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The Signpost: 24 September 2012

Oliver Keyes' (User:Ironholds) defense of Wikipedia against the recent Philip Roth controversy has drawn a significant amount of attention over the last week. The problems between Roth, a widely known and acclaimed American author, and Wikipedia arose from an open letter he penned for the American magazine New Yorker, and were covered by the Signpost two weeks ago. Keyes—who wrote the piece as a prominent Wikipedian but is also a contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation—wrote a blog post on the topic, lamenting the factual errors in Roth's letter and criticizing the media for not investigating his claims: "[they took] Roth’s explanation as the truth and launched into a lengthy discussion of how we [Wikipedia] handle primary sourcing."
A paper to appear in a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (summarized in the research index) sheds new light on the English Wikipedia's declining editor growth and retention trends. The paper describes how "several changes that the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have lead to a more restrictive environment for newcomers". The number of active Wikipedia editors has been declining since 2007 and research examining data up to September 2009 has shown that the root of the problem has been the declining retention of new editors. The authors show this decline is mainly due to a decline among desirable, good-faith newcomers, and point to three factors contributing to the increasingly "restrictive environment" they face.
This week, we tinkered with WikiProject Robotics. From the project's inception in December 2007, it has served as Wikipedia's hub for building and improving articles about robots and robotics, accumulating two Featured Articles and seven Good Articles along the way. The project covers both fictitious and real-life robots, the technology that powers them, and many of the brains behind the robotics field
In the second controversy to engulf Wikimedia UK in two months, its immediate past chair Roger Bamkin has resigned from the board of the chapter. The resignation last Wednesday followed a growing furore over the conflict of interest between two of Roger's roles outside the chapter and his close involvement in the UK board's decision-making process, including the access to private mailing lists that board members in all chapters need. But the irony surrounding Roger's resignation is its connection with efforts by Wikimedians and collaborators to strengthen the reach of Wikimedia projects through technical innovation.
Late last month, the "Technology report" included a story using code review backlog figures – the only code review figures then available – to construct a rough narrative about the average experience of code contributors. This week, we hope to go one better, by looking directly at code review wait times, and, in particular, median code review times
Fourteen featured articles were promoted this week, including Dodo, along with six featured lists and five featured pictures.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...

Thanks

Thanks-for editing the info box at the Charles Crosby article. I had difficulties trying to edit info boxes.RFD (talk) 12:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

Does Wikipedia Pay? is a Signpost series seeking to illuminate paid editing, paid advocacy, for-profit Wikipedia consultants, editing public relations professionals, conflict of interest guidelines in practice, and the Wikipedians who work on these issues by speaking openly with the people involved. This week, a scandal centering around Roger Bamkin's work with Wikimedia UK and Gibraltarpedia erupted ... In light of these events, opinions on how to avoid future controversy are as important as ever. ... The Signpost spoke with Jimmy Wales to better understand how he views the paid editing environment and what he thinks is needed to improve it.
Following considerable online and media reportage on the Gibraltar controversy and a Signpost report last week, the Wikimedia UK chapter and the foundation published a joint statement on September 28: "To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK's trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK's governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest."
Five articles, three lists, and nine images were promoted to "featured" this week.
The Toolserver is an external service hosting the hundreds of webpages and scripts (collectively known as "tools") that assist Wikimedia communities in dozens of mostly menial tasks. Few people think that it has been operating well recently; the problems, which include high database replication lag and periods of total downtime, have caused considerable disruption to the Toolserver's usual functions. Those functions are highly valued by many Wikimedia communities ... In 2011, the Foundation announced the creation of Wikimedia Labs, a much better funded project that among other things aimed to mimic the Toolserver's functionality by mid-2013. At the same time, Erik Möller, the WMF's director of engineering, announced that the Foundation would no longer be supporting the Toolserver financially, but would continue to provide the same in-kind support as it had done previously.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series, we spent some time bonding with WikiProject James Bond. The project is in the unique position of having already pushed all of its primary content to Good and Featured status, including all of Ian Fleming's novels, short stories, and every film that has been released. Work has begun in earnest on the article Skyfall for the release of the new Bond film later this month. The project could still use help improving articles about Bond actors, characters, gadgets, music, video games, and related topics

Müdigkeit

Copied from my talk page.

