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Tech News: 2021-39

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

  • iOS 15 has a new function called Private Relay (Apple website). This can hide the user's IP when they use Safari browser. This is like using a VPN in that we see another IP address instead. It is opt-in and only for those who pay extra for iCloud. It will come to Safari users on OSX later. There is a technical discussion about what this means for the Wikimedia wikis.

Problems

  • Advanced item Some gadgets and user-scripts add items to the portlets (article tools) part of the skin. A recent change to the HTML may have made those links a different font-size. This can be fixed by adding the CSS class .vector-menu-dropdown-noicon. [1]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 September. It will be on all wikis from 30 September (calendar).
  • The GettingStarted extension was built in 2013, and provides an onboarding process for new account holders in a few versions of Wikipedia. However, the recently developed Growth features provide a better onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features, GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October. [2]
  • A small number of users will not be able to connect to the Wikimedia wikis after 30 September. This is because an old root certificate will no longer work. They will also have problems with many other websites. Users who have updated their software in the last five years are unlikely to have problems. Users in Europe, Africa and Asia are less likely to have immediate problems even if their software is too old. You can read more.
  • You can receive notifications when someone leaves a comment on user talk page or mentions you in a talk page comment. Clicking the notification link will now bring you to the comment and highlight it. Previously, doing so brought you to the top of the section that contained the comment. You can find more information in T282029.

Future changes

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22:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

FTN (Coulter)

The claim that lack of evidence is what keeps creationist apologetics in business is not what was posted. There is no lack of evidence and nobody claimed otherwise. However, if the evidence is presented in ways that line up with some of the criticisms of the anti-evolution crowd (such as predictions being vague or unfalsifiable) that does keep them in business, and it allows them to emphasize these superficial expository problems as a way to generate credibility at the outset of their arguments that can be "spent" later for the less supportable claims.

I'm posting here in case you want to correct the statement before I reply. I don't want to digress the FTN thread onto the science too much, rather than the issues about the handling of Coulter and similar "weak ID" types, and it would be one less thing to comment on. If you prefer to leave it as is, no problem.

(The posted claim was: "theory and evidence correct, exposition flawed". IDers are kept in business by this discrepancy which directly states that the evidence is adequate.)

Sesquivalent (talk) 04:25, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

I may have misunderstood your comments. My impression was also that more extensive discussion at FTN was unnecessary (there was some constructive work with sentence formulation however) but I cannot prevent you from posting there and have no particular authority on WP. The ideal is the article's talk page (its archives also help future editors evaluate past consensus) and to keep comments concise and directly related to article improvements per WP:NOTFORUM, of course... —PaleoNeonate – 00:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
At FTN I made the same request, to discuss on the article's talk page (for proposed phrasing of edits rather than general FRINGE matters) but several people including the ones from the talk page kept at it on FTN, and the discussion has unfortunately migrated there. I don't think there will be much more, but who knows. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:28, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Another one. I also see the standard "there are unresolved details so maybe alternative explanations are right" kind of narrative above is puzzling because nobody made that argument or mentioned any alternative explanations during the discussion. I mentioned "gaps" in expounding the standard established theory (the resolved details and how they logically support that theory), and said they can be closed by a gap-less (and of course God-less, designer-less, pedestrian scientific) form of the same explanation. Such as distinguishing between falsifiable and unfalsifiable predictions, or treating evolution as a mathematical scaffolding for the theory rather than calling it a "theory". Very different from an appeal to ignorance. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:24, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not the only one to perceive apparent standard apologetic arguments there. I suggest keeping posts shorter and concise... My last comment on the thread there attempts to re-focus on the main previous points: is a mention of creationism advocacy DUE? Is it relevant if she believes it or not? What do secondary independent sources say (since on WP it's the view of those sources that should be presented on Godless and on Coulter). Do those sources make the ID association? The WP:RDS noticeboard might be a better place to chat about the merits and details of biology (although I admitedly myself took the bait when reading comments that I perceived as misleading). —PaleoNeonate – 20:10, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
I think things are well past the point of diminishing returns for further FTN discussion of Coulter, but the question of a clear standard for classifying ID (vs anti-evolution) might be relevant as a separate thread since people like Coulter, Gelertner, Berlinski and Stein all seem to be near the boundary in one direction or the other.
With respect to "apologetics", I guess a boatload of false-positives are to be expected as FTN attracts veterans of the internet crank wars who have their antennae set very sensitively to any signs of the familiar patterns. I posted here since there is no point disputing it at FTN and since notifying you might lead to the statements being edited. (Not that you're obligated or expected to do that, of course.) Sesquivalent (talk) 00:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Most VS Many scientists argument around SARS-COV-2 natural origin

I've created a talkpage discussion on the use of terminology in "most" VS "many". You indicated you believe there are many reliable sources which indicated a polled majority (50%+), none of these are in the article nor have I been able to locate. Please discuss or add as cited references within the article DRASTIC. Aeonx (talk) 03:10, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I answered there, —PaleoNeonate – 06:48, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-40

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

  • A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them has been enabled for the following 10 wikis: mediawiki.org, the Italian, Catalan, Hebrew and Vietnamese Wikipedias, French Wikisource, and English Wikivoygage, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikinews. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist on those wikis you can let the developers know.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 October. It will be on all wikis from 7 October (calendar).
  • Advanced item Some gadgets and bots that use the API to read the AbuseFilter log might break. The hidden property will no longer say an entry is implicit for unsuppressed log entries about suppressed edits. If your bot needs to know this, do a separate revision query. Additionally, the property will have the value false for visible entries; previously, it wasn't included in the response. [4]
  • A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them will be enabled for all production wikis. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist you can let the developers know.

Future changes

  • You can soon get cross-wiki notifications in the iOS Wikipedia app. You can also get notifications as push notifications. More notification updates will follow in later versions. [5]
  • Advanced item The JavaScript variables wgExtraSignatureNamespaces, wgLegalTitleChars, and wgIllegalFileChars will soon be removed from mw.config. These are not part of the "stable" variables available for use in wiki JavaScript. [6]
  • Advanced item The JavaScript variables wgCookiePrefix, wgCookieDomain, wgCookiePath, and wgCookieExpiration will soon be removed from mw.config. Scripts should instead use mw.cookie from the "mediawiki.cookie" module. [7]

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16:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

ANI where I mentioned you

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is User:NadVolum disruptive behavior. Thank you. I mentioned you in relation to my concerns over stuff another editor has done, but I'm not suggesting you did anything that causes concern. Nil Einne (talk) 23:40, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Just a confirmation that I didn't ignore this, I just thought I had nothing to add to the discussion there. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 16:51, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Quick MEDRS question

Just wanted to get a second opinion, since I see you've been active around these areas on WP -- do you reckon this is a reliably sourced edit? :^) jp×g 04:07, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Just in case besides humor an actual source should be evaluated (they didn't provide any) which one? —PaleoNeonate – 16:50, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
I'm thinking something like 53.38, 49.182. "check you balls for tiny lumps". Wikipedia (Fall 2021). {{cite journal}}: |last= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link). jp×g 02:56, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-41

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

Changes later this week

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

Meetings

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15:29, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

DISC assessment again

I'm sorry to say that DISC assessment has managed to accumulate more promotional content, mainly at the hand of a single user. If you can spare any time I would appreciate your eyes on this article. Salimfadhley (talk) 22:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Salimfadhley: Hello again, I have looked and it seems that you've handled this already. I'll still read the article and comment on the talk page. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 15:46, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Molnupiravir Ivermectin

