User talk:DMacks/Archive 65

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This is an archive of past discussions with User:DMacks. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 60

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I just remove broken link and add useful link

Hello, My name is javeriyashaik. I just changed The unused broken link has been replaced with a Informative link for the user good experience. Have there been any mistakes on my part? JaveriyaShaik (talk) 04:46, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I support fixing broken links, in keeping with the WP:404 guideline. A top-level/main-page of a whole website does not seem like a stable reference to support the speciifc content. And it does not seem like the correct title. Instead, this is a typical type of edit that SEO spammers make. DMacks (talk) 05:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out, DMacks. I sincerely apologize for repeating the same mistake despite your earlier feedback. This oversight was unintentional, and I deeply regret not adhering to the WP:404 guideline as carefully as I should have.

I value the importance of maintaining high standards on Wikipedia and recognize how my actions may have caused inconvenience. I’ll take extra care moving forward to ensure all references are precise, stable, and directly support the content they cite.

Thank you for your patience and for helping me learn from this experience. JaveriyaShaik (talk) 06:29, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Stop vandalizing Zoo Articles and More with LTA IPs!

DMacks, stop the reverting with long-term abuse right now with Clumsy. I am going to be real mad if all the new species are going to be removed along with sentences.

You have to remember this line.

No more long term abuse allowed.

GregoryPeacock1213 (talk) 09:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Greetings

Greetings DMacks, and a Happy New Year. I am writing to alert you to a puppet of the already blocked user Alon9393, exactly this account alerted by this noun, who has created an article and is basing his comment edits on deletion requests. At the moment he only exists in the English edition, but he may make the jump to other editions at any time. Pichu VI (talk) 12:23, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Looks like it was handled via Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alon9393. I'm not able to access Twitter sites, so I'm not sure what that link would have contained. DMacks (talk) 08:03, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

On the change of Hans Bergel

Why did you remove Hans Bergel's works, which were properly cited? While I understand that some parts of the wiki were not cited correctly, the notable works of the Schriftsteller des Jahrhunderts ("Author of the Century" in English) were accurately referenced.

Hans Bergel published over 1,600 literary pieces in the German language for Germany, with the most famous ones included in the article. His work Fürst und Lautenschläger even won the prestigious Buch des Millenniums ("Book of the Millennium") award, which is given once every decade.

Now, all of his contributions are gone. Kavya79 (talk) 21:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Convenience link: Hans Bergel (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

As I stated in my edit-summary, there was no clear basis for choosing these particular ones, given how many he wrote. How were these decided as "the most famous ones"? It can't be just what we (as editors) think. For example, winning an award is a good reason. Feel free to add that one. It would be a good sentence in the article itself, noting its award (with cite for it). DMacks (talk) 22:07, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Breyers disruptive editing

Could you please have a look at Breyers and the last three topics on the talk page? A user - Axad12 - is opposing simple sourced edits to a start-class article that should be uncontroversial and easy to describe.

This user and three others refused collaboration or constructive suggestions on a recent DRN. The user claims consensus is established on the talk page to say that a 2013 Breyers dessert product contained "antifreeze", a comment mentioned only in an unscientific book on "banishing belly fat".

Admins Cullen328 and BD2412 previously provided comments indicating use of the antifreeze term was undue. Otherwise, I have made only straightforward, sourced edits that Axad12 immediately reverts.

Thanks for your time. Zefr (talk) 19:07, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

As per the recent talk page discussion, 6 users oppose the edits that this user has been attempting to make. However, the user keeps opening new threads apparently in the hope that none of the opposing voices will continue to object.

The idea that I have been disruptive here is really quite mistaken. All I have done is reverted edits which are contrary to obvious talk page consensus.

