User talk:Vermont

This is Vermont's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Archives

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by .

Question from Taureanverse (11:10, 20 February 2025)

Hello Rae,

I'm having issues because I received permission from the owner of an image which is called "Nina Chanel Abney Portrait Photo" and I did all I was supposed to do on Wiki Commons and also sent an email to the permissions attaching the correspondence from the owner stating it was granted and still I had a user say it would be deleted as well as a permissions staff from Wikipedia state I need to attach the photo even though the photo was attached in the initial email. It seems that not many people are doing due diligence but are quick to say a photo should be deleted even though I received professional permission from the owner. --Taureanverse (talk) 11:10, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Taureanverse, thanks for reaching out. It looks like a ticket has been received in the permissions email queue, and is not yet resolved. That template on the file page is normal while the ticket is unresolved.

Wikimedia projects are are stricter on images than most websites, and for a reason: these are free knowledge projects, both in the not-paid sense and in the freely usable sense. Wikimedia Commons, thus, only hosts images which are either in the public domain or released by their copyright holders under a free use license. The permissions email queue is the usual way that we verify an image is released by its copyright holder, and not someone else who does not have the rights to release it.

I hope this is helpful context, and let me know if you have questions or if there are further issues with the image. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 23:37, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Vermont. This is not helpful. I feel this is not clear and this could be a whole lot easier for copyright holders to grant permission. You guys have a section where we grant permission. Granting permission does not mean it be a free license. You guys do not make that clear. If that is the case you all need to please take out the permissions section Taureanverse (talk) 01:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Taureanverse: Wikimedia Commons only hosts freely-licensed images, and does not host images where there is merely permission for use on Wikipedia. This is noted on the Commons main page, upload wizard, site footer, etc. Could you send a link to the permissions section that says otherwise? If it's unclear, I could recommend edits to fix it. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:33, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is not helpful. It's ok I filed a BBB Complaint so Wiki Media can make things streamlined and clear. Thank you Taureanverse (talk) 00:37, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Wikimedia is a business. Himejijo (talk) 18:26, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, and in 2025, everyone should know that we are not a business. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charity. We don't sell anything: neither physical goods nor services. We don't accept advertising. We are not a free web host. We are nonsectarian. We're more like the Girl Scouts or a Fire Department auxiliary organization, than a business. We can, and do, block users who make legal threats. We actually encourage such people to go through all the phases of grief. Thank you. Bearian (talk) 22:53, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Bearian I am a college student using this account for my class. You expect me to accept inconsistent procedures and a lack of response or true tending to my question? You don't know me so stop assuming and chiming into a conversation that has nothing to do with you. Taureanverse (talk) 11:11, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You guys are a non-profit organization. That is a business entity my friend. Your organization showed up when I already filed my BBB Complaint. It's not a threat I actually did it. Also, you all did not repsond to any of my messages from the legal or permissions email for over two weeks. If you guys are doing everything correctly, why would I file a complaint. If you guys take a look of my specific filing complaint and don't see how you are inconsistent then maybe you need another team. Maybe you all don't want to improve because where it stands now does not benefit contributions from women and people of color. Why else do you all think there is literally a list of unsupported Wikipedia pages? (Have you heard of Women in Red?) Edit a Thons? My Graduate Class and I are actually working to close the gender gap. We are scholars and your lack of response is not helping us make academic contributions to the website. Taureanverse (talk) 11:14, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Taureanverse (12:15, 22 February 2025)

How long does it take for my questions to be answered? Also is there a management email I can send my concerns to? --Taureanverse (talk) 12:15, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Taureanverse: I've sent a reply to your message above - I understand your class may have deadlines, but a 3-day turnaround over a weekend is pretty standard, if not fast for a talk page reply. I'm here as a volunteer, as with nearly everyone else you'll interact with on Wikipedia.