I've adjusted your block of User:Müdigkeit, as discussed at User talk:Müdigkeit#Blocked. While I normally have a great deal of respect for your decisions, I wonder if you haven't taken this a bit personally? Because an indef-block of an established user, where there was no warning given locally, is more than a bit ... extreme. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 13:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, Philosopher. You've violated the blocking policy and administrator policy in order to substitute your decision for mine. You have not, prior to changing the block, consulted me as the blocking administrator. You've not taken it to an administrative noticeboard (at which time you would be required to notify me). You've failed to understand that an indefinite block is not the same thing as a permanent block. The indefinite block was applied to prevent further disruption by an account that has now become a cross-wiki disruptive account. Do you have any experience with cross-wiki disruptive accounts? Do you understand that the user has demonstrated escalating disruptive behaviour on German Wikipedia, and then started behaving disruptively and ignoring longstanding community practice on this project within three weeks of coming here? You're not responding in any way to an unblock request. Do you have any reason to expect that I would not have responded favourably to an unblock request from the user that undertook to refrain from attempting draconian action to alter community practices without even discussing these practices with the community? I suggest the following: reinstate the block that was in place, which was intended to be indefinite (and not permanent), and then take it to the admin noticeboard for discussion. I am going to copy this over to your talk page and to the user's talk page as well. Risker (talk) 15:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
To avoid the continued replication of this thread, I'm replying at that user's talk page. Multiple duplicate threads ... get confusing fast. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 October 2012

Wikipedia in education is far from a new idea: years of news stories, op-eds, and editorials have focused on the topic; and on Wikipedia itself, the Schools and universities projects page has existed in various forms since 2003. Over the next six years, the page was rarely developed, and when it did advance there was no clear goal in mind.
On this day five years ago, the WikiProject Report debuted as a new Signpost column with an overview of WikiProject Biography. Today, we're celebrating two milestone: five years of the WikiProject Report and the tenth birthday of our first featured project. WikiProject Biography is by far the largest WikiProject on Wikipedia, with over one million articles under the project's scope. As a comparison, WikiProject Biography is three times larger than Wikipedia's second largest project, and if WikiProject Biography were split into its 14 subprojects and work groups, it would still make the list of the 20 largest WikiProjects... four times.
This week the Signpost interviews Arsenikk, an editor of six years who has brought sixteen lists through our featured list process, mostly regarding transportation in Norway but also about the 1952 Winter Olympics and World Heritage Sites in Africa. Arsenikk tells us about why he joined the project, what moves him, and how editors can join the sometimes daunting world of featured lists.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for September 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which is edging its way towards its first deployment). Three of the seven headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: problems with the corruption of several Gerrit (code) repositories, the introduction of widespread translation memory across Wikimedia wikis, and the launch of the "Page Curation" tool on the English Wikipedia, with development work on that project now winding down. The report also drew attention to the end of Google Summer of Code 2012, the deployment to the English Wikipedia of a new ePUB (electronic book) export feature, and improvements to the WLM app aimed at more serious photographers.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include ...

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The Signpost: 15 October 2012

There is wide agreement among English Wikipedians that the administrator system is in some ways broken—but no consensus on how to fix it. Most suggestions have been relatively small in scope, and could at best produce small improvements. I would like to make a proposal to fundamentally restructure the administrator system, in a way that I believe would make it more effective and responsive. The proposal is to create an elected Administration Committee ("AdminCom") which would select, oversee, and deselect administrators.
This week saw a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal on editorial debates in Wikipedia. The story focused on the title-naming dispute surrounding the Beatles article, and specifically the RfC on whether the 'the' in the band's name should be capitalized or not.
On the English Wikipedia, five featured articles, ten featured lists, and four featured pictures were promoted, including USS Lexington, a ship built for the United States Navy that, although ordered in 1916 as a battlecruiser, was converted to an aircraft carrier. It was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea during the Second World War.
The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of US$11.4M.
A trial of the first phase of Wikimedia Deutschland's "Wikidata" project–implementing the first ever interwiki repository—may soon get underway following the successful passage of much of its code through MediaWiki's review processes this week.
This week, we experimented with WikiProject Chemicals. Started in August 2004, WikiProject Chemicals has grown to include over 10,000 articles about chemical compounds. The project has a unique assessment system that omits C-class, Good, and Featured Articles. As a result, the project's 11 GAs and 9 FAs are treated as A-class articles. WikiProject Chemicals is a child of WikiProject Chemistry (interviewed in 2009) and a parent of WikiProject Polymers.