Hi, I saw your edit in the talk section of the wiki page Molnupiravir on the differences in antiviral pathways and figured I'd bring it over here, as it seemed almost off topic and filling up the talk page there to respond on that talk page. First I would like make a quick comment on your name. In Japanese the word Nae means sprout. and can be used as "nihongo nae desu" which roughly translates to My japanese is not good or "Japanese language sprout it is. To describe a novice understanding as a "sprout" is poetic and your name reminded me of this. Second, your statement "Moreover, Ivermectin is not considered effective against SARS-CoV-2 in-vivo at safe dosage level.." I believe is based. Considering it seeks a deeper understanding. A pursuit of a more perfect truth. Technically self immolation cures covid. Its effective but not safe. And this deals with in vitro vs in vivo. The wording "not considered" is up for debate for widely considered? Not considered by some? Considering Ivermectin was issued in Covid care packs in India. From a cursory understanding I'm lead to believe that the results were a .4% death decrease from a state that issued packs vs a state that did not. From 2.4% to a reduction to 2%. This is inconclusive as Ivermectin is cheap and widely available in India, meaning if your state did not issue packs, theres a possibility a person obtaining packs through different avenues is not reflected and inconclusive in the sense the packs where a multipack with a few other medications issued within the pack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:A0C6:1200:F4DC:846A:1AB6:D85C (talk) 04:33, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I also think that your comment at the other page was insightful, about the very different mechanism of action. By "not considered" I mostly meant that there's indeed no reliable data yet showing low and safe Ivermectin doses benefit (or for Wikipedia, at least no WP:MEDRS yet confirming it so that we can report that in articles). About dangerous high doses, indeed, fire, or 70% isopropanol blood level would work, but. The top of my user page explains a bit why I chose "Paleo" and "Neonate". —PaleoNeonate – 15:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi PaleoNeonate! I just wanted to come and thank you for commenting at the AfD I started. It takes quite a bit of digging to realize what's going on there, which probably scares away most people, but not you! Thanks for going the extra mile, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:13, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome, I admitedly had to do a bit of research and to check how the sources were used before participating, I initially had no idea if the notice was relevant to FTN (but it was, of course). Thanks for patrolling, —PaleoNeonate – 23:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-42

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

Recent changes

  • Toolhub is a catalogue to make it easier to find software tools that can be used for working on the Wikimedia projects. You can read more.

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • The developers of the Wikipedia Android app are working on communication in the app. You can now answer questions in survey to help the development.
  • 3–5% of editors may be blocked in the next few months. This is because of a new service in Safari, which is similar to a proxy or a VPN. It is called iCloud Private Relay. There is a discussion about this on Meta. The goal is to learn what iCloud Private Relay could mean for the communities.
  • Wikimedia Enterprise is a new API for those who use a lot of information from the Wikimedia projects on other sites. It is a way to get big commercial users to pay for the data. There will soon be a copy of the Wikimedia Enterprise dataset. You can read more. You can also ask the team questions on Zoom on 22 October 15:00 UTC.

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20:52, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Note from Hodgdon's secret garden

I notice and greatly appreciate your thoughtful advice.

For what it might be worth (likely nothing): What I believe I should have said (when addressing my usual disputant on the "Woke" article's talkpage) where I'd kvetched about an ersatz "attraction" in the culture as well as on wikipedia toward something shading into what I termed "totalitarianism," is imho the resort nowadays to more compulsion than optimal, which the mainstream sees as a feature but that those such as myself - on "its fringes"(*) think might be a bug.
______
(*)I'm not actually a political conservative (<chuckes> "not that there would be anything wrong with that," (adapting the phrase by Seinfeld's writer, Larry David). Eg I think Robin DiAngelo's thinking makes a certain amount of sense; and, in my political philosophy, such as it is, I'm fairly socialist in theory if pragmatist about how to get there....
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

November 2021 backlog drive

New Page Patrol | November 2021 Backlog Drive
  • On November 1, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled.
  • Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive.
  • Redirect patrolling is not part of the drive.
  • Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

(t · c) buidhe 01:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-43

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 October. It will be on all wikis from 28 October (calendar).

Future changes

  • Diff pages will have an improved copy and pasting experience. The changes will allow the text in the diff for before and after to be treated as separate columns and will remove any unwanted syntax. [8]
  • The version of the Liberation fonts used in SVG files will be upgraded. Only new thumbnails will be affected. Liberation Sans Narrow will not change. [9]

Meetings

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20:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Review

Hello, I'm new to Wikipedia & I received a notification saying that you had reviewed my user page. Does this mean anything/should I be concerned? Cheers Obama gaming (talk) 02:37, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Obama gaming, the information is at WP:NPR, new pages are on a queue and volunteers who participate tag them after verifying that it's not spam, etc. Perhaps it's something that could also interest you eventually, there's often a backlog (see the related automatic message above). —PaleoNeonate – 04:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Adding: your sandbox page was submitted for WP:AFC which is a similar but different process, it can take longer for these to be processed. They can also be put in the common WP:DRAFT space and submitted to AFC the same way, while welcoming contributions by other editors (user pages are seldom edited by others). —PaleoNeonate – 05:05, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for your help. Should I wait till the article is published to add the album cover? A bot has removed it twice on the grounds of WP:NFCC violations. Obama gaming (talk) 05:58, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
My experience with uploading images is limited, but a low enough resolution album cover may be acceptable under "fair use", otherwise unless the image was released in the public domain or under another redistributable license like Creative Commons, as well as tagged as such when uploaded, they are likely to be deleted. In case it can serve as a reference, File:LetItBe.jpg is on en-WP rather than Wikipedia Commons since it's for en-WP specific fair-use and also has information about it, viewing its source will show the templates in use. If you keep receiving copyright violation notices I suggest to stop uploading images and request assistance at the WP:TEAHOUSE or perhaps WT:WPMUSIC, as it's a potential block reason. —PaleoNeonate – 06:33, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. The reason provided by the bot is that NFCC can only be in an article, so I guess until it is published I shall add it. Also, I was thinking of adding a subsection on ivermectin regarding the physiology/mechanisms regarding resistance in nematodes, I already have a small draft here, but do you think that is a meaningful contribution? Obama gaming (talk) 07:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
If so, that would be consistent with categories that are generally either commented out or escaped (with a column as the first character of the category link like I did with the File link above) in sandboxes... For ivermectin I personally think that the information is interesting, I also noticed that you helped to cite a sentence there before, thanks for that. The WP:BRD page is a useful guide: if you edit and it's contested, the article's talk page would be the place to attempt to seek consensus, or it's possible to just move-on to the next step if it's not important, of course. If the problem is with a particular source, WP:RSN can be useful to get more input. —PaleoNeonate – 09:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I just noticed a bot did that for me. Thanks for your advice on ivermectin, I'll draft it up first in my sandbox before putting the whole thing there too. Also, on Isocarboxazid, it's ChEMBL identifier is marked with a cross, even though when I click on it it is visually identical to the article. If you could take a look & edit that for me (if required) that would be great. Also, if you could point me in a direction where pharmacology questions like these can be answered instead of peppering your talk page too, that would be even greater. Obama gaming (talk) 10:13, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with these pharma/chem parameters, here's the documentation for some related templates in case it can be useful: {{Ebicite}} (I assume that is what produces the X), {{Infobox drug}} (it seems that |ChEMBL_ref= is undocumented even though it is used there too)... if you think there are bugs with a template or have suggestions to improve their documentation, they each have a talk page and their documentation is often a transcluded page with a /doc suffix (i.e. Template:Infobox drug/doc). WikiProjects also have their own talk/noticeboard, like WT:PHARM, WT:CHEMS, WT:MED. There's also the general science reference desk, WP:RD/S. BTW, as I was trying to understand how you were trying to fix the "X", I noticed the removal of the {{Short description}}: these are shown on mobile when they exist on WikiData, but the template allows to override that cross-wiki description on en-Wikipedia. Various templates will not show in the article rendering, including maintenance ones like {{Use dmy dates}} (MOS:DATEUNIFY), {{Use British English}} (MOS:ENGVAR), etc. —PaleoNeonate – 13:07, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Boo!

Happy Halloween!
Hello PaleoNeonate:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 21:39, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Thanks! —PaleoNeonate – 06:17, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-44

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

Recent changes

  • There is a limit on the amount of emails a user can send each day. This limit is now global instead of per-wiki. This change is to prevent abuse. [10]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 November. It will be on all wikis from 4 November (calendar).