The story here goes back to early November, when the user above implemented a COI edit request that had previously been declined. They were then reverted and ever since then they have bludgeoned the talk page. Axad12 (talk) 19:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll take a look over the next day or two... DMacks (talk) 17:22, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Came here for your brief assessment of the food science, ingredient safety, and common sense for describing a brand objectively, a simple task for which the two users below have repeatedly ignored requests to collaborate. Apologies for the verbose behavior that followed. RfC underway. Zefr (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm particularly concerned with Zefr's attitude towards other editors, including myself, like WP:ASPERSION using words like "disparaging Breyers", "slander" and such that is brodering WP:NLT and in general, failure to assume good faith. Graywalls (talk) 00:41, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

(Apologies for the length of this post, but the content is relevant to the discussion here.)

Just a note to say that I'd suggest that any analysis of the events here should start at the COI edit request thread from back in August where the disputed material (on Propylene Glycol) was declined to be removed, here [1].

There are then a series of short threads where the paid COI user calls upon Zefr to implement changes to the article. The background to those short threads is this attempt [2] by the COI user to pick up a project member more amenable to implementing his agenda than had been encountered by relying on a random user working out of the COI edit request queue. Having failed to locate such a project member the paid COI editor then makes a direct approach to Zefr (a member of the relevant project) here [3] at Zefr's talk page. Then, having found the user amenable, further direct approaches at the user's talk page are made here [4] and here [5] (these are on top of the repeated pinging of the user in the relevant COI edit requests).

Then we have the resubmission of the request to remove the disputed material in a COI edit request thread here [6] and the exactly simultaneous request for Zefr to deal with the COI edit request in this direct approach at the user's talk page, here [7].

I'd suggest that the series of events outlined here is a clear example of paid editing black arts, whereby a friendly project member is deliberately cultivated and canvassed by the paid COI editor with the clear intention of later reintroducing a contentious and previously declined request in such a way that their cultivated account will implement it.

About an hour after the contentious edit request was implemented by Zefr a new thread was started by Graywalls, here [8] disputing the legitimacy of the removal of the Propylene Glycol-related material. This then sets off the many subsequent threads where the material is discussed at great length across the rest of the talk page material.

I'd thus suggest that simply looking at the last three topics on the talk page, as suggested by Zefr above, would not come close to giving a full understanding of the events here. Axad12 (talk) 07:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Accusation of "disparaging" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breyers#c-Zefr-20241113205400-Graywalls-20241113203800

This may have instigated a comment abstractly hinted taking actions through outside means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breyers#c-Dustfreeworld-20241118165800-Axad12-20241118062200

All on all, phrasing like "disparaging" and Zefr's subsequent aspersion casting of "slander" is getting awfully close to AGF and no legal threat territory, as happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breyers#c-Zefr-20241129044200-Graywalls-20241129042900 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breyers#c-Zefr-20241129035300-Graywalls-20241129033700 Graywalls (talk) 13:12, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

A further example [9] of the concept of slander being invoked (twice) by Zefr, this time from the DRN thread.

While I don’t see these mentions (and those above) as specific legal threats, the purpose of continually alleging slander is obviously an attempt to derail reasonable discussion and to have a generally chilling effect. This is essentially the same approach that Zefr has taken in repeatedly alleging that I have committed multiple policy breaches by simply reverting edits which are contrary to talk page consensus.

As far as I can see it is all just bully boy tactics, plain and simple. Axad12 (talk) 14:18, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

And there's the general WP:OWN behaviors by Zefr like having presented expectations to others to present changes to them before editing and stating Statements of facts supported by reliable sources do not need talk page consensus. to justify their own changes against consensus in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Breyers#c-Zefr-20241123214600-Graywalls-20241120204600 which they had to be corrected by Aoidh and PhilKnight. There's general consensus over a handful of editors to have some mention of propylene glycol, which is a sourced information. I feel Zefr is trying to single handedly suppress it. Graywalls (talk) 13:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way @Zefr:, the Cullen and BD being admins don't lend additional weight to content related disagreement. The term "antifreeze" is currently not in the article. Graywalls (talk) 18:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2024).

Administrator changes

Sennecaster

CheckUser changes

Worm That Turned

Ferret

Oversight changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

Following an RFC, Wikipedia:Notability (species) was adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.
A request for comment is open to discuss whether admins should be advised to warn users rather than issue no-warning blocks to those who have posted promotional content outside of article space.