VPT

Thanks for clarifying, and thanks for your help. Much appreciated. GiantSnowman 11:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

David J. Strachman: OTRS can help direct the person to who should handle the issue, and what evidence is needed

The Afd discussion was pointless, since the nom wasn't asking for a deletion based on notability. If nom has legal backing for the request (I don't know if Strachman has), the right people to check with would be OTRS, who would know where to forward the req. to. Churn and change (talk) 15:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the closure - the nomination was definitely premature, since the request should have been forwarded to OTRS, but unless the WMF was willing to step in with an WP:OFFICE action, the place to forward the request would be right back to AfD (which doesn't only deal with notability issues). --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
If WMF isn't willing to delete, I don't think there is anything much to it; there isn't any policy/guideline which says subjects have a special right over their articles. There is a second deletion nomination open now, by somebody who is not involved with Strachman, questioning notability. Churn and change (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Well then, I guess we agree. And yeah, I suppose I might as well take a look at the new AfD. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Watchlist removals

I just removed 2,436 items from my watchlist, including everything in article-space. I'm adding a few back, but not everything! Hopefully this will make it a little easier to manage, though I wish there was an easy way to leave the redirects and redlinks on the watchlist. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

Unlike the long-running disputes that have characterised attempts to reform the RfA process on the English Wikipedia, the German Wikipedia's tradition of making decisions not by consensus but knife-edged 50% + 1 votes has led to a fundamentally different outcome. In 2009, the project managed to largely settle the RfA mode issue in 2009 indirectly.
One clarification request concerns the civility enforcement case – specifically, Malleus Fatuorum's perceived circumvention of his topic ban. It has resulted in thousands of bytes spent in vitriolic discussions, multiple blocks, and "no confidence" motions against the Arbitration Committee and one arbitrator, among other ramifications.
Planning for Wikivoyage's migration into the WMF fold built up steam this week following a statement by WMF Deputy Director Erik Möller about what the technical side of the migration will involve. Wikivoyage, which split from sister site Wikitravel in 2006, is hoping to migrate its own not-inconsiderable user base to Wikimedia, as well as much of its content, presenting novel challenges for Wikimedia developers
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia include...
It is well known that women are underrepresented in the sciences, and that high-achieving female scientists have often been excluded from authorship lists and passed over for awards and honours solely on the basis of gender. Also significant has been the underplaying in the academic literature, news reporting, and online, of women's current and historical contributions to science.
The WikiProject Report normally brings tidings from Wikipedia's most active, inventive, and unique WikiProjects. This week, we're trying something new by focusing on Wikipedia's dark side: the various regional and national WikiProjects that are dead or dying. How can some tiny municipalities and exclaves generate highly active, cross-language, multimedia platforms be successful while the projects representing many sovereign countries and entire continents wallow in obscurity? Today, we'll search for answers among geographic projects large and small, highly active and barely functioning, enthusiastic about the future and mired in past conflicts.
Eleven articles, including one on Franz Kafka, three lists, one image, and one portal were promoted to 'featured' status this week.

Thank you!

Thanks for accepting my AWB request. I submitted the comment just after you at WP:VP(P)#Complex articles, went to check whether the request was accepted and got surprised that the request was accepted by you just before the comment was posted. It's amazing! :) ···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 00:45, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome. That is an interesting coincidence! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:11, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
And today, I saw you at the Simple talk. Its amazing! (I had switched my home page from enwp to simplewp a few days before due to slow loading of enwp so that I can login from there and then come here. I felt the Simple as a very peaceful place)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Contacting you re: your deletion of "Stevie Vann" page.

Discussing this page in [the talk page for Stevie Vann.]

I invite you to contribute to that page rather than discuss it on your talk page. It's not you I want to discuss but re-creating a wikipedia page for "Stevie Vann" but the system seems to be pointing me to contact you and I don't know how to do that other than create an entry on your talk page. Sorry if this is the wrong move just let us know and I will create an entry in the "Requests for undeletion" page. Thanks. Peter Dow (talk) 05:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Below copied from the now-deleted Talk:Stevie Vann. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
I was looking for her entry in Wikipedia and only found a reference to a deleted page for "Stevie Vann" and I want to discuss creating a page which doesn't get deleted.
The woman singer "Stevie Vann" is discussed in this source Last Fm - Stevie Vann.
In what appears to be her "official" website, she is named as "Stevie Vann Lange".
She speaks about her singing career in this video - Stevie Lange, Tell us your story!
I know her singing from the TV advert jingles she sung in the 1980s / 90s. One advert jingle in particular, the "Whoah ... Bodyform" is so famous that people of my generation have it hard-wired into our brains and is almost part of British culture. The jingle has recently been mentioned in a viral video on YouTube with more than 3,000,000 views - Bodyform - the Truth.
Anyway, does Wikipedia want to stay in denial about this singer with her ultra-famous voice? I trust not.