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20:27, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Wow

[11]. Their last comment - I'm not even sure what to make of it, but they shouldn't be editing in the area of race. Doug Weller talk 16:02, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, I left another message there in attempt to refocus on WP vs soapboxing (and the ridiculous political correctness/"editor feelings" game), unsure yet if it'll be necessary but I also see a potential need for an AE report proposing a topic ban... Not helping may be a possible language barrier, perhaps? —PaleoNeonate – 22:12, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Apparently resolved for now, —PaleoNeonate – 01:09, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Considering these among the very few otherwise minor edits in the history I agree with Bbb23's WP:NOTHERE assessment: 1, 2, 3. —PaleoNeonate – 01:20, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
@Bbb23: You might want to take a look at the user's latest edit and revoke TPA too... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:13, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. Nice he finally revealed his bigotry after denying it. Doug Weller talk 19:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

My name stands for

You asked what my name stands for in the admin thing. It stands for BREW WAFC Just muddled up Brew for my surname and WAFC for Wigan Athletic football. Thank you friend BWRAEFWC (talk) 10:01, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 12:54, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-45

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

  • Mobile IP editors are now able to receive warning notices indicating they have a talk page message on the mobile website (similar to the orange banners available on desktop). These notices will be displayed on every page outside of the main namespace and every time the user attempts to edit. The notice on desktop now has a slightly different colour. [12][13]

Changes later this week

Future changes

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20:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-46

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

Recent changes

Problems

  • Sometimes, edits made on iOS using the visual editor save groups of numbers as telephone number links, because of a feature in the operating system. This problem is under investigation. [15]
  • There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of a configuration error. [16]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 November. It will be on all wikis from 18 November (calendar).

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22:05, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-47

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

Changes later this week

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20:01, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. 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 2021 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) 00:48, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-48

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

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 December. It will be on all wikis from 2 December (calendar).

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21:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

How do you get a font on you username

I noticed you were able to add coloring and a font to your username, how did you do so?Teertrevo (talk) 18:38, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello again Teertrevo. WP:SIG explains how especially WP:SIGAPP and WP:SIGFONT (there also are examples at WP:SIGTUT). As for the similarly styled nickname at the top of user pages, it is achieved using {{DISPLAYTITLE}} (seen in the source code near the top of my user and talk pages). For the latter to work the style must match that of the signature. —PaleoNeonate – 18:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
Thanks!Teertrevo (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-49

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

Problems

  • MediaWiki 1.38-wmf.11 was scheduled to be deployed on some wikis last week. The deployment was delayed because of unexpected problems.

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 December. It will be on all wikis from 9 December (calendar).
  • At all Wikipedias, a Mentor Dashboard is now available at Special:MentorDashboard. It allows registered mentors, who take care of newcomers' first steps, to monitor their assigned newcomers' activity. It is part of the Growth features. You can learn more about activating the mentor list on your wiki and about the mentor dashboard project.
  • Advanced item The predecessor to the current MediaWiki Action API (which was created in 2008), action=ajax, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to the corresponding API module. [17]
  • Advanced item An old ResourceLoader module, jquery.jStorage, which was deprecated in 2016, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to mediawiki.storage instead. [18]

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21:58, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Question

I saw your note to me on my talk page, and I responded with a question. Could you please reply over there? I have another question, but I'll wait with it. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:17, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Answered there, —PaleoNeonate – 13:47, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

So, what's the final say?

As per this discussion, is the edit correct or not? Also pinging @MarioGom: Greatder (talk) 06:01, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello again Greatder, pinging MarioGom, since the notification likely failed (for a ping to notify, it must be made at the same time as the signature of the original message). —PaleoNeonate – 07:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

So.... Greatder (talk) 09:01, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Greatder: Hello again. Since the only other input so far was from MarioGom in the previous RSN thread and it was negative, I'd probably tend to avoid the source myself. I will not prevent you from using it if you do. If it's important to you, perhaps opening a new RSN thread linking the old discussion would be a good idea, hoping for more community input... —PaleoNeonate – 13:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Just for verification. Thanks Greatder (talk) 16:23, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Unsure of new message received

Hi there PaleoNeonate!

Could you please explain further what this means:

"This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in articles about living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic. For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor."

It is very vague & the link to "additional information" leads to a very long page of information. There seems to be a fondness here to send people to pages of very long info. :( That's not meant as a shot at you, just an observation as a newbie here who just wanted to help out by expanding some articles on niche subjects/people that were stubs beforehand.

All was going well until I encountered a certain Editor, my first interaction on here & it was not pleasant.

I took the guides advice to try & talk it out, though they were curt. They give the impression of being in a position of authority, that their word & actions go. Is this the case? It's hard to see who is a moderator, I believe you call them Admin here.

I changed my use of one Reference, taking their concerns into account & re-posted. No objection to that one from them, also no apology for removing but okay.

They obviously kept an eye on me & struck as soon as I tried to re-word the second deleted Reference, also taking some of their advice into account.

This Editor is quite hostile, in a passive aggressive way, & it is only at this point I discovered their troubled past as an Admin & currently seems hell bent on deleting References whenever & wherever they see them. Had I known how toxic they were I might have demurred in standing up to them for a quiet life.

But something in me just does not like bullies.

So here I am apparently with some kind of warning, all because I wanted to include a Reference to a cast list for Paw Patrol of all things. :(

There is quite a learning curve to use this site, even responding to talk post is very different to vbulletin forums & the initial assurance by guides to "Be Bold" & the implication of friendly comradeship of Editors seems a bit lacking.

Maybe I've been unlucky in this being my first interaction.

Frankly I feel like just giving up right now. :(

Take care,

LooksGreatInATurtleNeck (talk) 18:51, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

It only means that an administrator can at their discretion apply a sanction if they consider it necessary (and if they are not WP:INVOLVED). It is also possible for other editors to file reports at WP:AE if they believe that an action like a topic ban or special page protection is necessary. As an alternative to WP:ANI, WP:RFPP, etc. But nothing is urgent on WP (WP:NODEADLINE), why get discouraged for one event? If this source is not considered acceptable, there should be other sources... And I think Steven's advice was to take care not to WP:BLUDGEON the ongoing RSN discussion. —PaleoNeonate – 14:13, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a survey about medical topics on Wikipedia

Dear fellow editor,

I am Piotr Konieczny, a sociologist of new media at Hanyang University (and User:Piotrus on Wikipedia). I would like to better understand Wikipedia's volunteers who edit medical topics, many associated with the WikiProject Medicine, and known to create some of the highest quality content on Wikipedia. I hope that the lessons I can learn from you that I will present to the academic audience will benefit both the WikiProject Medicine (improving your understanding of yourself and helping to promote it and attract new volunteers) and the wider world of medical volunteering and academia. Open access copy of the resulting research will be made available at WikiProject's Medicine upon the completion of the project.

All questions are optional. The survey is divided into 4 parts: 1 - Brief description of yourself; 2 - Questions about your volunteering; 3 - Questions about WikiProject Medicine and 4 - Questions about Wikipedia's coverage of medical topics.

Please note that by filling out this questionnaire, you consent to participate in this research. The survey is anonymous and all personal details relevant to your experience will be kept private and will not be transferred to any third party.

I appreciate your support of this research and thank you in advance for taking the time to participate and share your experiences! If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at my Wikipedia user page or through my email listed on the survey page (or by Wikipedia email this user function).

The survey is accessible through the LINK HERE.

Piotr Konieczny
Associate Professor
Hanyang University
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-50

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

  • There are now default short aliases for the "Project:" namespace on most wikis. E.g. On Wikibooks wikis, [[WB:]] will go to the local language default for the [[Project:]] namespace. This change is intended to help the smaller communities have easy access to this feature. Additional local aliases can still be requested via the usual process. [19]

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 December. It will be on all wikis from 16 December (calendar).

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22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-51

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

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 10 January 2022.

Recent changes

  • Queries made by the DynamicPageList extension (<DynamicPageList>) are now only allowed to run for 10 seconds and error if they take longer. This is in response to multiple outages where long-running queries caused an outage on all wikis. [20]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • The developers of the Wikipedia iOS app are looking for testers who edit in multiple languages. You can read more and let them know if you are interested.
  • Advanced item 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 February. [21]

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22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

WikiIslam

I really appreciate your kind words. I think we're making progress on the WikiIslam article, but I think you can also see what an uphill battle it has been, especially for a new Wikipedia-er like me. If you could lend a hand in helping to improve it, I would appreciate it.--Underthemayofan (talk) 06:32, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I didn't check yet but intend to audit new changes and will comment if necessary. I commonly read/edit WP from random locations and don't followup on my notifications (pings and talk page messages) until I can do it more comfortably, this also avoids forgetting them... Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 21:02, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Well I just noticed the block, but commented there. —PaleoNeonate – 22:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-02

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

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 January. It will be on all wikis from 13 January (calendar).

Events

  • Community Wishlist Survey 2022 begins. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.

