Jump to content

User talk:Rusty Cat

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from User talk:RustyBot)

nest ~ den ~ patrol ~ litterbox ~ pawprint gallery🐾


Question from CyberOdinn (18:56, 17 September 2025)

[edit]

Hello, I saw a community and I wanted to make an entry about them. How many members does a community need to have in order to create an entry? --CyberOdinn (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@CyberOdinn: Do you mean an online or real-world community? ~ Rusty meow ~ 21:50, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Discord Community CyberOdinn (talk) 21:01, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@CyberOdinn: I apologize for overlooking your reply earlier; there is no specific set number of members a community would need to have, but it must meet our notability guidelines. Most groups are not notable under these guidelines. ~ Rusty meow ~ 00:17, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Rusty Cat CyberOdinn (talk) 18:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – October 2025

[edit]

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

Administrator changes

removed

CheckUser changes

removed Vanamonde93

Arbitration

  • After a motion, arbitration enforcement page protections no longer need to be logged in the AELOG. A bot now automatically posts protections at WP:AELOG/P. To facilitate this bot, protection summaries must include a link to the relevant CT page (e.g. [[WP:CT/BLP]]), and you will receive talk page reminders if you forget to specify the contentious topic but otherwise indicate it is an AE action.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:58, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Yetneberk Hailu (11:50, 10 October 2025)

[edit]
Note: Yetneberk Hailu's mentor Actualcpscm is away.

I need to paste on my userbox a photo of mine taking from my Instagram page but I can not do that can you do that for me? --Yetneberk Hailu (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Yetneberk Hailu: Why do you need a photo of yourself on your userpage? ~ Rusty meow ~ 17:16, 10 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because I wanted to identify myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yetneberk Hailu (talk • contribs) 17:19, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Yetneberk Hailu: You can't paste a photo directly from somewhere else. You will have to upload it to Wikimedia Commons first. Make sure it's freely licensed! ~ Rusty meow ~ 21:56, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Gulhabibsyed on Money market account (09:59, 13 October 2025)

[edit]

i am looking my asset funds --Gulhabibsyed (talk) 09:59, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gulhabibsyed: Sorry, I can't help you with that. I'm just a Wikipedia editor. ~ Rusty meow ~ 13:54, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-42

[edit]

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

  • Last week, improvements to account security and two-factor authentication (2FA) features were enabled across all wikis. These changes include user interface improvements for Special:AccountSecurity, the support of multiple 2FA methods via authenticator apps and portable security keys (previously users could only enable one method), and a new Recovery Codes module which facilitates fewer account lockouts due to lost two-factor apps and devices. As part of the Account Security project, work is continuing through the rest of 2025 on further user experience improvements, and support for passkeys as an alternate second factor.

Updates for editors

  • Another part of the Account security project is making 2FA generally available to all users. Along with editors with advanced privileges, such as administrators and bureaucrats, 40% of editors now have access to 2FA. You can check if you have access at Special:AccountSecurity. Instructions for activation are on the linked page. The plan is to continue increasing availability if it is determined that the user support capabilities are able to support global usage. [1]
  • This week, users at wikis where talk page Usability Improvements are already available by default (everywhere except the 12 wikis listed in T379264) will gain the ability to Thank a comment directly from the talk page it appears on. Before this change, Thanking could only be done by visiting the revision history of the talk page. You can learn more about this change. [2]
  • Users who have not verified their email address will soon be receiving monthly Notification reminders to do so. This is because users who have verified their email can more easily recover their account. These reminders will not be sent if the user is inactive or removes the unverified email from their account. [3][4]
  • Recurrent item View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a fix was made for an occasional error with saving translated paragraphs in the Content Translation tool, and the related error messages are now easier to see. [5]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The Unsupported Tools Working Group has chosen Video2Commons as the first tool for its pilot cycle. The group will explore ways to improve and sustain the tool over the coming months. Learn more on Meta.
  • Recurrent item 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 18:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Dilicky (01:50, 14 October 2025)