As an aside, the instructions given on the talk page for the deleted page (on a red background) attempting to explain whether or not to proceed to talk about a deleted page didn't make much sense to me. What did the deleted page contain? I presume my content above must be different from the deleted page. I have given sources certainly and the reasons given for deletion seem to be that no sources were given so I am reasonably sure my content must be different from the deleted page. But how can anyone, however different their comments, be 100% sure that their comment is different if the page has been deleted? The instructions in red read somewhat like a catch-22 rule to prevent anyone reviving a deleted page that someone from the Wikipedia High Command has deleted.
Anyway, I thought Wikipedia ought to have a page for this singer and I am surprised there isn't and think it is about time someone authored a page though I am not sure that I am the best person to write it but I will if no-one else does and that's OK with the editors.
Peter Dow (talk) 05:20, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
First, you were right to come here to discuss it, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, by the way. Second, there is no "Wikipedia High Command," as I'm sure you know. However, we can't make the content of deleted pages generally available since many of them appear to contain copyright violations or slander/libel and are thus in violation or potential violation of the law. Which is where "asking an admin" comes in, since we can look at the deleted pages and check them.
Stevie Vann looks like it was probably an okay article, except that it had no reliable sources. There were sources, mind you, but they were either completely unreliable - like the Geocities page - or were primary sources (sources connected to the subject of the article) - like the artist's website.
So the question is: Do you have enough sources for what you think the article should say? Can you verify the content with sources other than the artist herself? (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles, books, maybe mentions by other artists) Note particularly that claims that the artist is notable and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia must be supported by reliable secondary sources and so must controversy about her. If so, you have two choices: I can undelete the old article, which had some useful formatting and structure, or you can create your own version of the article.
Sorry for all of the hassle. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
P.S. If you think an instructional page should be clarified, you can either let me know which one and how and I'll do it or you can just be WP:BOLD and do it yourself. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I wish to quote a comment I made on Gogo Dodo's talk page as regards his deletion of my talk page.

My objection to Gogo Dodo deleting "Talk: Stevie Vann" page
Talk: Stevie Vann page I re-created because I wanted to discuss a previous deletion of the subject "Stevie Vann" page and the singer Stevie Vann herself, with a view to restoring or creating a new "Stevie Vann" page.
The criterion you quoted for a speedy deletion, G8, "21:17, 29 October 2012 Gogo Dodo (talk | contribs) deleted page Talk:Stevie Vann (G8: Talk page of a nonexistent or deleted page)" may not apply because an exclusion for talk pages without a corresponding subject page is given in Wikipedia's Criteria for speedy deletion, G8, to quote -
"This excludes any page that is useful to Wikipedia, and in particular deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere".
So "G8" may not be a valid criterion for a speedy deletion of a deletion discussion; your speedy deletion was particularly invalid I suggest because you seem to have exhibited a demonstrable disregard for the need to log the discussion elsewhere. Tut, tut.
It appears that Philosopher, with knowledge of your summary deletion of that talk page I started, it, has dug out my deleted text using his administrator abilities and pasted it into his talk page here.
So my thanks are due to Philosopher for logging my content but no thanks to you, Gogo Dodo, as you seem to have disregarded the deletion discussion I was attempting. So I object to your summary deletion but if you now restore the Talk: Stevie Vann page you deleted, perhaps suggesting why you think it ought to be deleted then we can take the discussion from there on that page, where it belongs. If you insist and refuse to reverse your deletion I intend to request elsewhere that my Talk: Steve Vann page be restored, overruling your inappropriate, invalid, heavy-handed and contemptuous abuse of administration powers.
Peter Dow (talk) 20:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


As regards the subject page, I'd be curious to read the content of the original deleted page and until I do so I could not even guess whether or not there might be sources for that original content. Would not the original author be the best person to offer sources for his / her own content? Who was the original author of the deleted page? I offered sources in my talk page content only for why I believed the singer Stevie Vann Lange is a notable person worthy of a subject page in Wikipedia. I haven't yet given any thought as to what I would write if I was the one left to author a new Stevie Vann subject page; that's not my priority right now.

No need to be sorry for the delay. I just wish administrators on Wikipedia would rather delay deleting subject pages I would have liked to read or talk pages I would like to have added to.