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01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about possible sock

Hope you don't mind me asking you this here. My reason was two-fold - you and I tend to edit in some similar spaces, so you're somebody I recognized, and more importantely, you were involved in the discussion to siteban User:PeacePeace ([30]), which is who this is about. So... an edit appeared on A Thief in the Night (film) yesterday that was almost identical to an edit that User:PeacePeace had repeatedly tried to put into the article. The edit by FairNPOV here is nearly the same as PeacePeace did here. The wording is similar, and more telling, the source is added the same way along with simply dropping the entire book as the reference, no page number. Looking at FairNPOV's history, they seem to have a similar pattern of jumping into Talk pages and using them as a forum to argue (same as PeacePeace did). PeacePeace's siteban kicked in on 8 Sept 2020, and FairNPOV showed up on 9 Sept 2020. I didn't bother to compare pages beyond just the Thief page, figuring I'd seek out wise counsel first (hence why I'm here). I have only really dealt with a sock one other other time, so I'm not sure of best practices. Am I off base here, or does this appear to fit WP:QUACK? ButlerBlog (talk) 18:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Butlerblog: you may be right, also consider the edit summary type, the top of these talk pages (1, 2), the type of signature with the paren, familiarity with Spanish, etc. WP:SPI would be the place to report it. Since its your catch and a good/plausible one, I suggest to file a SPI report. If you prefer, I could do it later on today. Thanks for noticing, —PaleoNeonate – 21:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
@Butlerblog: case filed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PeacePeace, if you have other convincing diffs I suggest to post a few there... —PaleoNeonate – 10:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I got behind yesterday - thanks for taking the time to file this. I added a comment there as well. ButlerBlog (talk) 12:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Lists of deaths.....

Regarding this addition. I was not involved in the topic at the time, so I'm ignorant of the history here. IIRC (from some talk page comments), those lists are not the same as the current article. If that is true, your addition might be misleading. Please help me understand this. Ping me. -- Valjean (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

@Valjean: they seem close enough (the current article also was such a list until recently). If the template is contested a talk page post linking those would be a good alternative... This can serve for admins who can read deleted articles and compare, for new page patrollers if they see new redundant articles and for current editors if they want to ensure that this article's approach be distinct to avoid deletion, I think. —PaleoNeonate – 02:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Hmm but yes, the others were not specifically about vaccination only, —PaleoNeonate – 02:14, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Skepticism and coordinated editing arbitration case opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing/Evidence. Please note: per Arbitration Policy, ArbCom is accepting private evidence by email. If in doubt, please email and ArbCom can advise you whether evidence should be public or private. Please add your evidence by January 31, 2022, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. You may unsubscribe from further updates by removing your name from the case notification list.

For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-03

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

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

Events

  • Community Wishlist Survey 2022 continues. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 10 January 18:00 UTC to 23 January 18:00 UTC. Learn more.

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19:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-04

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

Changes later this week

  • Recurrent item The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 January. It will be on all wikis from 27 January (calendar).
  • The following languages can now be used with syntax highlighting: BDD, Elpi, LilyPond, Maxima, Rita, Savi, Sed, Sophia, Spice, .SRCINFO.
  • You can now access your watchlist from outside of the user menu in the new Vector skin. The watchlist link appears next to the notification icons if you are at the top of the page. [32]

Events

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21:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks

The Original Barnstar
For your participation in my ANI thread. Thanks for voicing out your opinion. Rlink2 (talk) 15:49, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I think your revert at DNA history of Egypt is being discussed

here. At least I assume that's what is meant by the editor you reverted. Doug Weller talk 09:58, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions topic area changes

In a process that began last year with WP:DS2021, the Arbitration Committee is evaluating Discretionary Sanctions (DS) in order to improve it. A larger package of reforms is slated for sometime this year. From the work done so far, it became clear a number of areas may no longer need DS or that some DS areas may be overly broad.

The topics proposed for revocation are:

  • Senkaku islands
  • Waldorf education
  • Ancient Egyptian race controversy
  • Scientology
  • Landmark worldwide

The topics proposed for a rewording of what is covered under DS are:

  • India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
  • Armenia/Azerbaijan

Additionally any Article probation topics not already revoked are proposed for revocation.

Community feedback is invited and welcome at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions. --Barkeep49 (talk) 16:59, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-05

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Recent changes

  • If a gadget should support the new ?withgadget URL parameter that was announced 3 weeks ago, then it must now also specify supportsUrlLoad in the gadget definition (documentation). [33]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • A change that was announced last year was delayed. It is now ready to move ahead:
    • The user group oversight will be renamed suppress. This is for technical reasons. This is the technical name. It doesn't affect what you call the editors with this user right on your wiki. This is planned to happen in three weeks. You can comment in Phabricator if you have objections. As usual, these labels can be translated on translatewiki (direct links are available) or by administrators on your wiki.

Events

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17:41, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Robert Malone

You wrote "quite" - meaning "quote" of course. I don't edit the article or else I might have fixed it. Doug Weller talk 09:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, thank you :) —PaleoNeonate – 02:01, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

This is amusing

[34] but he didn't move it. I don't know if you've been following the ArbCom discussions on discretionary sanctions, but although they've removed the Ancient Egyptian history sanctions they've made it clear that pseudoscience includes pseudoarchaeology, so I'll give this guy a talk page alert. Doug Weller talk 08:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Lol. You beat me to it. Doug Weller talk 08:10, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
I've seen some DS related notice but wasn't aware of the details. Hmm I think this user should be reported at ANI but I currently have no time to write the report (I should have more time later on). Soapboxing didn't stop, failure to focus on content and sources continues with accusations of relationships or conflict of interest for standard patrolling, I'm sure that any acting admin will also get a frivolous accusation of special involvement... —PaleoNeonate – 08:54, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Yes, you'd be the best person to do it, not me in this case. Doug Weller talk 08:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
And why does he reply to 12 year old anonymous posts?[35]. Odd. I've seen other people do that and can never figure out why. Doug Weller talk 09:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Article title and his accusation against you at WP:FTN#Eyes needed on some pseuodhistorian articles. Doug Weller talk 12:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
I decided to first leave them a more detailed non-automatic note about how WP works, who knows. Always difficult to tell between trolling and cluelessness, but Wikipedia is admitedly a special world. I'll only check the new posts after if they haven't been reverted/closed by someone else. —PaleoNeonate – 12:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Could be a combination. Doug Weller talk 12:47, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Even more amusing - you can actually see evolution in action over just a few weeks.[36] Doug Weller talk 10:15, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
Interesting, usually it's in much smaller organisms that we see it happen so fast... Of course there are apologetic arguments of "kinds"/bramins that explains adaptation to some point including artificially created breeds, but puts some macroevolution barrier at some point, with arguments like "dogs don't produce non-dogs", but we're still hominids and primates and mammals and chordates and amniotes and tetrapods and deuterostomes and eukariotes... And dogs and cats carnivores, etc. etc. (funny old stop-motion film not really related)... —PaleoNeonate – 12:26, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-06

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

  • English Wikipedia recently set up a gadget for dark mode. You can enable it there, or request help from an interface administrator to set it up on your wiki (instructions and screenshot).
  • Category counts are sometimes wrong. They will now be completely recounted at the beginning of every month. [37]

Problems

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 February. It will be on all wikis from 10 February (calendar).

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21:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

COVID-19 Barnstar
Awarded for your ongoing efforts protecting articles on the pseudoscience related to COVID-19. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 16:02, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
@Cdjp1: Thank you, very fortunately I'm not the only one, I can easily think of various editors patrolling and editing in the area who also merit this barnstar. —PaleoNeonate – 17:39, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Second opinion

Came by for to bounce something off you since I saw you and Doug Weller had a recent run-in with an editor that seemed to go off the rails. My situation is similar, albeit not quite to that level of escalation yet - started off as thinking they just needed some help/guidance and then started to look like WP:NOTHERE (or at least, seems like it could break that way). The user is "Bagofscrews" (not linking/pinging). At first, I noticed some edits on Twelve Tribes communities. Some OK, some marginal (specifically [38]). So I fixed some of the marginal stuff ([39]), and noting they were new, noted the issues with it on their talk page (User_talk:Bagofscrews#Recent_edits). Of course they responded negatively. I responded once, and let the rest go. But... that led me to look at their other edits. Less than half their total edits are articles. Of the article edits, about a third have been reverted, and some of their talk activity has been to ask specific editors to explain why they were reverted (which makes their lashing out at me for explaining a revert seem surprising - can't seem to win with this guy). But some of the worst stuff was overt, literally referring to Eric Schneiderman as "Spiderman" in the article [40], and worse, posting personal contact information on a BLP (I reported it to oversight and it was blanked immediately). Any thoughts or sage advice? ButlerBlog (talk) 16:45, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I'll have a look, I noticed the SPLC removal that is now still used as a source there, but didn't take the time to look at their history yet... —PaleoNeonate – 13:28, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-07