Technical news

The Nuke feature also now provides links to the userpage of the user whose pages were deleted, and to the pages which were not selected for deletion, after page deletions are queued. This enables easier follow-up admin-actions.

Arbitration

Following the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been elected to the Arbitration Committee: CaptainEek, Daniel, Elli, KrakatoaKatie, Liz, Primefac, ScottishFinnishRadish, Theleekycauldron, Worm That Turned.

Miscellaneous

A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2025 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles and redirects in the new pages feed. Sign up here to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:47, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

CS1 error on R-salt

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page R-salt, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

A missing title error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 02:18, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Gigantic Announcement about LTA IPs of zoo articles being closed!

You are guilty because the 2-week range-block is closed for good. Thank you so much for closing the LTA IPs of zoo articles and more but we have one more thing. There will be no more LTA on every article (including zoos and more). There will be non-LTA IPs to do the job to add more species. 2409:40F3:1D:85BF:244F:7179:236B:7BB (talk) 04:27, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-03

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

Weekly highlight

The Single User Login system is being updated over the next few months. This is the system which allows users to fill out the login form on one Wikimedia site and get logged in on all others at the same time. It needs to be updated because of the ways that browsers are increasingly restricting cross-domain cookies. To accommodate these restrictions, login and account creation pages will move to a central domain, but it will still appear to the user as if they are on the originating wiki. The updated code will be enabled this week for users on test wikis. This change is planned to roll out to all users during February and March. See the SUL3 project page for more details and a timeline.

Updates for editors

On wikis with PageAssessments installed, you can now filter search results to pages in a given WikiProject by using the inproject: keyword. (These wikis: Arabic Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, English Wikivoyage, French Wikipedia, Hungarian Wikipedia, Nepali Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Chinese Wikipedia) [10]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Tigre (w:tig:) [11]
View all 35 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, there was a bug with updating a user's edit-count after making a rollback edit, which is now fixed. [12]

Updates for technical contributors

Wikimedia REST API users, such as bot operators and tool maintainers, may be affected by ongoing upgrades. Starting the week of January 13, we will begin rerouting some page content endpoints from RESTbase to the newer MediaWiki REST API endpoints for all wiki projects. This change was previously available on testwiki and should not affect existing functionality, but active users of the impacted endpoints may raise issues directly to the MediaWiki Interfaces Team in Phabricator if they arise.
Toolforge tool maintainers can now share their feedback on Toolforge UI, an initiative to provide a web platform that allows creating and managing Toolforge tools through a graphic interface, in addition to existing command-line workflows. This project aims to streamline active maintainers’ tasks, as well as make registration and deployment processes more accessible for new tool creators. The initiative is still at a very early stage, and the Cloud Services team is in the process of collecting feedback from the Toolforge community to help shape the solution to their needs. Read more and share your thoughts about Toolforge UI.
For tool and library developers who use the OAuth system: The identity endpoint used for OAuth 1 and OAuth 2 returned a JSON object with an integer in its sub field, which was incorrect (the field must always be a string). This has been fixed; the fix will be deployed to Wikimedia wikis on the week of January 13. [13]
Many wikis currently use Cite CSS to render custom footnote markers in Parsoid output. Starting January 20 these rules will be disabled, but the developers ask you to not clean up your MediaWiki:Common.css until February 20 to avoid issues during the migration. Your wikis might experience some small changes to footnote markers in Visual Editor and when using experimental Parsoid read mode, but if there are changes these are expected to bring the rendering in line with the legacy parser output. [14]

Meetings and events

The next meeting in the series of Wikimedia Foundation Community Conversations with the Wikimedia Commons community will take place on January 15 at 8:00 UTC and at 16:00 UTC. The topic of this call is defining the priorities in tool investment for Commons. Contributors from all wikis, especially users who are maintaining tools for Commons, are welcome to attend.