I'd suggest - restore the original Stevie Vann page and let all those with an interest in Stevie Vann (rather than an interest in Wikipedia administrators) discuss possible sources (and edits to remove content which can't be sourced) in the correct place for such a discussion - in the Talk: Stevie Vann page. Peter Dow (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've restored the original article (and, incidentally, its talk page). Please be aware, though, that until/unless adequate sources are added, it is going to be at some risk for deletion. As for your other comments, can I suggest that you assume good faith here? The admins are volunteers who want to build an encyclopedia, just as you are. Happy editing! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:03, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ian Jackson

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Re: Recognition

Thanks very much for the barnstar! I'm planning an entire Midwestern series, so Michigan is up next. I see you've signed up for the 2013 Wikicup. Good luck! Ruby 2010/2013 04:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thanks! --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

The first round of the Wikimedia Foundation's new financial arrangements has proceeded as planned, with the publication of scores and feedback by Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) staff on applications for funding by 11 entities—10 chapters, independent membership organisations supporting the WMF's mission in different countries, and the foundation itself. The results are preliminary assessments that will soon be put to the FDC's seven voting members and two non-voting board representatives. The FDC in turn will send its recommendations to the board of trustees on 15 November, which will announce its decision by 15 December. Funding applications have been on-wiki since 1 October, and the talk pages of applications were open for community comment and discussion from 2 to 22 October, though apart from queries by FDC staff, there was little activity.
This week, we're checking out ways to motivate editors and recognize valuable contributions by focusing on the awards and rewards of WikiProject Military History. Anyone unfamiliar with WikiProject Military History is encouraged to start at the report's first article about the project and make your way forward. While many WikiProjects provide a barnstar that can be awarded to helpful contributors, WikiProject Military History has gone a step further by creating a variety of awards with different criteria ranging from the all-purpose WikiChevrons to rewards for participating in drives and improving special topics to medals for improving articles up to A-class status to the coveted "Military Historian of the Year" award.
The TimedMediaHandler extension (TMH), which brings dramatic improvements to MediaWiki's video handling capabilities, will go live to the English Wikipedia this week following a long and turbulent development, WMF Director of Platform Engineering Rob Lanphier announced on Monday ... Wikidata.org, a new repository designed to host interwiki links, launched this week and will begin accepting links shortly. The site, which is one half of the forthcoming Wikidata trial (the other half being the Wikidata client, which will be deployed to the Hungarian Wikipedia shortly) will also act as a testing area for phase 2 of Wikidata (centralised data storage). The longer term plan is for Wikidata.org to become a "Wikimedia Commons for data" as phases 2 and 3 (dynamic lists) are developed, project managers say.
Thirteen articles, ten lists, nine images, one topic, and one portal were promoted to featured after peer reviews.
A paper in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, coming from the social control perspective and employing the repertory grid technique, has contributed interesting observations about the governance of Wikipedia.

WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), our 2012 champion! Cwmhiraeth joins our exclusive club of previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009), Sturmvogel 66 (2010) and Hurricanehink (2011). Our final standings were as follows:

  1. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
  2. Canada Sasata (submissions)
  3. Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions)
  4. Scotland Casliber (submissions)
  5. New York City Muboshgu (submissions)
  6. Wisconsin Miyagawa (submissions)
  7. Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions)
  8. Michigan Dana Boomer (submissions)

Prizes for first, second, third and fourth will be awarded, as will prizes for all those who reached the final eight. Every participant who scored in the competition will receive a ribbon of participation. In addition to the prizes based on placement, the following special prizes will be awarded based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, the prize is awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round.

Awards will be handed out in the coming days; please bear with us! This year's competition also saw fantastic contributions in all rounds, from newer Wikipedians contributing their first good or featured articles, right up to highly experienced Wikipedians chasing high scores and contributing to topics outside of their usual comfort zones. It would be impossible to name all of the participants who have achieved things to be proud of, but well done to all of you, and thanks! Wikipedia has certainly benefited from the work of this year's WikiCup participants.

Next year's WikiCup will begin in January. Currently, discussions and polls are open, and all contributions are welcome. You can also sign up for next year's competition. There will be no further newsletters this year, although brief notes may be sent out in December to remind everyone about the upcoming competition. It's been a pleasure to work with you all, and we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:38, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

New intractable COI draft

I've put up a new draft. I know your concerns were of a general nature and not over specific wording, but consider that the goal of this is to elevate the discussion on COI to more refined terminology. One goal of mine is to reduce the knee-jerk stigma of COI, and its hard association with "paid advocacy". Editors should realize that most everyone has a COI in some area or another, and refining our terms by getting rid of pejorative jargon like "COI editing" is a step toward that. I know this proposal doesn't outright do that, but by introducing better terminology based on relationships and obligations, I think it's a step in that direction. Gigs (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice/comment; replied there. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Highlights from September 2012

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for September 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
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Talkback

Hello, Philosopher. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of current members of the Iowa Senate/archive1.
Message added 03:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

TBrandley 03:57, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2023).