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

  • Purging a category page with fewer than 5,000 members will now recount it completely. This will allow editors to fix incorrect counts when it is wrong. [41]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 February. It will be on all wikis from 17 February (calendar).
  • Advanced item In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function has been updated 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. [42]

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19:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-08

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

  • Special:Nuke will now provide the standard deletion reasons (editable at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown) to use when mass-deleting pages. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. [43]
  • At Wikipedias, all new accounts now get the Growth features by default when creating an account. Communities are encouraged to update their help resources. Previously, only 80% of new accounts would get the Growth features. A few Wikipedias remain unaffected by this change. [44]
  • You can now prevent specific images that are used in a page from appearing in other locations, such as within PagePreviews or Search results. This is done with the markup class=notpageimage. For example, [[File:Example.png|class=notpageimage]]. [45]
  • There has been a change to the HTML of Special:Contributions, Special:MergeHistory, and History pages, to support the grouping of changes by date in the mobile skin. While unlikely, this may affect gadgets and user scripts. A list of all the HTML changes is on Phabricator.

Events

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 February. It will be on all wikis from 24 February (calendar).

Future changes

  • The software to play videos and audio files on pages will change soon on all wikis. The old player will be removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [46][47]
  • Toolforge's underlying operating system is being updated. If you maintain any tools there, there are two options for migrating your tools into the new system. There are details, deadlines, and instructions on Wikitech. [48]
  • Administrators will soon have the option to delete/undelete the associated "talk" page when they are deleting a given page. An API endpoint with this option will also be available. This was a request from the 2021 Wishlist Survey.

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19:11, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Skepticism and coordinated editing proposed decision posted

The proposed decision in the Skepticism and coordinated editing has been posted. Please review the proposed decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-09

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

Recent changes

  • When searching for edits by change tags, e.g. in page history or user contributions, there is now a dropdown list of possible tags. This was a request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. [49]
  • Mentors using the Growth Mentor dashboard will now see newcomers assigned to them who have made at least one edit, up to 200 edits. Previously, all newcomers assigned to the mentor were visible on the dashboard, even ones without any edit or ones who made hundred of edits. Mentors can still change these values using the filters on their dashboard. Also, the last choice of filters will now be saved. [50][51]
  • The user group oversight was renamed suppress. This is for technical reasons. You may need to update any local references to the old name, e.g. gadgets, links to Special:Listusers, or uses of NUMBERINGROUP.

Problems

  • The recent change to the HTML of tracking changes pages caused some problems for screenreaders. This is being fixed. [52]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • Working with templates will become easier. Several improvements are planned for March 9 on most wikis and on March 16 on English Wikipedia. The improvements include: Bracket matching, syntax highlighting colors, finding and inserting templates, and related visual editor features.
  • If you are a template developer or an interface administrator, and you are intentionally overriding or using the default CSS styles of user feedback boxes (the classes: successbox, messagebox, errorbox, warningbox), please note that these classes and associated CSS will soon be removed from MediaWiki core. This is to prevent problems when the same class-names are also used on a wiki. Please let us know by commenting at phab:T300314 if you think you might be affected.

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22:58, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing closed

An arbitration case regarding Skepticism and coordinated editing has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

  • Rp2006 (talk · contribs) is warned against a battleground mentality and further incivility.
  • Rp2006 is indefinitely topic banned from edits related to living people associated with or of interest to scientific skepticism, broadly construed. This topic ban may be appealed after six months have elapsed and every six months thereafter.
  • A. C. Santacruz (talk · contribs) is reminded to remain collegial in editing and interacting with others.
  • Roxy the dog (talk · contribs) is warned to remain collegial in editing and interacting with others.
  • GSoW is advised that a presence on English Wikipedia, perhaps as its own WikiProject or as a task force of WikiProject Skepticism, will create more transparency and lessen some of the kinds of suspicion and conflict that preceded this case. It could also provide a place for the GSoW to get community feedback about its training which would increase its effectiveness.
  • Editors are reminded that discretionary sanctions for biographies of living people have been authorized since 2014. Editors named in this decision shall be considered aware of these discretionary sanctions under awareness criterion 1.

For the Arbitration Committee, –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:04, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing closed

Tech News: 2022-10

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

  • There was a problem with some interface labels last week. It will be fixed this week. This change was part of ongoing work to simplify the support for skins which do not have active maintainers. [53]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 March. It will be on all wikis from 10 March (calendar).

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21:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Response to your comment on my page

Hi there!

Thanks for your message dated 16 December 2021. Continuous dialogue being the best way to further human advancement, would you not agree?

You state: "your edit history shows a lot of chatting on article talk pages." Could you possibly further explain this comment? I don't think I've chatted to anyone on any talk pages, and I believe your comment to be erroneous in this regard. I have only ever commented about how pages could be improved, particularly with a view to challenging bias. Which I consider to be Wikipedia's big problem.

You state: "they are not for general discussion." I haven't had any discussion with anybody in the past on talk pages, apart from right now in response to you. Given that you chose to comment on my page, I feel it warranted a response. Perhaps you could explain why you chose to engage in general discussion with me, only to tell me I shouldn't engage in general discussion? = )

You state: "Instead of complaining, it is better to link sources that contradict the contested material, or that support the view you would like the article to reflect." This sounds very much like you are implying that I was complaining. Please can you clarify, and possibly rephrase your comment on my page if this was not your intention. Or if you were implying that I was complaining, then please know that I was not complaining. If that was your interpretation, then your interpretation is in error. Complaining was far from my intention. My comments seek merely to challenge and try to make Wikipedia better.

You state: "[Wikipedia guidance] suggests to boldly edit while citing a reliable source." I used to do this, but I got fed up of power users (like yourself) reverting every single one of my edits back again the following day. You see, Wikipedia is actually not (as it claims) a free collective that can be edited by anybody. I am of the opinon that it is in fact a bastion of very biased people who keep control of the narrative by ensuring that the information is never moved too far from their particular favoured stance. This is why certain controversial topics have many "turf wars" between two camps of equally biased people of opposite persuasion on the topic. What are your thoughts on this?

By way of constructive feedback to yourself, I didn't feel that your comment came across as particularly intended to assist me in using Wikipedia, so much as to "correct me" on what you perceived to be my "incorrect use". That is your opinion, and your right. However, personally I will continue to be of the opinion that Wikipedia is what we each choose to make of it, and as such I would never dream of telling you how you best ought to be using it! That is entirely up to you. I would entrust that decision up to your better judgment as a rational adult and that you will use it as you see best. Whilst we probably do need to have red lines such as ensuring that users don't bully or abuse other users, outside of those red lines users should be free to make Wikipedia whatever it is to them. If some people did want to have a chat, such as the one you have instigated here, why not? What harm does it do to enter dialogue and find out other people's perspectives on topics on the talk pages, particularly if it enhances Wikipedia in the long run?

Now that we have started this chat, out of interest what are your thoughts on my approach to using Wikipedia, particularly as contrasted with yours and as to how it might lead to improving Wikipedia through engaging discussion with other people?

Best regards

DS — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiverseSynergy (talk • contribs) 00:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@DiverseSynergy: Sorry for the delay. My note was about the WP:NOTFORUM policy and the WP:BRD guide to the WP:CONSENSUS policy, more than my opinion or to open a lengthy discussion. Posting on article talk pages is part of editing processes, but it should really be practical, i.e. concise suggestions that also cite supporting reliable sources. Even better is to boldly edit when possible, considering that editing is a privilege to improve the encyclopedia... —PaleoNeonate – 22:11, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Reply from DS:

No problem on the delay, been busy myself.

I suspect you didn't actually read my comment very thoroughly, given your reply. I already covered the issues of Wiki Policy, and "boldly editing" in my original comments above.

To follow up on my point about Wiki Policy, I would go even further than my previous comments and go on to say that I think that Wiki Policy deliberately restricts discussion on the talk pages, such that we end up with a situation where edits and counter-edits without any explanation happen as a matter of course - rather than open debate. This assists those who might seek to control the narrative to more easily do so, as they never have to debate their rationale. All they need is the free time and determination to keep editing articles more frequently than those people with whom they disagree. I believe Wikipedia has many such flaws, and will never improve whilst the policy remains the same - and whilst free discussion remains "against Wikipedia policy"! It is very much a Catch 22.