[edit]

how do i create a new article --Dilicky (talk) 01:50, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Dilicky: You can create a new article at Wikipedia:Articles for Creation. Happy editing! ~ Rusty meow ~ 14:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Okoli Emmanuel Unimke (12:46, 15 October 2025)

[edit]

I want to know more about this group --Okoli Emmanuel Unimke (talk) 12:46, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Okoli Emmanuel Unimke: What group are you referring to? ~ Rusty meow ~ 13:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Luke Spurr Allen (18:41, 18 October 2025)

[edit]

Hey Rusty. I'm interested in editing the homepage of my band, Happy Talk Band. There are two additional records and the band lineup has changed. How do I go about that?

An old manager of the band created the page 15 or so years ago. --Luke Spurr Allen (talk) 18:41, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Luke Spurr Allen: Hello! You seem to have a conflict of interest with the article. Therefore, I'd advise you not to edit it directly; instead, submit a conflict of interest edit request on the talk page. You can do this with the Edit Request Wizard.
Also, I advise you to declare your conflict of interest, such as on your userpage.
Happy editing! ~ Rusty meow ~ 22:42, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-43

[edit]

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

  • To optimize how user data is stored in our databases, the saved preferences of users who haven't logged in for over five years and have fewer than 100 edits will be cleared. When those users return, default settings will apply. [6]
  • Recurrent item View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, there was a broken link from the GlobalContributions interface message to the XTools GlobalContributions page which has now been fixed. [7]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The work to reroute all traffic to API endpoints under the rest.php route through a common API gateway is now complete. If any issues are observed, please file a phabricator ticket to the Service Ops team board.
  • Edits to Wikidata references or qualifiers will now be shown in RecentChanges and Watchlist entries on other wikis less often, reducing unnecessary notifications. This will reduce the overall quantity of 'noisy' entries. Wikidata's own pages remain unchanged. [8]
  • Recurrent item 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 19:32, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 October 2025

[edit]
And the "Global Resource Distribution Committee" emerges.
Two shortlisted WMF Board candidates removed from the ballot.
Who was bumped and why?
...while Musk prepares to launch "Grokipedia".
Serial-killer miniseries, deceased scientist, government shutdowns and Sandalwood hit "Kantara" crowd the tubes.
Don't get too excited before you read this.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Growth News #35

[edit]

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.

New releases

[edit]

English Wikipedia gets "Add a Link" Structured Task

[edit]

We released the "Add a Link" Structured Task to 100% of accounts at English Wikipedia on Tuesday, September 2nd (before then it was available to 20% of accounts).

Growth features for Wikidata

[edit]

After examining if the Growth features and Mentorship could be adapted to Wikidata, we activated the Growth features on Beta Wikidata to allow for testing and discussion (T400937). Although some features, like Suggested Edits, are Wikipedia-specific, the Growth team designed most features to be more wiki-agnostic.

Work in progress

[edit]

Revise Tone Structured Task

[edit]

The Growth team is making progress on the technical architecture, onboarding design, and early user testing. We are targeting an A/B test before the end of this year, with constructive edits by newcomers as the primary success metric.

[edit]

The machine learning team has been working on a new model that can suggest links to more languages, including Urdu, Chinese, and Japanese Wikipedias. We are starting to release the “Add a Link” feature to Wikipedias that weren’t supported by the previous model.

Add a link, which can be configured by the community locally, increases the chance that a new contributor will make their first edit and then continue to participate in Wikipedia.

Research

[edit]

The Growth team is involved in several research initiatives to help guide our future work:

Progression System – We have published initial findings from interviews with 10 English and French Wikipedia newcomers. The research examined motivations, challenges, and feedback on a prototype system intended to help editors build confidence, develop skills, and contribute more constructively over time.

Mobile Web Editing Research – This project combines quantitative and qualitative data, community feedback, and user journey analysis to identify possible ways to enhance the mobile editing experience.

Newcomers Survey – This project surveys successful newcomers on English Wikipedia to understand their early editing experiences, tool use, and community interactions.