Re: concerns, most are handled by volunteer processes, though some (e.g., threats of harm, some disinformation issues) do go to the Wikimedia Foundation. What type of concerns do you have? I can help route them. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 23:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Vermont I have not received any response and this has been over 8 days. I don't know what is going on and it doesn't seem like they do not care or are concerned about something that is very important and affects alot of people. Taureanverse (talk) 01:38, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Taureanverse: what is this in reference to? I replied to your message above, and also for this file you uploaded the permission was added on the 27th. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:36, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's ok I made a public BBB filing so now it's getting handled legally. Taureanverse (talk) 00:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBB isn't a legal institution. Himejijo (talk) 18:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am well aware. Since yall arent answer my needs and questions, someone else needs to see what is taking place. Are you a helper? Im not sure why you are responding if you are not a helper from Wikipedia. Thank you. Taureanverse (talk) 11:09, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Followed up at Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents. Mathglot (talk) 22:24, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Taureanverse shows a bunch of their uploads were deleted.

Presumably one of those is what that's in reference to.

I opened this comment to say the above. Then some thoughts I had after reading the ANI thread post-closure spilled out:

(I don't see much indication in the discussion there that the deletions were improper, other than the uploader's anger, but hard to tell as what was deleted isn't visible. I do see indications that some of the uploads were falsely tagged by the uploader.). No idea what took 8 days. Did they select "I have permission to upload this work from my employer or the creator of this work." and send appropriate emails? Were some emails about these images ignored? Still unprocessed? Can't tell.

Primary definition of legal:

1 in a way that conforms to or is permitted or required by the law.

I DO see plenty of hostility and disruption by the uploader, which was actionable, but also, it seems possible some interacting editors are doing a disservice. As a sentence, "I made a public BBB filing so now it's getting handled legally." isn't a legal threat as our policies define it. "A legal threat, in this context, is a threat to engage in an off-wiki ("real life") legal or other governmental process that would target other editors or Wikipedia itself." Misinterpreting policy, e.g. the overbroad reading of crossing of a line that wasn't crossed to punish or block someone for crossing other lines they did cross, drives editors away. Is that a real shortcut?

I wonder if some A/B testing could surface a better upload/teaching process that gets new users up to speed on the copyright essentials uploaders need. A series of pages a user has to step thru (answering some multiple-choice questions?) before they can upload their first or next file after a deletion for violating copyright?

Do we expect them to remember the "30" in "I understand that if the email is not sent in the 30 days of the upload, this file will be deleted." message?

PS: I see the wizard would have directed them to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team#notch so they should have obtained permission before uploading, and then have 30 days to have it re-sent directly from the permission-granter. Any reason to think they did or didn't follow most/any/all of these steps?

RememberOrwell (talk) 07:23, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-09

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

Updates for editors

Administrators can now customize how the Babel feature creates categories using Special:CommunityConfiguration/Babel. They can rename language categories, choose whether they should be auto-created, and adjust other settings. [1]
The wikimedia.org portal has been updated – and is receiving some ongoing improvements – to modernize and improve the accessibility of our portal pages. It now has better support for mobile layouts, updated wording and links, and better language support. Additionally, all of the Wikimedia project portals, such as wikibooks.org, now support dark mode when a reader is using that system setting. [2][3][4]
One new wiki has been created: a Wiktionary in Santali (wikt:sat:) [5]
View all 30 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed that prevented clicking on search results in the web-interface for some Firefox for Android phone configurations. [6]

Meetings and events

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

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:39, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Randomhuman48 (03:59, 25 February 2025)

hello how ti create an article --Randomhuman48 (talk) 03:59, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Wizard is available to walk you through these steps. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Before creating an article, please search Wikipedia first to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject. Please also review a few of our relevant policies and guidelines with which all articles should comply. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, articles must not contain original research, must be written from a neutral point of view, should cite reliable sources which verify their content and must not contain unsourced, negative content about living people.

Articles must also demonstrate the notability of the subject. Please see our subject specific guidelines for people, bands and musicians, companies and organizations and web content and note that if you are closely associated with the subject, our conflict of interest guideline strongly recommends against you creating the article.