I note you haven't responded about the issue of you claiming that I was "chatting" on articles. As a point of courtesy, I really do think as a bare minimum you owe me an explanation for stating that about me - when I think it is demonstrably not true! — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiverseSynergy (talk • contribs) 15:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello again. My impression was that you needed general guidance in relation to WP:BOLD and WP:CITE, the answer to the old request here (about why posts were reverted by another editor who didn't take the time to explain). It's not that posting on talk pages is not allowed of course, just that posts should be concise; the material of the encyclopedia must be supported by sources and cite them, so constructive discussion naturally should focus around source selection, how to summarize them (the title of my comment on your talk page was "The importance of sources"). This is just an example, but if you decide to edit the Dances with Wolves article directly, your aims would also be clear compared to long talk page posts. If someone reverts, then it's possible to move on to another edit and/or article, but also to attempt to form consensus at the article's talk page if you think the reverted edits should stick. It's just standard rules for the collaborative encyclopedia. In case that was a concern, unless edit warring when others revert (i.e. see WP:3RR), or that it's clear that your goal is not to improve the encyclopedia, you risk little being blocked for "boldly" editing the article itself. WP editing is for that, afterall... —PaleoNeonate – 01:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Reply from DS

Many thanks for your swift response. I think the issue is that, as a relatively infrequent user and editor here at Wikipedia, I'm trying to highlight why I think that the current policy is suboptimal for infrequent users like myself. I've provided examples of the issues I have encountered under the current policy as it stands, and your response seems to be simply to repeatedly quote existing policy back at me.

I guess the very short question is, will anybody at Wikipedia listen to my concerns and do something about this perceived issue and consider reviewing the policies in light of my comments? And if you won't take that into consideration, how do imagine you can seek to continuously improve Wikipedia as an information source if you do not regularly review policy in the light of direct feedback that you receive?

I see that you are a regular user, and clearly somebody who sees themself as responsible for upholding policy (or else why would you have contacted me in the first place?) Whether you see that as a self-appointed role, or whether you have some official capacity here at Wikipedia I do not know. In any event, it makes no difference. If you see yourself as the upholder of Wikipedia policy - which you clearly do because you chose to contact me about it - then I think that also places on you the responsibility to raise my concerns with the relevant policy makers to take into account as feedback. Your role, however you see it, really ought to work both ways.

Will you do this? Will you refer my feedback to the relevant policy makers to consider? Or do you see your role as simply upholding current policy as it stands? If so, maybe ask yourself why that is.

To reiterate my point, "boldly editing" simply does not work. As I said before, I have "boldly edited" a couple of times in the past, only to have a "power user" revert them back the very next day. I looked through the edit history of the person who reverted my comment, and I saw that they literally spent several hours every single day reverting back changes from the previous day on hundreds of different articles. There are clearly people with a lot of time on their hands who see themselves as the "gatekeepers of truth", and have both the time and the extreme determination to ensure that the Wikipedia articles never move too far away from what they want them to say. I don't have the time to enter into a consensus battle with them, and the "power users" know it. It boils down to "truth" becoming what the most vocal activists, and the people with the most time on their hands, say that it is. I perceive that to be Wikipedia's biggest drawback, and if your responses are simply going to be to repeatedly quote current policy at me then clearly nothing will ever change in this respect! =o)

I'm simply suggesting that if you considered reviewing those policies to allow more open discussion on the "talk" pages, then potentially Wikipedia could be better. I mean, why are they even called "talk" pages if the policy discourages lengthy debate and discussion on them? Plus what harm does it do to have lengthy discussions on the talk pages in any case? Surely open discourse is healthy for drawing closer to a point of consensus on information, isn't it? If I ran an encyclopedia, I would want as much discourse as possible, not less. Also, discussion on the talk pages doesn't affect how succinct the actual article is, does it? It surely doesn't impact the actual article itself in any way.

On a personal note, this is now the second response from you which I note you avoid addressing the issue about your inaccurate comment stating that I had been "chatting" on the talk section of articles, when I don't think I have ever chatted on any article (apart from, ironically enough, right now with you after you chose to interact with me to tell me not to chat on articles!) Are you honestly not going to respond about that? Even though I have specifically pressed you twice to either justify the comment or retract it. Interesting... — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiverseSynergy (talk • contribs) 12:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