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open regarding amending the paid-contribution disclosure policy to add the following text: Any administrator soliciting clients for paid Wikipedia-related consulting or advising services not covered by other paid-contribution rules must disclose all clients on their userpage.

Technical news

  • Administrators can now choose to add the user's user page to their watchlist when changing the usergroups for a user. This works both via Special:UserRights and via the API. (T272294)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:41, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-41

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

Recent changes

  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Fon (w:fon:) [1]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 October. It will be on all wikis from 12 October (calendar).
  • Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Swahili Wikipedia, Walloon Wikipedia, Waray Wikipedia, Wolof Wikipedia, Kalmyk Wikipedia, Xhosa Wikipedia, Mingrelian Wikipedia, Yiddish Wikipedia, Yoruba Wikipedia, Zhuang Wikipedia, Zeelandic Wikipedia, Min Nan Wikipedia, Zulu Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [2]
  • At some wikis, newcomers are suggested images from Commons to add to articles without any images. Starting on Tuesday, newcomers at these wikis will be able to add images to unillustrated article sections. The specific wikis are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table. You can learn more about this feature. [3]
  • In the mobile web skin (Minerva) the CSS ID #page-actions will be replaced with #p-views. This change is to make it consistent with other skins and to improve support for gadgets and extensions in the mobile skin. A few gadgets may need to be updated; there are details and search-links in the task.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 14:37, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-42

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

  • The Unified login system's edge login should now be fixed for some browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera). This means that if you visit a new sister project wiki, you should be logged in automatically without the need to click "Log in" or reload the page. Feedback on whether it's working for you is welcome. [4]
  • Edit notices are now available within the MobileFrontend/Minerva skin. This feature was inspired by the gadget on English Wikipedia. See more details in T316178.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Future changes

  • In 3 weeks, in the Vector 2022 skin, code related to addPortletLink and #p-namespaces that was deprecated one year ago will be removed. If you notice tools that should appear next to the "Discussion" tab are then missing, please tell the gadget's maintainers to see instructions in the Phabricator task.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2023

Long time passing
Also: High fives, Wikipedia as a guide for counterfeiters and crossword makers, and Iskander at the UN.
The benefits of research.
These titles never make much sense even at the best of times, so why not be random?
They are still fighting.
Sounds good!
"Cite altered state" to join the distinguished ranks of CS1 templates
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-43

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

  • There is a new Language and internationalization newsletter, written quarterly. It contains updates on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects, and related support work.
  • Source map support has been enabled on all wikis. When you open the debugger in your browser's developer tools, you should be able to see the unminified JavaScript source code. [5]

Changes later this week

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

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-44

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

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).
  • Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 2 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for many languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [6][7]
  • Starting November 1, the impact module (Special:Impact) will be upgraded by the Growth team. The new impact module shows newcomers more data regarding their impact on the wiki. It was tested by a few wikis during the last few months. [8]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 November newsletter

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, Delaware BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

  • Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
  • England Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
  • Delaware BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
  • Berkelland LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
  • MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
  • Ukraine Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

"Is this an ArbCom case request or an M. Night Shyamalan movie?"
Plus Gaza bias, Speaker Johnson, Maher, the music of websites, and antisemitism.
And three new admins!
You should learn some of our rules!
The winner is...
Do you ever wonder where Wikipedia articles come from?
And other new research findings.
Only literally.
A systematic approach.
Plus Kollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon, and ongoing war.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:44, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-45

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

  • In the Vector 2022 skin, the default font-size of a number of navigational elements (tagline, tools menu, navigational links, and more) has been increased slightly to match the font size used in page content. [9]

Problems

  • Last week, there was a problem displaying some recent edits on a few wikis, for 1-6 hours. The edits were saved but not immediately shown. This was due to a database problem. [10]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).
  • The Growth team will reassign newcomers from former mentors to the currently active mentors. They have also changed the notification language to be more user-friendly. [11][12]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

added 0xDeadbeef
readded Tamzin
removed Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

added Pppery
removed

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
  • Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
  • Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
  • Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
  • Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
  • Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
  • An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-46

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

  • Last week, users who previously visited Meta-Wiki or Wikimedia Commons and then became logged out on those wikis could not log in again. The problem is now resolved. [17]
  • Last week, some pop-up dialogs and menus were shown with the wrong font size. The problem is now resolved. [18]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

