• Op-Ed: An unforgettable year we might wish to forget

• Gallery: Angels in the architecture

• Humour: 'Twas the Night Before Wikimas

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).

Administrator changes

Hammersoft

Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes

Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek

Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news

• You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration

• By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
• Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, BDD, Bradv, CaptainEek, L235, Maxim, Primefac.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Can you lend a linguistic hand

It looks like this editor may have some English-language-comprehension issues or possibly some other issues that get in the way of him being productive editor. I see you have edited on the Indonesian-language Wikipedia.

If you speak the language, could you try to figure out if his issues are simply language-related or if it's something else, or maybe he's just this. I can't tell which. I'm hoping it's just a language issue, that might be something that can be worked around. The other two possibilities, well, not so much. I'm not optimistic but I'm hoping I'm wrong. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 20:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Davidwr: sorry, I'm id-0, my only edits there are purely technical in nature. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding userpage protection.

I request you to semi-protect my userpage. Vimlesh Kumar Kanaujiya (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:47, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Trinity112233:, your base userpage (User:Trinity112233) is automatically semiprotected (everyone's is) - see Wikipedia:UPROT for details. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-02

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

Recent changes

• You can choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed. [64]
• You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry. [65]
• Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
  • The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later. [66]
  • Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works. [67]
  • When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
• There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback. [68]
• Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the watchlist to watch will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database. [69]
• Scribunto's file metadata now includes length. [70]
• CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js#L-50. [71]
• There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

Changes later this week

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

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

15:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

My project for my people

I can't say say much to you, however, thank you so much for keeping this certificate for the future. Thanks again. Hope you have a great day's every day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:D08:2187:8BB2:1:0:8D15:E15B (talk) 08:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

happy bday wikipedia! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teh iiCuppyx (talk • contribs) 14:19, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback requests from the Feedback Request Service

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment, and at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard on "Wikipedia proposals" request for comments. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 14:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on a "Wikipedia proposals" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 18:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-03

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 January. It will be on all wikis from 21 January (calendar).

Future changes

• The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). [72]
• MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.

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

16:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Huggle note

Sorry about the groups I added. Yes I was having trouble getting Huggle to recognize that my account had rollback privileges. I can't do 2FA so I've never enabled it. I'll go see if someone at the Huggle page can help. I'll take myself out of those extra groups. Thanks for the heads-up. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 20:14, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mark Ironie: if you are using the API logon for Huggle see Wikipedia:Using AWB with 2FA and mw:Manual:Huggle/Bot passwords. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I've got it solved now. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 20:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-04

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

Problems

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on 26 January at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on 28 January at 09:00 (UTC). [73][74]

Changes later this week

• Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January. [75]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 January. It will be on all wikis from 28 January (calendar).

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

18:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

He Is Amazing!

he is amazing--99.89.93.51 (talk) 13:39, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Template talk:No article text

Posted an edit request on Template talk:No article text, could you please have a look? 54nd60x (talk) 13:44, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

It is queued and the backlog is low (Category:Wikipedia fully-protected edit requests) someone will get to it soon. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Help required with an IP hopping vandal

Hi, I'm an active editor of martial arts articles and I have for last month or two had a problem with this IP hopping vandal. This IP hopping vandal in question makes these damaging/non-constructive edits but removing info and adding nonsense, such as unverifiable names on notable practitioners section, editing birthdates, breaking links and adding stuff like "art must be practised with ska-music" and such. Noticed him first on the Tang Soo Do entry, where this vandal whose IP often begins with 260x-something - and upon looking at history, these vandalisms from these IPs have been going on for two years.

I've notified this to User:WereSpielChequers on 10 January 2021. While WereSpielChequers configured pending changes settings for Tang Soo Do, it turns out that the vandal in question also targets other martial arts entries. Recently, he added nonsense like "It’s practioners include doormen, priests and teachers" to the Shotokan entry and "eats a lot of cheese" to the Jeet Kune Do entry. Also it appears that this specific vandal has been going crazy at the 10th Planet Jujutsu for well over a decade.

Basically these are few IPs I've caught the vandal using:

• 2600:387:1:803:0:0:0:3B
• 2601:543:4003:6D60:5464:D40C:5EB6:62FC
• 2601:547:180:4EC0:8483:B28C:1787:455E
• 2601:147:C000:1705:92D:6CC6:B07:7D8E
• 2603:6080:2A40:16B:70BF:1876:BFAA:A801
• 2603:6080:2a40:16b:4c85:7fa1:cc92:e7ff
• 2806:101e:9:15e7:adf2:5ebe:2e73:9429
• 64.134.239.88
• 64.134.234.157
• 66.191.229.239
• 73.229.62.19
• 74.94.200.49
• 88.111.226.195
• 45.251.49.143
• 114.75.70.166
• 203.177.105.119
• 99.145.102.42
• 90.240.183.67
• 24.130.130.74
• 95.144.192.43
• 103.78.50.250
• 81.12.120.188

And there are probably others. Only real user name I've seen the vandal use is User:Babak.tangsoodo, seemingly wanting to bypass the pending changes setting for the Tang Soo Do entry. Those starting with 64 or 66 are what he used for 10th Planet Jujutsu and the 260x ones are in Tang Soo So. Others I speculate are achieved via VPN.