Community events

[edit]

The Growth team participated in several community events to listen, share, and collaborate on improving newcomer experiences across Wikimedia projects.

Wikimania - Organizers as key partners to support newcomers' growth in our movement

This session invited organizers to share how they introduce newcomers to Growth features and the challenges they encounter. The discussion focused on common newcomer questions and opportunities to strengthen collaboration in supporting new editors.

Wikimania - Lightning Talk: Structured Tasks

This talk demonstrated how Structured Tasks help newcomers take their first successful steps on Wikipedia. It shared impact data, community configurations, and a demo of “Add a Link,” illustrating how these tasks make editing more accessible and sustainable, particularly for mobile contributors.

Wikimania - Building a Sustainable Future for Wikimedia Contributors

With active editor numbers declining, the Contributors Strategy aims to create a clearer, more engaging path for participation. This session, led by the WMF Contributors group with involvement from the Editing, Growth, Moderator Tools, and Connection (formerly Campaigns) teams, highlighted efforts to streamline contributor experiences, offer structured and mobile-friendly workflows, and foster meaningful engagement. Participants learned about ongoing initiatives and shared feedback to help shape a more inclusive and sustainable future for Wikimedia contributors.

CEE Meeting - Retaining beginners and improving content moderation: an inclusive and sustainable future for Wikipedia contributors

Many communities face a decline in volunteer engagement. Newcomers often leave soon after joining, while experienced editors struggle to manage increasingly complex workflows and overwhelming backlogs. We presented the Contributors Strategy and the different features and workflows that can help communities to address these challenges. We listened to the specific needs of the CEE communities to help guide the Contributors teams' work.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

10:23, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

(This message was sent to User talk:Rusty4321 and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Question from Cretdental2025 (13:13, 22 October 2025)

[edit]

HEllo, is my username the name of the page I'm trying to create --Cretdental2025 (talk) 13:13, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cretdental2025: I'm not sure I understand you, but I'll give it my best shot.
If you are trying to create your user page, which provides information about yourself to other editors on Wikipedia, you can only create the one with your username.
However, you may create draft articles with different names than your username. You can create a new draft at WP:AFC.
Feel free to ask if you have further questions ~ Rusty meow ~ 13:57, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Zarvan33 (08:29, 25 October 2025)

[edit]

when i publish article get live --Zarvan33 (talk) 08:29, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Zarvan33: When you submit an article for review, it's only going to become "live" if it gets accepted. ~ Rusty meow ~ 14:51, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Wizardics (22:32, 25 October 2025)

[edit]

middle name - people only know the middle initial. can we say "Kenson J. Siver" or do we have to just make it Kenson Siver --Wizardics (talk) 22:32, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Wizardics: I don't think they're a specific guideline about that, so you can just do either! ~ Rusty meow ~ 02:51, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-44

[edit]

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 Wikipedia iOS app has launched an A/B/C test of improvements made to the tabbed browsing feature for select regions and languages. The test, named “More dynamic tabs”, explores new tab experiences and includes “Did you know” and “Because you read” article recommendations. You can read more on the project page.
  • Autoconfirmed users on small and medium wikis with the CampaignEvents extension can now use Event Registration without the Event Organizer right. This feature lets organizers enable registration, manage participants, and lets users register with one click instead of signing event pages.
  • Recurrent item View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the issue of flashing colors when holding or pressing the arrow keys under the dark mode settings in Vector 2022 has been fixed. [9]