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:39, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 21:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

P.S. I am very sorry for the lateness. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 21:26, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, DaniloDaysOfOurLives! DMacks (talk) 03:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Hexamethylenetetramine

Hi, regarding https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hexamethylenetetramine&diff=next&oldid=1270709403, couldn’t we make it balanced instead of outright reverting, since the information about the intermediary chemicals is not otherwise available? As far as I can tell, the only unbalanced equation is the last one, missing the other three H₂O. Is that right?

Thanks.

Spidermario (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, the + 3 NH₃ on the last line is my mistake. It should indeed be just one. Spidermario (talk) 22:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I have updated the file. Is it better? Spidermario (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-04

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

Updates for editors

Administrators can mass-delete multiple pages created by a user or IP address using Extension:Nuke. It previously only allowed deletion of pages created in the last 30 days. It can now delete pages from the last 90 days, provided it is targeting a specific user or IP address. [15]
On wikis that use the Patrolled edits feature, when the rollback feature is used to revert an unpatrolled page revision, that revision will now be marked as "manually patrolled" instead of "autopatrolled", which is more accurate. Some editors that use filters on Recent Changes may need to update their filter settings. [16]
View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Visual Editor's "Insert link" feature did not always suggest existing pages properly when an editor started typing, which has now been fixed.

Updates for technical contributors

The Structured Discussion extension (also known as Flow) is being progressively removed from the wikis. This extension is unmaintained and causes issues. It will be replaced by DiscussionTools, which is used on any regular talk page. The last group of wikis (Catalan Wikiquote, Wikimedia Finland, Goan Konkani Wikipedia, Kabyle Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikibooks, Wikimedia Sweden) will soon be contacted. If you have questions about this process, please ping Trizek (WMF) at your wiki. [17]
The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available. This edition includes: updates about services from the Data Platform Engineering teams, information about Codex from the Design System team, and more.

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-05

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

Weekly highlight

Patrollers and admins - what information or context about edits or users could help you to make patroller or admin decisions more quickly or easily? The Wikimedia Foundation wants to hear from you to help guide its upcoming annual plan. Please consider sharing your thoughts on this and 13 other questions to shape the technical direction for next year.

Updates for editors

iOS Wikipedia App users worldwide can now access a personalized Year in Review feature, which provides insights based on their reading and editing history on Wikipedia. This project is part of a broader effort to help welcome new readers as they discover and interact with encyclopedic content.
Edit patrollers now have a new feature available that can highlight potentially problematic new pages. When a page is created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted, a tag ('Recreated') will now be added, which users can filter for in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. [18]
Later this week, there will be a new warning for editors if they attempt to create a redirect that links to another redirect (a double redirect). The feature will recommend that they link directly to the second redirect's target page. Thanks to the user SomeRandomDeveloper for this improvement. [19]
Wikimedia wikis allow WebAuthn-based second factor checks (such as hardware tokens) during login, but the feature is fragile and has very few users. The MediaWiki Platform team is temporarily disabling adding new WebAuthn keys, to avoid interfering with the rollout of SUL3 (single user login version 3). Existing keys are unaffected. [20]
View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

For developers that use the MediaWiki History dumps: The Data Platform Engineering team has added a couple of new fields to these dumps, to support the Temporary Accounts initiative. If you maintain software that reads those dumps, please review your code and the updated documentation, since the order of the fields in the row will change. There will also be one field rename: in the mediawiki_user_history dump, the anonymous field will be renamed to is_anonymous. The changes will take effect with the next release of the dumps in February. [21]

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MediaWiki message delivery 22:12, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Maqubela