Mainly targets Tang Soo Do and 10th Planet Jujutsu, but has also targeted Taekwondo, Shotokan, Jeet Kune Do, Garry O'Neill, Jun Hyeog Lee and possible others.

I notified about this to User:Barek, but the person appears to be out. I checked the "Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to make range blocks" and found your name on it. I'm not sure if range block is the right option per se, but I still hope you could provide some preliminary help this matter. TrickShotFinn (talk) 09:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@TrickShotFinn: hi there, looks like you have a lot of information. I can't jump on this wholesale problem right now but can point you in some directions for next steps.

• First, range-block isn't going to fix this as you suggested. Range bock is if a group of IP's are related (like. 88.111.226.190, 88.111.226.192, 88.111.226.201, etc) where we block all of the ips in a row (e.g. 88.111.226.128 through 88.111.226.255) even if some of them haven't been seen. OK so what then right?
• If the same type of vandalism is happening on all of the articles an edit filter may work, you can request one at WP:EF/REQ. This is useful for example if the same phrase is being put in by an ip hoping vandal in to many pages. Provide examples of the articles and diff's with the phrase for EF/REQ.
• If there are multiple accounts being used you can request a sock puppet investigation at WP:SPI (you can use this for one user and many ip's as well -- it can result in banning the user but won't really fix the ip problem)
• Finally, as you've seen page protection can be used if the disruption is limited to a few pages - you can request those at WP:RFPP

Hope that helps you get the resources you need to move forward? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:18, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, OK. 'the stuff came pretty front-loaded, sorry. I figure requesting for page protection - granted the weirdo starts to get too aggressive with vandalism again - would be the best option then. The vandal uses new IP address per every new act of vandalism, so I figure socket puppet investigation won't be effective enough. And the vandal's acts are often pretty easily reverted, so I guess I went bit overboard here. Anyway, thank you for providing some useful info. TrickShotFinn (talk) 15:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@TrickShotFinn: best luck on this - keep in mind if they are inserting the same disruptive text, edit filter may be the best and a new phrase could be added to an existing filter. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:24, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2021

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Your draft article, Draft:Tom Ryan (restaurateur)

Hello, Xaosflux. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Tom Ryan".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).

Administrator changes

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Berean Hunter • Xeno

Oversight changes

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Arbitration

• The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people, replacing the 1932 cutoff.

Miscellaneous

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-05

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

• IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [76]

Changes later this week

• You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [77]
• Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [78][79]
• Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like 1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55 as well as the 1.2.3.4/27 syntax for IP ranges. [80]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).

Future changes

• Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [81][82]
• Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be 185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.

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

22:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

User rights groups

Hi Xaosflux, You may recall assisting in making me vanish in 2018, then un-vanish me when it became clear that I'd misunderstood what it actually involved. I retired from editing for quite a while but more recently, due to the Covid lockdown, I've been spending some of my spare time editing images and wotnot. It's come to my attention that there's an error in my user rights groups. Namely, that I'm not even an autoconfirmed user despite almost 8000 edits over nearly 12 years. Please could you take a look at my account and fully reverse any remnants of my vanishing? Cheers. nagualdesign 05:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign: your account was showing as autoconfirmed, but not extendedconfirmed. I manually updated that for you, this should reenable you to edit articles such as Coronavirus. If you need access to other specialty permissions you can request them at WP:PERM. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 11:55, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Much obliged. All the best, nagualdesign 13:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

You're invited! Coronavirus in New York City: Translate-A-Thon - ONLINE - February 6th, 2021 -

February 6th, 11am-1pm E.S.T: Coronavirus in New York City: Translate-A-Thon - ONLINE

Hello User:Xaosflux! You are invited to join the Brooklyn based Sure We Can community for our 3rd NYC COVID-19 themed Wikipedia Edit-a-thon / translate-a-thon - ONLINE - Saturday, Feb 6th, 2021 11am - 1pm. The edit-a-thon is part of Sure We Can's work with NYC Health + Hospitals to stop the spread of Covid-19. We plan to continue to work on translating the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City article into the many languages spoken in New York City; as well as, work on other ideas about how information on wikipedia could slow the spread of Covid-19. We'd love to hear if you have any ideas. If you can not attend, please feel free to comment on my talk page, or here, or on the event page. Saturday February 6 Coronavirus in New York City: Translate-A-Thon - ONLINE (optional RSVP on-wiki). 11:00am - 1:00 pm E.S.T online via Zoom (optional breakout rooms available)

--Wil540 art (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

History of Rajasthan

user:History of Rajasthan just attempted to make a threat of violence according to the filter log. CLCStudent (talk) 15:25, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@CLCStudent: dealing with, thank you for letting us know. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:28, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

No problem. WP:EMERGENCY has been notified. CLCStudent (talk) 15:29, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:33, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-06

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 has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [83]

Changes later this week

• You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [84]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).

Future changes

• When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [85][86]
• Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [87]
• Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [88]

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

17:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)