  • Reference Previews are coming to many wikis as a default feature. They are popups for references, similar to the PagePreviews feature. You can opt out of seeing them. If you are using the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews. Deployment is planned for November 22, 2023.
  • Canary (also known as heartbeat) events will be produced into Wikimedia event streams from December 11. Streams users are advised to filter out these events, by discarding all events where meta.domain == "canary". Updates to Pywikibot or wikimedia-streams will discard these events by default. [19]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

Comic-con, Media summit, and a classic!
Plus: Sockpuppet investigators asking for help.
Or if it's Indian sport or cinema.
And other new research findings.
Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2024 are now open!
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-47

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

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [20][21]
  • Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Quechua Wikipedia, Romansh Wikipedia, Romani Wikipedia, Rundi Wikipedia, Aromanian Wikipedia, Tarandíne Wikipedia, Rusyn Wikipedia, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sakha Wikipedia, Santali Wikipedia, Sardinian Wikipedia, Sicilian Wikipedia, Scots Wikipedia, Sindhi Wikipedia, Northern Sami Wikipedia, Sango Wikipedia, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, Sinhala Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Slovenian Wikipedia, Samoan Wikipedia, Somali Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Serbian Wikipedia, Sranan Tongo Wikipedia, Swati Wikipedia, Southern Sotho Wikipedia, Saterland Frisian Wikipedia, Sundanese Wikipedia, Silesian Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Tulu Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Tetum Wikipedia, Tajik Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia, Tagalog Wikipedia, Tswana Wikipedia, Tongan Wikipedia, Tok Pisin Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Tatar Wikipedia, Twi Wikipedia, Tahitian Wikipedia, Tuvinian Wikipedia, Udmurt Wikipedia, Uyghur Wikipedia, Uzbek Wikipedia, Venda Wikipedia, Venetian Wikipedia, Veps Wikipedia, West Flemish Wikipedia, Volapük Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [22][23][24]
  • The Vector 2022 skin will have some minor visual changes to drop-down menus, column widths, and more. These changes were added to four Wikipedias last week. If no issues are found, these changes will proceed to all wikis this week. These changes will make it possible to add new menus for readability and dark mode. Learn more. [25]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-48

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

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 November. It will be on all wikis from 30 November (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [26][27]
  • MediaWiki's JavaScript system will now allow async/await syntax in gadgets and user scripts. Gadget authors should remember that users' browsers may not support it, so it should be used appropriately. [28]
  • The deployment of "Add a link" announced last week was postponed. It will resume this week.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 December 2023

Just as his term was ending!
Plus Apple Pay, fiction, registration, expulsion, and elimination!
An analysis of a literary mystery.
Continuing years of efforts to improve free-to-read access.
"I think we ought to read only the kind of comics that wound or stab us. If the comic we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?" — Franz Kafka
And so are you.
Quite literally, and other fascinating featured articles, pictures and lists
If you don't fancy the sport that occupies over 25% of the slots in these lists, there's always movies, celebrities, and political follies to fall back on – or an unusual fired-for-the-weekend CEO.
This page in a nutshell: Whether or not someone has denied unsavory allegations — though such a denial may not merit being given equal weight in an article — a worthless shitpost should still be included.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-49

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

Recent changes

  • The spacing between paragraphs on Vector 2022 has been changed from 7px to 14px to match the size of the text. This will make it easier to distinguish paragraphs from sentences. [29]
  • The "Sort this page by default as" feature in VisualEditor is working again. You no longer need to switch to source editing to edit {{DEFAULTSORT:...}} keywords. [30]

Changes later this week

Future changes

Events

  • Registration & Scholarship applications are now open for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024 that will take place from 3–5 May in Tallinn, Estonia. Scholarship applications are open until 5 January 2024.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

  • Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
  • The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
  • Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-50

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

  • On Wikimedia Commons, there are some minor user-interface improvements for the "choosing own vs not own work" step in the UploadWizard. This is part of the Structured Content team's project of improving UploadWizard on Commons. [34][35]

Problems

  • There was a problem showing the Newcomer homepage feature with the "impact module" and their page-view graphs, for a few days in early December. This has now been fixed. [36][37]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar). [38][39]

Future changes

  • The 2023 Developer Satisfaction Survey is seeking the opinions of the Wikimedia developer community. Please take the survey if you have any role in developing software for the Wikimedia ecosystem. The survey is open until 5 January 2024, and has an associated privacy statement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-51

