User talk:DMacks

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Erich Clar page

I want to include a synthetic reaction that is known as Clar's reaction. It is of a certain class of cyclic ketones that condense with themselves when heated to 400 C in a mixture of zinc dust and zinc chloride.

I will add references and a description of what it is used for in synthesizing new polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Administrators' newsletter – January 2026

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

Administrator changes

Fathoms Below

CheckUser changes

Oversight changes

Guideline and policy news

All general sanctions imposed by the community may now be enforced at the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard (WP:AE) as a result of a recent RfC.
Due to the result of a recent RFC, the administrator recall process is amended to extend the deadline for a re-request for adminship to 30 days or the next administrator election, whichever is later.
Changes to the Access to Temporary Account IP Addresses Policy's disclosure rules include broadening the consecutive-blocks exception to cover all admin actions and removing the requirement to revision-delete permissible disclosures once they become unnecessary (instead requiring only their removal). See WP:TAIVDISCLOSE for more information.

Arbitration

Following the 2025 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been elected to the Arbitration Committee: Aoidh, Asilvering, Girth Summit, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, HouseBlaster, Izno, Sdrqaz, SilverLocust.
The arbitration case Pbsouthwood has been suspended.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:29, 8 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2026-03

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 Wikimedia Foundation has shared some guiding questions for the July 2026–June 2027 Annual Plan on Meta and Diff. These focus on global trends, faster and healthier experimentation, better support for newcomers, strengthening editors and advanced users, improving collaboration across projects, and growing and retaining readership. Feedback and ideas are welcome on the talk page.

Updates for editors

As part of the current work of Community Tech team on the Multiple watchlists project, the display of EditWatchlist will be updated as a first step towards multiple watchlists. Additionally, the pagination on Search will be updated too, as a part of the work on the Revamp pagination / page navigation wish. [1]
The Global Watchlist is a MediaWiki extension that lets you see your watchlists from different wikis on the same page. It was recently updated to look more like the regular Watchlist, such as preparing it for temporary accounts in IP masking (including rerouting user links to contributions pages), making page titles bold, and opening links in edit summaries and tags in new browser tabs. [2][3][4][5]
View all 28 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the issue where global blocks did not have the option to disable sending emails, has now been fixed, and will be available for use in the week of January 13. [6]

Updates for technical contributors

The VisualEditor citation tool and Reference Previews now support "map" as a reference type. [7]
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki/MediaWiki

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

MediaWiki message delivery 19:31, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day!

Hey, DMacks. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for January 18

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Allotropes of oxygen, a link pointing to the disambiguation page was Conformationadded.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 07:54, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Baking powder

I did some work on Baking powder, I am not a chemist. If you are chemist, could you verify the changes I made? I found errors that I corrected.

Piñanana (talk) 05:42, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2026-04

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

The tray shown on Special:Diff in mobile view has been redesigned. It is now collapsed by default, and incorporates a link to undo the edit being viewed, making it easier for mobile editors and reviewers to take action while keeping the interface uncluttered. [8]
The Global Watchlist lets you view your watchlists from multiple wikis on one page. The extension continues to improve — it now automatically determines the text direction (ensuring correct display of sites with unusual domain names) and shows detailed descriptions for log actions. Later this week, a new permanent link for page creations and CSS classes for each entry element will be added. [9][10][11][12]
View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the previously observed issue in Vector 2022, where anchor link targets were obscured by the sticky header, has now been addressed. [13]