Thanks for your help on the Temba Maqubela BLP issue. Would it be appropriate to blank the talk page at some later time? I understand we're supposed to immediately remove BLP issues from main pages, but as you know, the original editor replicated their now-reverted main page edits on the talk page, and I wasn't sure what the procedures were for talk pages. I'd imagine similar privacy concerns apply, but I'd value your input. Namelessposter (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi User:Namelessposter. I think that talkpage is reasonable to remain for another day or so, but then blanked once there is no further discussion of it. My reasoning is that it's not totally made-up facts, but instead unsupported synthesis and negative spin of seemingly cited facts. For these sorts of edge-cases, talkpage is a place to move towards valid content, but if it's not moving towards valid content, BLP-no-no-harm. DMacks (talk) 19:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! Namelessposter (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Seeing no further activity from that editor at all and nobody else commenting, I've blanked that stale topic. DMacks (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Much obliged, DMacks. Namelessposter (talk) 01:01, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, they're back. Namelessposter (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Super:/ Thanks for responding (there and here)...my Real Life might be a little crazy this week. DMacks (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Not sure about action to take about this editor

You reverted them here.Special:Diff/1252289252 Their second edit ever changed the text in a way that contradicted the sources.[22] One edit particularly heinous was caught by a filter. Their edits to The Heritage Fund look pretty pov. I've raised the source for this[23] at RSN. This[24] contradicts the source. I gave them the AP CT alert on the 18th. AE? Doug Weller talk 09:50, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

They definitely have a POV problem. Given the CTOP notice, I think the edit-warring over the objectionable content at Man's World (periodical) and Jonathan Keeperman is enough for a block. And blatant failure to understand that we are enwiki exacerbates that it's a behavior or competence problem with the editor. AE if you like, could be useful if you want to bring in the other edits as part of an overall pattern. DMacks (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-06

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

Updates for editors

Editors who use the "Special characters" editing-toolbar menu can now see the 32 special characters you have used most recently, across editing sessions on that wiki. This change should help make it easier to find the characters you use most often. The feature is in both the 2010 wikitext editor and VisualEditor. [25]
Editors using the 2010 wikitext editor can now create sublists with correct indentation by selecting the line(s) you want to indent and then clicking the toolbar buttons.[26] You can now also insert <code> tags using a new toolbar button.[27] Thanks to user stjn for these improvements.
Help is needed to ensure the citation generator works properly on each wiki.
- (1) Administrators should update the local versions of the page MediaWiki:Citoid-template-type-map.json to include entries for preprint, standard, and dataset; Here are example diffs to replicate for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'.
- (2.1) If the citoid map in the citation template used for these types of references is missing, one will need to be added. (2.2) If the citoid map does exist, the TemplateData will need to be updated to include new field names. Here are example updates for 'preprint' and for 'standard' and 'dataset'. The new fields that may need to be supported are archiveID, identifier, repository, organization, repositoryLocation, committee, and versionNumber. [28]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Central Kanuri (w:knc:) [29]
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the OCR (optical character recognition) tool used for Wikisource now supports a new language, Church Slavonic. [30]

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2025).

Administrator changes

Euryalus

CheckUser changes

Oversighter changes

Technical news

Administrators can now nuke pages created by a user or IP address from the last 90 days, up from the initial 30 days. T380846
A 'Recreated' tag will now be added to pages that were created with the same title as a page which was previously deleted and it can be used as a filter in Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages. T56145

Arbitration

The arbitration case Palestine-Israel articles 5 has been closed.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

This Month in Education: January 2025

This Month in Education

Volume 14 • Issue 1 • January 2025

Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue

About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 15:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial

On the talk page, there is discussion about a merger in lieu of deletion. Bearian (talk) 00:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Concerning an IP user

Hi! There's an IP user who's been warned multiple times for vandalism/disruptive editing, and I just reverted an edit of theirs on Rathnam (film) that had unsourced content, and considering the last warning they got was vandalism level 4 by you (why I'm putting this on your talk page haha), I'm not sure how to proceed with them. If you could help me out it'd be greatly appreciated :)

Thank you! Ame ★ ✧ 09:14, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Blocked. Thanks for patrolling and letting me know! Another approach is the centralized WP:AIV notice-board if you don't have a specific admin in mind to alert. DMacks (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay great!! Thank you so much :D Ame ★ ✧ 02:43, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-07

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

Weekly highlight

The Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has published a draft of their recommendations for the Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology department. They have recommended focusing on mobile experiences, particularly contributions. They request community feedback at the talk page by 21 February.