Updates for technical contributors

  • The CampaignEvents extension will be deployed to all remaining wikis during the week of 17 November 2025. The extension currently includes three features: Event Registration, Collaboration List, and Invitation List. For this rollout, Invitation List will not be enabled on Wikifunctions and MediaWiki unless requested by those communities. Visit the deployment page to learn more.
  • The SwaggerUI-based REST sandbox experience is now live on all wiki projects. The sandbox can be accessed through the Special:RestSandbox page. Please report any issues to the MediaWiki Interfaces team board, or join the discussion on the project launch page. [10]
  • Transform endpoints with a trailing slash path in the MediaWiki REST API are now marked as deprecated. They will remain functional during this time, but removal is expected by the end of January 2026. All API users currently calling them are encouraged to transition to the non-trailing slash versions. Both endpoint variations can be found and tested using the REST Sandbox. See the MediaWiki REST API Deprecation page for more detailed information about the API deprecation policies and procedures.
  • A dedicated changelog now exists for the MediaWiki REST API. The changelog provides an overview of these changes, making it easier for developers to keep track of improvements and iterations. Announcements will also continue to flow through the standard communication channels, including Tech News and email distribution lists, but can now be more easily referenced from a central location. If you have feedback about the style, structure, or content of this changelog, please join the discussion.
  • Administrators can delete the tracking category which was previously added by the JsonConfig extension, as it is no longer used. See the categories linked from Q130635582. It is OK if there are still pages listed in the category as that is just a caching issue, and they will be automatically cleared out the next time each page is edited. [11]
  • Recurrent item 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 19:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Amandakclark (01:16, 28 October 2025)

[edit]

Hi Rusty - I recently edited an article where I added two separate sections, each citing the same source. That means the source is listed twice now with different numbers associated. Was this the incorrect method? --Amandakclark (talk) 01:16, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Amandakclark: When you use a source multiple times, you should click the "Re-use" option, so that the source won't be listed twice in the References section. Happy editing! ~ Rusty meow ~ 04:17, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I missed that "Re-use" button. I've corrected my citations now. Amandakclark (talk) 16:08, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to see you've fixed that up! ~ Rusty meow ~ 22:19, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from User22446688 (11:36, 29 October 2025)

[edit]

how do you edit --User22446688 (talk) 11:36, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@User22446688: Welcome to Wikipedia! You can edit by clicking the "Edit" button on a page. ~ Rusty meow ~ 13:57, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red - November 2025

[edit]
Women in Red | November 2025, Vol 11, Issue 11, Nos. 326, 327, 353, 354

Recognized as the most active topic-based WikiProject by human changes.

Online events:

Announcements:

Tip of the Month:

  • Verifiability is increasingly important as AI evolves. You should ensure that every statement made
    is adequately sourced. There should be no less than three independent reliable sources for each
    biography, including at least one source for each paragraph.

Progress ("moving the needle"):

  • Statistics available via various tools: previously, Humaniki tool; currently, QLever. Thank you if
    you contributed one or more of the 20,473 articles created in the past year.
  • 21 Oct 2024, 19.963% of biographies on EN-WP were about women (2,030,245 biographies; 405,305 women)
  • 28 Oct 2025: 20.23% of biographies on EN-WP were about women (2,094,677 biographies; 423,778 women)

Other ways to participate:

--Rosiestep (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2025 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Guide to temporary accounts

[edit]

Hello, Rusty Cat. This message is being sent to remind you of significant upcoming changes regarding logged-out editing.

Starting 4 November, logged-out editors will no longer have their IP address publicly displayed. Instead, they will have a temporary account (TA) associated with their edits. Users with some extended rights like administrators and CheckUsers, as well as users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will still be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range.

How do temporary accounts work?

Editing from a temporary account
  • When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5).
  • All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser.
  • A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with the temporary account IP viewer (TAIV) user right will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
  • As a measure against vandalism, there are two limitations on the creation of temporary accounts:
    • There has to be a minimum of 10 minutes between subsequent temporary account creations from the same IP (or /64 range in case of IPv6).
    • There can be a maximum of 6 temporary accounts created from an IP (or /64 range) within a period of 24 hours.

Temporary account IP viewer user right

How to enable IP Reveal

Impact for administrators

  • It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
  • It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
  • Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this (see a video about IPContributions in a gallery below).

Rules about IP information disclosure

  • Publicizing an IP address gained through TAIV access is generally not allowed (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 previously edited as 192.0.2.1 or ~2025-12345-67's IP address is 192.0.2.1).
  • Publicly linking a TA to another TA is allowed if "reasonably believed to be necessary". (e.g. ~2025-12345-67 and ~2025-12345-68 are likely the same person, so I am counting their reverts together toward 3RR, but not Hey ~2025-12345-68, you did some good editing as ~2025-12345-67)
  • See Wikipedia:Temporary account IP viewer § What can and can't be said for more detailed guidelines.