@DiverseSynergy: Plus what harm does it do to have lengthy discussions on the talk pages in any case? - because Wikipedia is not a forum. Long-winded discussions do not serve the purpose of improving articles. "Be concise" is a good practice to follow. Case in point: I suspect you didn't actually read my comment very thoroughly, given your reply. Being concise would help you avoid that problem. The longer your comment, the less likely someone is to read it fully. ButlerBlog (talk) 16:16, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
@ButlerBlog: because Wikipedia is not a forum. - yet you have chosen to reply to me on this thread, in addition to PaleoNeonate, exactly as if this were a forum! As for being concise, my whole argument is that more information and more discussion is better. If people don't have the time to read the full arguments, to consider them at length and to go away and spend time doing adequate counter research, then maybe they shouldn't be commenting on an online Encyclopedia. They clearly don't have the time or rigour of approach (nor the attention span) to adequately do so.
To reiterate, the articles themselves should be concise - I fully agree with you there. But what is the point in having the ironically named "talk" pages which are associated with the main articles, if you're not actually allowed to "talk" about the articles in free discussion on those pages? Nothing that you have said addresses my key point - being that I think the current policy needs reviewing, because it is suboptimal for all users. Current policy will merely attract the type of pedantic people who enjoy being "Little Hitlers" enforcing current policy on everyone else, but without ever listening to other people's views to see if improvements could be made to Wikipedia by taking them into account.
Repeatedly quoting current policy at me achieves nothing. My very simple question is: how do I get my voice heard? I am simply suggesting that Wikipedia considers reviewing the current policy, such that the overall Wikipedia project might be improved for all users. How can Wikipedia possibly engage in the continuous improvement of itself, if there appears to be no mechanism to debate making changes to its policies? Does Wikipedia not want to include users like myself who would to like to be able to discuss and debate articles with like-minded people in the talk pages? Why would it deliberately seek to exclude certain people from being part of the project, simply because they prefer longer debate and discussion back and forth on a topic? Exactly like we're doing here in fact, and like you have chosen to do in replying to me. I didn't ask you to do that, you just wanted to enter the discussion - which I think is great!
People who want to be concise, can still be concise. Don't read the lengthy discussions if you don't want to. Nobody is forcing you to. But equally don't impose your demands on those users who do want to have more lengthy discussions with each other, with the aim of improving the articles and Wikipedia as a whole. In fact, I quite frequently read the talk pages just to see what people's views are - in order to gain further understanding into people's thoughts on the topic. I find it very insightful.
Finally, I note from your own talk page, ButlerBlog, that you seem to have the knack for annoying other Wikipedia users based on the other comments I find posted there! I always see it as good policy that when you find yourself repeatedly disagreeing with several people for different reasons, perhaps the problem is not with everyone else.
DiverseSynergy (talk) 10:59, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
It boils down to "truth" becoming what the most vocal activists, and the people with the most time on their hands not completely, since the project has policies including about reflecting reliable sources. It also has noticeboards where we can request input (this includes WP:RSN to evaluate a source's usability in a context). Processes like RFCs and deletion discussions are also not popular ballots (WP:!VOTE). Anyone can make an article edit and it may stick (which is what I was suggesting you try). If a page is protected, a clear edit request will shortly be handled by another editor and applied if it's considered an improvement. Then there are independent patrollers, who do dedicate time but to general protection like reverting/reporting vandalism, or revert improperly sourced material and WP:WARN.
But if you mean that it takes time to get used to that, I agree. And editors can build a certain reputation over time, patrollers tend to recognize regulars on their watchlist and not suspect it's vandalism. Personally I don't feel like I currently have enough time for Wikipedia to think about becoming an administrator, my responses would usually be delayed and just looking for/at sources to verify if articles represent them (or to expand them) is time consuming. I have a list of topics and books I'd like to write new articles about but recently my WP time is very limited, so yes, time is needed.
WP is indeed a hot target for propagandists who hope to promote through it. If you mean that policies and what sources are unreliable were community determined, that's true and a state of things is not necessarily permanent if wrong. A lot of things have changed since 2005 when many articles weren't even citing sources.
I agree that WP has problems. Its model allowed it to become the most popular online encyclopedia yet at the same time an army of patrollers is necessary to manage the mess. Sockpuppetry is easy and rampant, so we keep seeing the same people over the years despite their topic or site bans; they keep promoting, wasting the community's time or trying to divide it (or sometimes it's obsessive technical editing that's been found to be disruptive). What can be done against it is patrolling, applying principles of WP:NOTFORUM, etc. And WP:WARN, WP:CONSENSUS are not ideal, but a necessary side effect of collaborative editing. If I have the intention to blog or to write a book, WP is obviously the wrong place for it. I also find that its policies don't suit ideally to all type of content, so better sites exist for technical directories or instructions. Another problem is coordinated harassment campaigns, occasionally an article talk page or WP:AFD discussion must be semi-protected.[54]
I perceive that to be Wikipedia's biggest drawback, and if your responses are simply going to be to repeatedly quote current policy at me then clearly nothing will ever change in this respect! it's better than immediately reporting you as WP:NOTHERE and in my view this would be premature, unjustified. I was giving general WP-related advice, ignore it if you like, it was a clue that may allow you to become more successful on WP. And I'm not scolding you, it's valid for me too as an editor, this now reminds me of the nice essay WP:FIXBIAS... As usual feel free to reply but it might take a little while for me to read it. —PaleoNeonate – 12:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate: not completely, since the project has policies including about reflecting reliable sources... - this (along with the following paragraphs) was a very good response, thanks for taking the time to explain this in detail. This was all very helpful information.
@PaleoNeonate: it's better than immediately reporting you as WP:NOTHERE - feel free to report me if you feel it necessary, though you seem to rule it out at this stage as being unnecessary. I do take on board your advice, but I still find myself a bit "lost" as to what I am supposed to do to raise this issue through the correct channels. You still haven't responded to my simple query: how do I get my voice heard? I am simply suggesting that Wikipedia considers reviewing the current policy, such that the overall Wikipedia project might be improved for all users. Surely it is better to have fully-rounded input to the articles from everybody in society, not just those seeking to maintain the status quo and never seeking to improve the policies?
So I am simply asking, how do I do that? Who do I write to? Could you submit my comments to an administrator to consider, for example?
Glad to hear I am not being scolded here, though it certainly felt like that with your original comment about me "chatting" on talk pages - which I clearly hadn't been doing at that point. I guess I am chatting a bit with you now, on your talk page here, but that is (ironically enough) only as a direct response to your comment on my talk page suggesting that I don't "chat" on talk pages!
DiverseSynergy (talk) 10:59, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
First time I'm writing on wikipedia in a while.
Diverse, I get the vibe you're trying to fight against the wildly obvious and extreme bias on wikipedia by so called "intellectuals". I used to do the same, but eventually I acknowledged that there's no hope. The most active 'administrators' and editors on wikipedia are all unashamedly biased and there's really nothing I can hope to do about it. Nowadays, I try to avoid wikipedia as much as possible, only rarely referring to it when searching up technical definitions and things that leave no room for bias (although wikipedia seems to always find a way to stick in their agenda). Do they acknowledge they have an agenda? Have a bias? No. They may even genuinely not realize they have an agenda/bias. Its usually subconscious. Either way, my point is, don't waste your time with these people. Just ditch the site, and let everyone you know, know, that wikipedia is an extremely biased and untrusted website. That's probably the biggest effect you can hope to have. I've convinced all my friends of the fact already.
It made me laugh to see wikipedia begging for money. Listen, this website is doing more good than bad, but the people behind it have a responsibility to keep their site bias free, if thats what they claim to be.
Have fun and stay happy in whatever you decide to do. Peace 67.81.163.55 (talk) 06:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia unashamedly has academic bias and that's fine, since it attempts to be a mainstream encyclopedia. Meeting WP:NPOV is not lacking bias (afterall, this includes a warning against presenting a false balance), but reflecting the bias of reliable sources. Since our previous interaction was about pseudoscientific creationism it's a good example: advocacy sources like those of the Discovery Institute are not acceptable for Wikipedia, but can be mentioned with the analysis of an independent reliable source discussing it if they exist. They also would have no place in a main biology article, but may be relevant and WP:DUE in an article about the creationism movement (WP:MNA). Since there is no legitimate scientific debate among mainstream biologists about the fact that life evolved and diversified that way, Wikipedia is not the place to try to convince readers that there would be... —PaleoNeonate – 03:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Temporary break

My cat is dying of fibrosarcoma and I have software to write that I have reduced energy for, thus no time for Wikipedia at current time. I plan to have the cat euthanized this week, perhaps even tomorrow. Hope of recovery is gone, there are multipe fast appearing and growing tumors, he can no longer digest food and is getting thinner and weaker. There's no apparent pain yet but he's weak enough to sometimes fall when walking, it's just time. At 15yo there's no reason to try to extend his life with costly surgery, especially if it would also imply the amputation of a leg and result in a miserable shaven cat with scars (and one tumor is in a vital area of the neck). Prognostic for this type of cancer is poor even after surgery in younger cats. It's been a very special cat and his company was even more appreciated during the pandemic. Oh well... See you all later, —PaleoNeonate – 19:05, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I am very sorry to hear this, Paleo. We have our disagreements, but I regard you as a good editor. My friend had a cat and when she died, my friend was very sad. Her cat was one of the closest friends in her life, so I know what you are going through right now. I do hope you are able to recover from this situation and hopefully you can come back on Wikipedia any time you feel ready. Rlink2 (talk) 22:42, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, the euthanasia was on the 7th and it went well, but of course cognitive memory still remains a while: there's no cat trying to enter wardrobes when opening them, no cat to avoid kicking when walking in the alley, no cat requesting his num nums in the morning. He also was trained in some ways and we had our special interaction rituals, he liked to be on shoulders, etc. For me it's not really like human friendship, but he's definitely being missed and had his own particular personality. He was particularly communicative compared to previous cats we had. —PaleoNeonate – 03:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-11

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

Recent changes

  • In the Wikipedia Android app it is now possible to change the toolbar at the bottom so the tools you use more often are easier to click on. The app now also has a focused reading mode. [55][56]

Problems

  • There was a problem with the collection of some page-view data from June 2021 to January 2022 on all wikis. This means the statistics are incomplete. To help calculate which projects and regions were most affected, relevant datasets are being retained for 30 extra days. You can read more on Meta-wiki.
  • There was a problem with the databases on March 10. All wikis were unreachable for logged-in users for 12 minutes. Logged-out users could read pages but could not edit or access uncached content then. [57]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 March. It will be on all wikis from 17 March (calendar).
  • When using uselang=qqx to find localisation messages, it will now show all possible message keys for navigation tabs such as "View history". [58]
  • Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights through their group memberships. Before, only those with the deleterevision right could access this special page. [59]
  • On the Special:Undelete pages for diffs and revisions, there will be a link back to the main Undelete page with the list of revisions. [60]

Future changes

Events

  • The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place as a hybrid event on 20-22 May 2022. The Hackathon will be held online and there are grants available to support local in-person meetups around the world. Grants can be requested until 20 March.

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22:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-12

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

New code release schedule for this week

  • There will be four MediaWiki releases this week, instead of just one. This is an experiment which should lead to fewer problems and to faster feature updates. The releases will be on all wikis, at different times, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You can read more about this project.

Recent changes

Future changes

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15:59, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-13

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 simple new Wikimedia Commons upload tool available for macOS users, Sunflower.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 March. It will be on all wikis from 31 March (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of regular database maintenance. It will be performed on 29 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 31 March at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [65][66]

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19:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Rejuvenate WikiProject Skepticism

Hello - my name is Susan Gerbic (Sgerbic) and I'm writing to you because at some point you joined Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism. This might have been months ago - or even years ago. With the best of intentions the project was created years ago, and sadly like many WikiProjects has started to go dormant. A group of us are attempting to revitalize the Skepticism project, already we have begun to clean up the main page and I've just redone the participant page. No one is in charge of this project, it is member directed, which might have been the reason it almost went dormant. We are attempting to bring back conversations on the talk page and have two subprojects as well, in the hopes that it might spark involvement and a way of getting to know each other better. One was created several years ago but is very well organized and a lot of progress was made, Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skeptical organisations in Europe. The other I created a couple weeks ago, it is very simple and has a silly name Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Skepticism Stub Sub-Project Project (SSSPP). This sub-project runs from March 1 to June 1, 2022. We are attempting to rewrite skepticism stubs and add them to this list. As you can see we have already made progress.