Updates for editors

The "Special pages" portlet link will be moved from the "Toolbox" into the "Navigation" section of the main menu's sidebar by default. This change is because the Toolbox is intended for tools relating to the current page, not tools relating to the site, so the link will be more logically and consistently located. To modify this behavior and update CSS styling, administrators can follow the instructions at T385346. [31]
As part of this year's work around improving the ways readers discover content on the wikis, the Web team will be running an experiment with a small number of readers that displays some suggestions for related or interesting articles within the search bar. Please check out the project page for more information.
Template editors who use TemplateStyles can now customize output for users with specific accessibility needs by using accessibility related media queries (prefers-reduced-motion, prefers-reduced-transparency, prefers-contrast, and forced-colors). Thanks to user Bawolff for these improvements. [32]
View all 22 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the global blocks log will now be shown directly on the Special:CentralAuth page, similarly to global locks, to simplify the workflows for stewards. [33]

Updates for technical contributors

Wikidata now supports a special language as a "default for all languages" for labels and aliases. This is to avoid excessive duplication of the same information across many languages. If your Wikidata queries use labels, you may need to update them as some existing labels are getting removed. [34]
The function getDescription was invoked on every Wiki page read and accounts for ~2.5% of a page's total load time. The calculated value will now be cached, reducing load on Wikimedia servers. [35]
As part of the RESTBase deprecation effort, the /page/related endpoint has been blocked as of February 6, 2025, and will be removed soon. This timeline was chosen to align with the deprecation schedules for older Android and iOS versions. The stable alternative is the "morelike" action API in MediaWiki, and a migration example is available. The MediaWiki Interfaces team can be contacted for any questions. [36]

In depth

The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: Updates about the "Contribute" menu; details on some of the newest language editions of Wikipedia; details on new languages supported by the MediaWiki interface; updates on the Community-defined lists feature; and more.
The latest Chart Project newsletter is available. It includes updates on the progress towards bringing better visibility into global charts usage and support for categorizing pages in the Data namespace on Commons.

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Temba Maqubela redux

Sorry to bother you again, but the Temba Maqubela editor is back with a new citation.

This citation is technically on the Associated Press website, but is labeled as "paid content from EIN Newswire | Newsmatics". The article on the site was published on February 13, 2025 and submitted by "EdSpread." It says that a study of various boarding schools was produced based on IRS disclosures, that Maqubela's family's pay has gone up, and that Maqubela's Groton has the lowest "transparency score" in the dataset. The article does not link to the study or provide an EdSpread website, but apparently one can contact EdSpread via EIN Newswire. Namelessposter (talk) 18:52, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

No evidence of reliability of edspread (or even any real digital footprint at all?), and EIN Newswire is consensus as a non-notable organization. I nuked it. I landed a level-4 warning on the editor's talk-page, so the next time it will be a block with the weight of enforcing an arbcom CTOP decision behind it. DMacks (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-08

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

Weekly highlight

Communities using growth tools can now showcase one event on the Special:Homepage for newcomers. This feature will help newcomers to be informed about editing activities they can participate in. Administrators can create a new event to showcase at Special:CommunityConfiguration. To learn more about this feature, please read the Diff post, have a look at the documentation, or contact the Growth team.

Updates for editors

Starting next week, talk pages at these wikis – Spanish Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia, Japanese Wikipedia – will get a new design. This change was extensively tested as a Beta feature and is the last step of talk pages improvements. [37]
You can now navigate to view a redirect page directly from its action pages, such as the history page. Previously, you were forced to first go to the redirect target. This change should help editors who work with redirects a lot. Thanks to user stjn for this improvement. [38]
When a Cite reference is reused many times, wikis currently show either numbers like "1.23" or localized alphabetic markers like "a b c" in the reference list. Previously, if there were so many reuses that the alphabetic markers were all used, an error message was displayed. As part of the work to modernize Cite customization, these errors will no longer be shown and instead the backlinks will fall back to showing numeric markers like "1.23" once the alphabetic markers are all used.
The log entries for each change to an editor's user-groups are now clearer by specifying exactly what has changed, instead of the plain before and after listings. Translators can help to update the localized versions. Thanks to user Msz2001 for these improvements.
A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to mass delete pages, to enable users to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. [39]
Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. Thanks to user MolecularPilot for this and the previous improvements. [40]
View all 25 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the configuration for the AV1 video file format, which enables these files to play again. [41]