If you still think an article is appropriate, see Wikipedia:Your first article. You might also look at Wikipedia:How to write a great article for guidance, and please consider taking a tour through the Wikipedia:Tutorial so that you know how to properly format the article before creation. An Article Wizard is also available to walk you through creating an article. 2601AC47 (talk·contribs·my rights) Isn't a IP anon 13:23, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Devashishedits (10:58, 25 February 2025)

Dear sir/ Ma'am I try to add pictures from credible sources and mention those sources but still it gets deleted. Kindly guide. I add valuable details from credible sources to articles and it has always been accepted but I case of pictures even pictures from wikipedia commons gets deleted. Why ? --Devashishedits (talk) 10:58, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Devashishedits, I'm seeing that you've replied to one of the messages on your Commons talk page. It looks like you uploaded a lot of files which were not freely licensed – the message on your talk page links to the licensing policy, and I'd recommend a review of that before you upload more images. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from BayyinahOfficial (11:49, 1 March 2025)

Hi, there was incorrect information on a page that I corrected. I don't see my edit implemented. How long should I give it before seeing any changes? Thanks. --BayyinahOfficial (talk) 11:49, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. It looks like your edit was reverted, and I'm seeing that you've replied to another editor on your talk page about this. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:07, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from DL559 (17:17, 3 March 2025)

Hi Rae. Can you help me figure out how to create a "gallery" of photos within a table? I would like a link embedded into a table that links to more photos within a cell. Can get more specific if needed. Thanks! -Dan --DL559 (talk) 17:17, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @DL559! Optimally there'd be a better way to present that content to readers than a gallery within a table cell. Can you let me know the article you're wanting to add this to, and the images? I can take a look. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It would be for this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Residences_in_Pill_Hill_Historic_District,_Rochester,_Minnesota?wprov=sfti1# goal is to link historic photos and related photos of selected historic properties on the national register. DL559 (talk) 01:11, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DL559: Wow that list is big. I've made an edit to change the image formatting a bit. If there's a Commons category you want to point to in the caption of an image, you can add:

<div class="noprint" style="text-align:center;">[[File:Commons-logo.svg|16x16px|class=noviewer|alt=|link=]] [[commons:Category:X|More images]]</div>

as the caption, with "X" replaced by the name of the category on Commons. I copied this markup from the NRHP row template used on the other article you linked. I'm seeing you're using the visual editor, and I think you can just double click the image, click edit, and add the above markup in the "caption" field. Let me know if that doesn't work.

Also...this article is really long, and there's a lot of text that I'm not sure is needed. Do you think there might be a way to cut it down, or make it more navigable? For example, only including text about residences that are connected to existing articles, and for the rest keeping a shorter list — or breaking it into sections. And the last dozen or so rows doesn't seem to include sources - I'd recommend adding a citation to where the information is from.

Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:27, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks I will try that and let you know. Regarding the references: I have a few more hours to go before I can finish linking all the references I have, but I am almost done. I will think on how best to limit the words in the article per your recommendation. Chat again soon thanks. DL559 (talk) 01:32, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How could I break the table into sections? For example, is it possible to break it down by street/avenue? E.g. 4th St SW, 5th St SW, 8th Ave SW, 9th Ave SW, etc… DL559 (talk) 01:35, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DL559: I'd recommend just separating them into different tables - this is pretty trivial in the source editor, but I'm not sure if the visual editor has an easy way to do that. (worst case I might be able to make the edits, but sorting it would take a while)

I would recommend separating it by whether there's an article about the house, its occupants, or similar. (or if enough sources exist that there should be an article) That's most likely what would be relevant for readers, and most justifiable to include in the list. I don't know how other historic districts are handled, but an entry for every residence in the district seems like a lot to maintain and find sourcing on. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:42, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Updated with references and links to other Wikipedia articles. I deleted a column and tried to simplify the text based on your recommendations. DL559 (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-10