The reason I'm writing to you now is because we would love to have you come back to the project and become involved, either by working on one of the sub-projects, proposing your own (and managing it), or just hanging out on the talk page getting to know the other editors and maybe donate some of your wisdom to some of the conversations. As I said, no one is in charge, so if you have something in mind you would like to see done, please suggest it on the talk page and hopefully others will agree. Please add the project to your watchlist, update your personal user page showing you are a proud member of WikiProject Skepticism. And DIVE in, this is what the work list looks like [67] frightening at first glance, but we have already started chipping away at it.

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Participants page has gone though a giant change - you may want to update your information. And of course if this project no longer interests you, please remove your name from the participant list, we would hate to see you go, but completely understand.

Thank you for your time, I hope to edit with you in the future.Sgerbic (talk) 07:23, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sgerbic: Thanks for the notice. If it's really getting more activity it's probably worth some of my participation at least for support, —PaleoNeonate – 05:25, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry that I didn't yet, I'm just so busy recently. No plans to leave WP though. —PaleoNeonate – 03:44, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-14

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

  • For a few days last week, edits that were suggested to newcomers were not tagged in the Special:RecentChanges feed. This bug has been fixed. [68]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 April. It will be on all wikis from 7 April (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 7 April at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).

Future changes

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21:00, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-15

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 public status page at www.wikimediastatus.net. This site shows five automated high-level metrics where you can see the overall health and performance of our wikis' technical environment. It also contains manually-written updates for widespread incidents, which are written as quickly as the engineers are able to do so while also fixing the actual problem. The site is separated from our production infrastructure and hosted by an external service, so that it can be accessed even if the wikis are briefly unavailable. You can read more about this project.
  • On Wiktionary wikis, the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [70][71]

Changes later this week

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

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19:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-16

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 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 April. It will be on all wikis from 21 April (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 19 April at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 21 April at 7:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
  • Administrators will now have the option to delete/undelete the associated "Talk" page when they are deleting a given page. An API endpoint with this option is also available. This concludes the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
  • On selected wikis, 50% of logged-in users will see the new table of contents. When scrolling up and down the page, the table of contents will stay in the same place on the screen. This is part of the Desktop Improvements project. [72]
  • Message boxes produced by MediaWiki code will no longer have these CSS classes: successbox, errorbox, warningbox. The styles for those classes and messagebox will be removed from MediaWiki core. This only affects wikis that use these classes in wikitext, or change their appearance within site-wide CSS. Please review any local usage and definitions for these classes you may have. This was previously announced in the 28 February issue of Tech News.

Future changes

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23:10, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-17

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

Recent changes

  • On many wikis (group 1), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [77][78]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 April. It will be on all wikis from 28 April (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 26 April at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
  • Some very old browsers and operating systems are no longer supported. Some things on the wikis might look weird or not work in very old browsers like Internet Explorer 9 or 10, Android 4, or Firefox 38 or older. [79]

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

22:54, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-18

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

Recent changes

  • On all remaining wikis (group 2), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years. [80][81]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 May. It will be on all wikis from 5 May (calendar).

Future changes

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19:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-19

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

Problems

  • Last week, there was a problem with Wikidata's search autocomplete. This has now been fixed. [86]
  • Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 20 minutes, for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a problem with a database change. [87]

Changes later this week

Future meetings

  • The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place on 17 May. The following meetings are currently planned for: 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July.

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15:21, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-20

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

  • Some wikis can soon use the add a link feature. This will start on Wednesday. The wikis are Catalan Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Norwegian Bokmål Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Simple English Wikipedia, Swedish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia. This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [89]
  • The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place online on May 20–22. It will be in English. There are also local hackathon meetups in Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Nigeria and the United States. Technically interested Wikimedians can work on software projects and learn new skills. You can also host a session or post a project you want to work on.
  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 May. It will be on all wikis from 19 May (calendar).

Future changes

  • You can soon edit translatable pages in the visual editor. Translatable pages exist on for examples Meta and Commons. [90]

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18:57, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter May 2022

New Page Review queue March 2022

Hello PaleoNeonate,

At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.

Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.

In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently 809 New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All 846 administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.

This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.

If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing {{subst:NPR invite}} on their talk page.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.
Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-21

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

Recent changes

  • Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. [91]
  • The www.wiktionary.org portal page now uses an automated update system. Other project portals will be updated over the next few months. [92]

Problems

  • The Growth team maintains a mentorship program for newcomers. Previously, newcomers weren't able to opt out from the program. Starting May 19, 2022, newcomers are able to fully opt out from Growth mentorship, in case they do not wish to have any mentor at all. [93]
  • Some editors cannot access the content translation tool if they load it by clicking from the contributions menu. This problem is being worked on. It should still work properly if accessed directly via Special:ContentTranslation. [94]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 May. It will be on all wikis from 26 May (calendar).

Future changes

  • Gadget and user scripts developers are invited to give feedback on a proposed technical policy aiming to improve support from MediaWiki developers. [95]

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00:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-22

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

  • Advanced item In the AbuseFilter extension, an ip_in_ranges() function has been introduced to check if an IP is in any of the ranges. Wikis are advised to combine multiple ip_in_range() expressions joined by | into a single expression for better performance. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [96]
  • The IP Info feature which helps abuse fighters access information about IPs, has been deployed to all wikis as a beta feature. This comes after weeks of beta testing on test.wikipedia.org.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 June. It will be on all wikis from 2 June (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 31 May at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
  • The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at most wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences. [97][98]
  • Advanced item The list=usercontribs API will support fetching contributions from an IP range soon. API users can set the uciprange parameter to get contributions from any IP range within the limit. [99]
  • A new parser function will be introduced: {{=}}. It will replace existing templates named "=". It will insert an equal sign. This can be used to escape the equal sign in the parameter values of templates. [100]

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20:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-23

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 7 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 June. It will be on all wikis from 9 June (calendar).
  • A new str_replace_regexp() function can be used in abuse filters to replace parts of text using a regular expression. [101]

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

02:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-24

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 June. It will be on all wikis from 16 June (calendar).
  • Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 14 June at 06:00 UTC (targeted wikis). [104]
  • Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Abkhazian Wikipedia, Achinese Wikipedia, Adyghe Wikipedia, Afrikaans Wikipedia, Akan Wikipedia, Alemannisch Wikipedia, Amharic Wikipedia, Aragonese Wikipedia, Old English Wikipedia, Syriac Wikipedia, Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, Asturian Wikipedia, Atikamekw Wikipedia, Avaric Wikipedia, Aymara Wikipedia, Azerbaijani Wikipedia, South Azerbaijani Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [105]
  • The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at Commons, Wikidata, and some other wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences. [106][107]

Future meetings

  • The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place today (13 June). The following meetings will take place on: 28 June, 12 July, 26 July.

Future changes

  • By the end of July, the Vector 2022 skin should be ready to become the default across all wikis. Discussions on how to adjust it to the communities' needs will begin in the next weeks. It will always be possible to revert to the previous version on an individual basis. Learn more.

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16:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-25

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 an option for editing the whole page at once, located in the overflow menu (three-dots menu ). [108]
  • Some recent database changes may affect queries using the Quarry tool. Queries for site_stats at English Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata will need to be updated. Read more.
  • A new user_global_editcount variable can be used in abuse filters to avoid affecting globally active users. [109]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 June. It will be on all wikis from 23 June (calendar).
  • Users of non-responsive skins (e.g. MonoBook or Vector) on mobile devices may notice a slight change in the default zoom level. This is intended to optimize zooming and ensure all interface elements are present on the page (for example the table of contents on Vector 2022). In the unlikely event this causes any problems with how you use the site, we'd love to understand better, please ping Jon (WMF) to any on-wiki conversations. [110]

Future changes

  • The Beta Feature for DiscussionTools will be updated throughout July. Discussions will look different. You can see some of the proposed changes.
  • Parsoid's HTML output will soon stop annotating file links with different typeof attribute values, and instead use mw:File for all types. Tool authors should adjust any code that expects: mw:Image, mw:Audio, or mw:Video. [111]

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20:17, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

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