Updates for technical contributors

Parsoid Read Views is going to be rolling out to most Wiktionaries over the next few weeks, following the successful transition of Wikivoyage to Parsoid Read Views last year. For more information, see the Parsoid/Parser Unification project page. [42][43]
Developers of tools that run on-wiki should note that mw.Uri is deprecated. Tools requiring mw.Uri must explicitly declare mediawiki.Uri as a ResourceLoader dependency, and should migrate to the browser native URL API soon. [44]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:19, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Frenkisswen

You haven't actually made a bolded !vote yet at ANI - was that intentional? PamD 10:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

It was...I didn't see any specific proposal of what to do--neither in the ANI nor on their user-talkpage--just that "something needs to be done". I added some thought now. DMacks (talk) 17:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-09

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

Updates for editors

Administrators can now customize how the Babel feature creates categories using Special:CommunityConfiguration/Babel. They can rename language categories, choose whether they should be auto-created, and adjust other settings. [45]
The wikimedia.org portal has been updated – and is receiving some ongoing improvements – to modernize and improve the accessibility of our portal pages. It now has better support for mobile layouts, updated wording and links, and better language support. Additionally, all of the Wikimedia project portals, such as wikibooks.org, now support dark mode when a reader is using that system setting. [46][47][48]
One new wiki has been created: a Wiktionary in Santali (wikt:sat:) [49]
View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed that prevented clicking on search results in the web-interface for some Firefox for Android phone configurations. [50]

Meetings and events

The next Language Community Meeting is happening soon, February 28th at 14:00 UTC. This week's meeting will cover: highlights and technical updates on keyboard and tools for the Sámi languages, Translatewiki.net contributions from the Bahasa Lampung community in Indonesia, and technical Q&A. If you'd like to join, simply sign up on the wiki page.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:38, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Citing

When identifying words and their meaning do we not cite the information where it came from and if the words means something else? If it contradicts the actual meaning of a commonly used word from another country is it safe to say well this is what I feel it means? DavidElsh04 (talk) 13:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Editors are not permitted to use their opinions or personal novel analysis of situations. That's against WP:OR policy. DMacks (talk) 22:57, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

So this is all based on an opinion why is it still being referred to when it’s not accurate: MAGAT", (MAGATs), a derogatory term used for supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, named for his use of the slogan "Make America Great Again" (MAGA); also appearing as "magat", "magats"; the term is a homophone of "maggot". The term “MAGAT” is also an acronym for “MAGA Terrorist” DavidElsh04 (talk) 03:21, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Please raise concerns about an article's content on that article's talk-page. DMacks (talk) 04:49, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-10