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

  • The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2024 because of the holidays.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 December. It will be on all wikis from 21 December (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [40][41]
  • Starting December 18, it won't be possible to activate Structured Discussions on a user's own talk page using the Beta feature. The Beta feature option remains available for users who want to deactivate Structured Discussions. This is part of Structured Discussions' deprecation work. [42]
  • There will be full support for redirects in the Module namespace. The "Move Page" feature will leave an appropriate redirect behind, and such redirects will be appropriately recognized by the software (e.g. hidden from Special:UnconnectedPages). There will also be support for manual redirects. [43]

Future changes

  • The MediaWiki JavaScript documentation is moving to a new format. During the move, you can read the old docs using version 1.41. Feedback about the new site is welcome on the project talk page.
  • The Wishathon is a new initiative that encourages collaboration across the Wikimedia community to develop solutions for wishes collected through the Community Wishlist Survey. The first community Wishathon will take place from 15–17 March. If you are interested in a project proposal as a user, developer, designer, or product lead, you can register for the event and read more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

Wikipedia article histories are public records that can be easily examined, so unlike other websites, we can answer this question thoroughly.
Not the best of times for Wikipedians across the world, but there are still glimpses of hope...
Forky on forky on forky, plus a strange donation scheme and other interesting bits of news.
Wiki goes dark and adopts Palestine flag logo; intellectual property rumblings from the bowels of the law.
Wikimedia Russia closes after founder is declared a "foreign agent".
No more must Wikipedia always be a lightbulb in the dark — except metaphorically of course.
And other new research publications.
Peace on earth, goodwill to all!
the dilution makes it stronger.
The Signpost Crossword is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game that takes place in space-themed settings where players are colorful, armless cartoon astronauts.
Bollywood, Hollywood, and both kinds of football to close out December.
The debugging will continue until performance improves.
Heartwarming — MUST READ — You Won't BELIEVE #4!!!!!
Winner receives a special prize!
Edit summary: "Only need this page for about 30 minutes to demonstrate to a friend how easy it is to create a Wikipedia page. Then it will be deleted."
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2024 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-02

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

  • mediawiki2latex is a tool that converts wiki content into the formats of LaTeX, PDF, ODT, and EPUB. The code now runs many times faster due to recent improvements. There is also an optional Docker container you can install on your local machine.
  • The way that Random pages are selected has been updated. This will slowly reduce the problem of some pages having a lower chance of appearing. [44]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 January. It will be on all wikis from 11 January (calendar). [45][46]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:18, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024

The Signpost can now drink beer and chant slogans in Canada. What slogans should we chant for the next nineteen years?
Mickey & You: What can you do?
A techie looks at the big questions.
Let the games begin! The 2024 WikiCup is off to a strong start. With copyright enforcement, AI training and freedom of expression, it's another typical week in the wiki-sphere!
The first of two installments, regarding a process of many installments.
Watch out for those space ships!
What are the editorial processes behind covering some of the most politically polarizing and contentious topics on English Wikipedia?
Rest in peace.
Around the world in 365 days (with many stops in India).
The good news is that I've perfected the templates that allow other people to make actually good crosswords.
Getting down to brass tacks &c.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

"CAT:LIP" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect CAT:LIP has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 January 12 § CAT:LIP until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 18:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-03

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

  • Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. [47]
  • Gadgets and personal user scripts may now use JavaScript syntax introduced in ES6 (also known as "ES2015") and ES7 ("ES2016"). MediaWiki validates the source code to protect other site functionality from syntax errors, and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers. Previously, Gadgets could use the requiresES6 option. This option is no longer needed and will be removed in the future. [48]
  • Bot passwords and owner-only OAuth consumers can now be restricted to allow editing only specific pages. [49]
  • You can now thank edits made by bots. [50]
  • An update on the status of the Community Wishlist Survey for 2024 has been published. Please read and give your feedback.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 January. It will be on all wikis from 18 January (calendar). [51][52]
  • Starting on January 17, it will not be possible to login to Wikimedia wikis from some specific old versions of the Chrome browser (versions 51–66, released between 2016 and 2018). Additionally, users of iOS 12, or Safari on Mac OS 10.14, may need to login to each wiki separately. [53]
  • The jquery.cookie module was deprecated and replaced with the mediawiki.cookie module last year. A script has now been run to replace any remaining uses, and this week the temporary alias will be removed. [54]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WikiProject Iowa/doc

Template:WikiProject Iowa/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 09:10, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Bot Inactivation

Hello, per WP:BOTINACTIVE your bot has not met the activity requirements and will be de-flagged unless we hear from you before October 10. If you wish to continue operating your bot please indicate so; the discussion is at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard § Inactive bots (October 2024). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC) * Pppery * it has begun... 20:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Philosopher/Archive_20&oldid=1267090204"