Useful tools for patrollers

  • It is possible to view if a user has opted-in to view temporary account IPs via the User Info card, available in Preferences → Appearance → Advanced options → Tick Enable the user info card
    • This feature also makes it possible for anyone to see the approximate count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
  • Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range.
  • Similarly, Special:GlobalContributions supports global search for a given temporary account's activity.
  • The auto-reveal feature (see video below) allows users with the right permissions to automatically reveal all IP addresses for a limited time window.

Videos

  • How to use Special:IPContributions
  • How automatic IP reveal works
  • How to use IP Info
  • How to use User Info

Further information and discussion

Most of this message was written by Mz7 (source). Thanks, 🎃 SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Ronto12 on Advanced Encryption Standard (10:13, 1 November 2025)

[edit]

false --Ronto12 (talk) 10:13, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ronto12: Is there a question you have about Wikipedia? ~ Rusty meow ~ 14:28, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WikiCup 2025 November newsletter

[edit]

The 2025 WikiCup has come to an end. Our top scorers, based on the tournament point rankings (which can be seen here), are:

  1. Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) with 1,604 tournament points, will receive the 1st place award.
  2. English Island, South Australia Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1,075 tournament points, will receive the 2nd place award.
  3. Arconning (submissions) with 860 tournament points, will receive the 3rd place award.
  4. Canada History6042 (submissions) with 804 tournament points
  5. Sammi Brie (submissions) with 635 tournament points
  6. Oklahoma TheDoctorWho (submissions) with 386 tournament points
  7. AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) with 373 tournament points
  8. Thebiguglyalien (submissions) with 362 tournament points

Our high scorers in the final round were:

  • Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) with 1,035 round points, mostly from 19 good articles and 21 did you know articles about athletes
  • vigilantcosmicpenguin (submissions) with 819 round points, mostly from 13 good articles and 11 did you know articles about a wide range of topics from abortion topics to African cities
  • TheNuggeteer (submissions) with 508 round points from 9 good articles, 4 good topic articles and 6 did you know articles mainly about Philippines topics, along with 19 good article reviews

The final round was very productive, and contestants had 2 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 106 good articles, 5 good topic articles, 178 article reviews, 76 did you know articles, and 9 in the news articles. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

The top eight scorers will receive awards shortly. The following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. These prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field during the competition.

  • English Island, South Australia Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured article prize, with 12 featured articles total, and the featured topic prize, with 9 featured topic articles in total
  • Canada Hey man im josh (submissions) wins the featured list prize, with 10 featured lists total
  • AirshipJungleman29 (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, submitting the only featured picture in the entire contest during round 3
  • Canada History6042 (submissions) wins the featured content reviewer prize, with 127 featured content reviews. He will also share the ITN prize, with 20 in the news articles in total.
  • Delaware BeanieFan11 (submissions) wins the good article prize, with 100 good articles total, and the DYK prize, with 147 did you know articles in total. He will also share the ITN prize, with 20 in the news articles in total.
  • Oklahoma TheDoctorWho (submissions) wins the good topic prize, with 16 good topic entries in total
  • Arconning (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, with 68 good article reviews in total

A special mention also goes to these users who scored the highest in a particular category in a single round:

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate. The WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2026 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement!

On behalf of the judges, Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), Frostly (talk · contribs · email), Guerillero (talk · contribs · email) and Lee Vilenski (talk · contribs · email):

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

Thank you!