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

Updates for editors

All logged-in editors using the mobile view can now edit a full page. The "Edit full page" link is accessible from the "More" menu in the toolbar. This was previously only available to editors using the Advanced mobile contributions setting. [51]
Interface administrators can now help to remove the deprecated Cite CSS code matching "mw-ref" from their local MediaWiki:Common.css. The list of wikis in need of cleanup, and the code to remove, can be found with this global search and in this example, and you can learn more about how to help on the CSS migration project page. The Cite footnote markers ("[1]") are now rendered by Parsoid, and the deprecated CSS is no longer needed. The CSS for backlinks ("mw:referencedBy") should remain in place for now. This cleanup is expected to cause no visible changes for readers. Please help to remove this code before March 20, after which the development team will do it for you.
When editors embed a file (e.g. [[File:MediaWiki.png]]) on a page that is protected with cascading protection, the software will no longer restrict edits to the file description page, only to new file uploads.[52] In contrast, transcluding a file description page (e.g. {{:File:MediaWiki.png}}) will now restrict edits to the page.[53]
When editors revert a file to an earlier version it will now require the same permissions as ordinarily uploading a new version of the file. The software now checks for 'reupload' or 'reupload-own' rights,[54] and respects cascading protection.[55]
When administrators are listing pages for deletion with the Nuke tool, they can now also list associated talk pages and redirects for deletion, alongside pages created by the target, rather than needing to manually delete these pages afterwards. [56]
The previously noted update to Single User Login, which will accommodate browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies by moving login and account creation to a central domain, will now roll out to all users during March and April. The team plans to enable it for all new account creation on Group0 wikis this week. See the SUL3 project page for more details and an updated timeline.
Since last week there has been a bug that shows some interface icons as black squares until the page has fully loaded. It will be fixed this week. [57]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Sylheti (w:syl:) [58]
View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed with loading images in very old versions of the Firefox browser on mobile. [59]

Updates for technical contributors

Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Takes one to know one

@Graeme Bartlett: What about Turnbull or Osprey for admin? They both have contributed a lot, possess smooth but not bland personalities, and have skills related to the WP machinery (I lack that gene). Apologies if this querry is inappropriate. --Smokefoot (talk) 00:19, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

If they don't get angry and do crazy stuff, then opposition will be weak. Candidates should also be careful, know their limits, be involved in a range of administrative connected work, such as AFDs, tagging for deletion, rescuing other's hopeless work, etc. Being an admin you sometime will be abused, so candidates have to be able to take that too. I have not yet looked at Turnbull or Osprey to see if either meets those criteria. But admin elections can also get people over the line without an intensive debate on one person. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:33, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Don't bother to investigate me, I don't want to be an admin as I'm quite happy with doing what I do when I want to do it. However, thanks for the thought. Mike Turnbull (talk) 11:53, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Definitely a valid question, Smokefoot, and a good idea to feel out the situation informally. I would support either of those, but I am not very active in the RFA realm to know some of its details. Something like experience with bits of "WP machinery" (I like that phrase!) is definitely a good quality, since it speaks to having a valuable use for the admin tools (though mere desire to be able to provide more advanced/specialized help in any area is good). I have not investigated either of these two editors in detail. Given Turnbull's comment here, I would now only look at him if he or someone actually wanted feedback for some other reason; I can look at Osprey over the next day or two. Things I'd look for are:

Interactions with other editors
- Onboarding or other guidance of new editors
- As a party to a diagreement or as a third-opinion for a disagreement among others
Discussions of admin or admin-adjacent things
- Comments on AN*
- Policy/guideline discussion or updates with user-facing implications
- Admin-involved arenas like SPI fringe notice-boards where admin tools are often involved

Definitely not all of those are required areas of high activity (there's enough to do that anyone can choose where to be active). DMacks (talk) 13:17, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2025).

Administrator changes

CheckUser changes

Oversighter changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

A request for comment is open to discuss whether AI-generated images (meaning those wholly created by generative AI, not human-created images modified with AI tools) should be banned from use in articles.
A series of 22 mini-RFCs that double-checked consensus on some aspects and improved certain parts of the administrator elections process has been closed (see the summary of the changes).
A request for comment is open to gain consensus on whether future administrator elections should be held.

Technical news

A new filter has been added to the Special:Nuke tool, which allows administrators to filter for pages in a range of page sizes (in bytes). This allows, for example, deleting pages only of a certain size or below. T378488
Non-administrators can now check which pages are able to be deleted using the Special:Nuke tool. T376378

Miscellaneous

The 2025 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, Arcticocean, Ameisenigel, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, Galahad, Nehaoua, Renvoy, Revi C., RoySmith, Teles and Zafer as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
Following the 2025 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: 1234qwer1234qwer4, AramilFeraxa, Daniuu, KonstantinaG07, MdsShakil and XXBlackburnXx.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:37, 4 March 2025 (UTC)