Updates for technical contributors

As mentioned in the October 2025 deprecation announcement, MediaWiki Interfaces team will begin sunsetting all transform endpoints containing a trailing slash from the MediaWiki REST API the week of January 26. Changes are expected to roll out to all wikis on or before January 30th. All API users currently calling them are encouraged to transition to the non-trailing slash versions. Both endpoint variations can be found, compared, and tested using the REST Sandbox. If you have questions or encounter any problems, please file a ticket in Phabricator to the #MW-Interfaces-Team board.
Interactive reference documentation for the Wikimedia REST API has moved. Requests to API docs previously hosted through RESTBase (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/) are now redirected to the REST Sandbox.
The WMF Wikidata Platform team (WDP) has published its January 2026 newsletter. It includes updates on the legacy full-graph endpoint decommissioning, the User-Agent policy change, the monthly Blazegraph migration office hours, and efforts to reduce regressions caused by the legacy endpoint shutdown. As a reminder, you can subscribe to the WDP newsletter!
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Meetings and events

The Wikimedia Hackathon Northwestern Europe 2026 will take place on 13-14 March 2026 in Arnhem, the Netherlands. Applications opened mid-December and will close soon or when capacity is reached. It's a two-day, technically oriented hackathon bringing together Wikimedians from the region. Hope to see you there!

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MediaWiki message delivery 20:27, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Should synthesis be included in the articles of chemical drugs?

Hello, I'm a long-time reader, but yet a new editor of Wikipedia. I noticed that you removed the "Synthesis" section that I recently added on the page of a new drug Gepotidacin. In the version history, you said WP is not a lab manual, and patents are not reliable sources. I don't understand the first point you made. Indeed, too much details on the synthetic procedure is inappropriate, but since pages of a lot of chemicals include their synthetic procedures, and a drug is also intrinsically a chemical, isn't it good to add the synthetic pathway, especially for complex ones like gepotidacin and many other new drugs?

I'm new as an editor, so I'm not familiar with the editing conventions. Please elaborate on clarifying the point you made, thank you.

I currently recovered the Syntheis section, and to meet the RS requirement, a secondary source of a review article was used instead of the patent. If you still find the section inappropriate or undue, you can modify or delete it again, thank you. Sweet Hat 325 (talk) 09:23, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry and are already getting good advice there, so I'll leave thoughts there when I get a moment. But the main one was indeed relying on a patent. It took me a while as a new editor to recognize some of the "reliable source" rules such as that one. WP:RS is the key guideline on that topic. DMacks (talk) 18:29, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

OK

Thanks for the message. I think that you know that I dont really have "disdain" for organic synthesis, but I get your point. I will lay off sparring and get back to business. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:36, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2026-05

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

Updates for editors

Wikimedia Foundation invites comments on proposed future of the Product and Technology Advisory Council until 28 February.
All users with registered accounts can now use passkeys for two-factor authentication (2FA). Passkeys are a simple way to log in without using a second device. They verify the user's identity using a fingerprint, face scan, or a PIN code. To set up a passkey, first set up a regular 2FA method. Currently, to log in with a passkey, users must also use a password. Later this quarter, passwordless login will allow users to log in with a single click and a passkey. Users with advanced rights will also be required to have 2FA enabled. This is part of the Account Security project.
Unregistered contributors on blocked IPs or blocked IP ranges can now interact on-wiki to appeal a block by creating a temporary account to appeal a block on the user talk page, unless the "prevent this user from editing their own talk page" is enabled. This solves the problem of logged-out users unable to use the default unblock process via user talk page. [14]
View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) methods description on the management page has been updated. It is now clearer and easier for users to understand and make use of. [15]

Updates for technical contributors

A new AbuseFilter variable, account_type, has been added to provide a reliable way to determine the account type being created in the createaccount and autocreateaccount actions. As part of this change, the variable accountname has been renamed to account_name, and accountname is now deprecated. Edit filter managers should update any filters that use hardcoded account type checks or the deprecated variable. [16]
Image thumbnails that are requested in non-standard sizes, and using non-standard methods such as direct requests to upload.wikimedia.org/… will stop working in the near future. This change is to prevent ongoing external abuse by web-scrapers and bots. Some users with custom CSS/JS, Interface Admins who can fix gadgets and local skins, and Tool-authors, will need to update their code to use standard thumbnail sizes. Details, search-links, and examples of how to fix them, are available in the task.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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MediaWiki message delivery 21:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]