[edit]

Hi @Rusty Cat — thank you for keeping an eye on the article and quickly reverting vandalism. I really appreciate your help in maintaining accuracy. Floridadada (talk) 00:07, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Floridadada: No problem! By the way, have you had a look into anti-vandalism tools that you can use? ~ Rusty meow ~ 02:29, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-45

[edit]

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 will now find that Special:MergeHistory is now significantly more flexible about what it can merge. It can now merge sections taken from the middle of the history of the source (rather than only the start) and insert revisions anywhere in the history of the destination page (rather than only the start). [12]
  • For users with "Automatically subscribe to topics" enabled in their preferences, starting a new topic or adding a reply to an existing topic will now subscribe them to replies to that topic. Previously, this would only happen if the DiscussionTools "Add topic" or "Reply" widgets were used. When DiscussionTools was originally launched existing accounts were not opted in to automatic topic subscriptions, so this change should primarily affect newer accounts and users who have deliberately changed their preferences since that time. [13]
  • Scribunto modules can now be used to generate SVG images. This can be used to build charts, graphics and other visualizations dynamically through Lua, reducing the need to compose them externally and upload them as files. [14]
  • Wikimedia sites now provide all anonymous users with the option to enable a dark mode color scheme, featuring light-colored text on a dark background. This enhancement aims to deliver a more enjoyable reading experience, especially in dimly lit environments. [15]
  • Users with large watchlists have long faced timeouts when editing Special:EditWatchlist. The page now loads entries in smaller sections instead of all at once due to a paging update, allowing everyone to edit their watchlists smoothly. As part of the database update, sorting by expiry has been removed because it was over 100× slower than sorting by title. A community wish has been created to explore alternative ways to restore sort-by-expiry. If this feature is important to you, please support the wish! [16]
  • Recurrent item View all 31 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the fixing of the persisting highlighting when using VisualEditor find and replace during a query. [17]

Updates for technical contributors

  • Since 2019 the Wikimedia URL Shortener at https://w.wiki is available for all Wikimedia wikis to create short links to articles, permalinks, diffs, etc. It is available in the sidebar as "Get shortened URL". There are 30 wikis that also install an older "ShortUrl" extension. The old extension will soon be removed. This means /s/ URLs will not be advertised under article titles via HTML class="title-shortlink". The /s/ URLs will keep working. [18]
  • On Thursday, October 30, the MediaWiki Interfaces and SRE Service Operations teams began rerouting Action API traffic through a common API gateway. Individual wikis will be updated based on the standard release groups, with total traffic increased over time. This change is expected to be non-breaking and non-disruptive. If any issues are observed, please file a Phabricator ticket to the Service Ops team board.
  • MediaWiki Train deployments will pause for the final two weeks of 2025: 22 December and 29 December. Backport windows will also pause between Monday, 22 December 2025 and Thursday, 2 January 2026. A backport window is a scheduled time to add things like bug fixes and configuration changes. There are seven deployment trains remaining for 2025. [19]
  • Recurrent item Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

  • In 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation reported that AI systems and search engines increasingly use Wikipedia content without driving users to the site, contributing to an 8% drop in human pageviews compared to 2024. After detecting bots disguised as humans, Wikimedia updated its traffic data to reflect this shift. Read more about current user trends on Wikipedia in a Diff blog post.

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, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2025

[edit]

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

Administrator changes

added Toadspike
removed

CheckUser changes

added asilvering

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:35, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from ArtSpaz (19:41, 4 November 2025)

[edit]

Hi Rusty Cat.

This probably falls under things I probably should be able to follow from existing documentation, but I got an error so I wanted to check.

I have a few entries that I am working on concurrently. As I was researching, one contribution led to another potential entry. I had started the draft orinigally in my sandbox page but now have another entry.

From what I can tell I just need to enter a list of subpages into my sandbox page. So I used the format User/sandbox/sandbox name draft to make a list of working drafts but I got an error.

Is there a better approach?

Thanks in advance. --ArtSpaz (talk) 19:41, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ArtSpaz: If I'm understanding you correctly, you tried to create articles under "User/sandbox/<the name of the article>". However, that would be in Wikipedia's section for published articles, because the colon after "User" is missing; the correct page titles would begin with "User:ArtSpaz/sandbox". Happy editing! ~ Rusty meow ~ 23:10, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Rusty_Cat&oldid=1320620707"