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

Updates for editors

All logged-in editors using the mobile view can now edit a full page. The "Edit full page" link is accessible from the "More" menu in the toolbar. This was previously only available to editors using the Advanced mobile contributions setting. [7]
Interface administrators can now help to remove the deprecated Cite CSS code matching "mw-ref" from their local MediaWiki:Common.css. The list of wikis in need of cleanup, and the code to remove, can be found with this global search and in this example, and you can learn more about how to help on the CSS migration project page. The Cite footnote markers ("[1]") are now rendered by Parsoid, and the deprecated CSS is no longer needed. The CSS for backlinks ("mw:referencedBy") should remain in place for now. This cleanup is expected to cause no visible changes for readers. Please help to remove this code before March 20, after which the development team will do it for you.
When editors embed a file (e.g. [[File:MediaWiki.png]]) on a page that is protected with cascading protection, the software will no longer restrict edits to the file description page, only to new file uploads.[8] In contrast, transcluding a file description page (e.g. {{:File:MediaWiki.png}}) will now restrict edits to the page.[9]
When editors revert a file to an earlier version it will now require the same permissions as ordinarily uploading a new version of the file. The software now checks for 'reupload' or 'reupload-own' rights,[10] and respects cascading protection.[11]
When administrators are listing pages for deletion with the Nuke tool, they can now also list associated talk pages and redirects for deletion, alongside pages created by the target, rather than needing to manually delete these pages afterwards. [12]
The previously noted update to Single User Login, which will accommodate browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies by moving login and account creation to a central domain, will now roll out to all users during March and April. The team plans to enable it for all new account creation on Group0 wikis this week. See the SUL3 project page for more details and an updated timeline.
Since last week there has been a bug that shows some interface icons as black squares until the page has fully loaded. It will be fixed this week. [13]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Sylheti (w:syl:) [14]
View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed with loading images in very old versions of the Firefox browser on mobile. [15]

Updates for technical contributors

Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

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

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

Administrators' newsletter – March 2025

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

Administrator changes

CheckUser changes

Oversighter changes

AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

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

Technical news

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

Miscellaneous

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

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:39, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mrxghana (15:18, 8 March 2025)

hello --Mrxghana (talk) 15:18, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mrxghana (15:26, 8 March 2025)

how do i submit a draft --Mrxghana (talk) 15:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-11

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

Updates for editors

Editors who use password managers at multiple wikis may notice changes in the future. The way that our wikis provide information to password managers about reusing passwords across domains has recently been updated, so some password managers might now offer you login credentials that you saved for a different Wikimedia site. Some password managers already did this, and are now doing it for more Wikimedia domains. This is part of the SUL3 project which aims to improve how our unified login works, and to keep it compatible with ongoing changes to the web-browsers we use. [16][17]
The Wikipedia Apps Team is inviting interested users to help improve Wikipedia’s offline and limited internet use. After discussions in Afrika Baraza and the last ESEAP call, key challenges like search, editing, and offline access are being explored, with upcoming focus groups to dive deeper into these topics. All languages are welcome, and interpretation will be available. Want to share your thoughts? Join the discussion or email aramadan@wikimedia.org!
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 19. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: the launch of the Community Updates module, the most recent changes in Community Configuration, and the upcoming test of in-article suggestions for first-time editors.
An old API that was previously used in the Android Wikipedia app is being removed at the end of March. There are no current software uses, but users of the app with a version that is older than 6 months by the time of removal (2025-03-31), will no longer have access to the Suggested Edits feature, until they update their app. You can read more details about this change.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:07, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Nbawesome (01:08, 13 March 2025)

I’d like to add a person to Wikipedia. Is there instructions to do so? --Nbawesome (talk) 01:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Nbawesome: Who would you like to write about? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 15:46, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Riverskysun (15:05, 13 March 2025)

Hello :D My name is Ethan and I’ve just started learning how to edit a wiki. Do you mind giving me some instructions/tips? I would very much appreciate it! ☺️ --Riverskysun (talk) 15:05, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ethan! Welcome to Wikipedia :-). Sure, what kind of stuff you do want to edit about? I'd recommend starting out small, maybe checking what's on your homepage and reviewing Help:Introduction. Best, Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:16, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Bugle: Issue 227, March 2025

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at works on a female astronaut and a senior US Navy officer
Op-ed: Adam Cuerden on his experiences with a recent featured picture
Timeline: This month in military history

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Hermes Visual Artist (03:25, 16 March 2025)

Hi Vermont Thanks for being my mentor!!! When I’ll be ready to produce my first Publication in my Wiki page how can I paste my first Bio of course is an Analysis about my life it was wrote by a Website not to long ago hope you may help Thank so much in advance Welcome . Hermes. --Hermes Visual Artist (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bad or Good Art

Bad Art vs Good Art. For some people Bad Art is a “ Good Art “ and Good Art is a Bad Art . today there’s an acceptable tendency to incline ourselves for simplicity and not Professional Art per say. can we see one day that people will accept Professional Art instead of Simplicity and not consider Art. Hermes Visual Artist. 2025 February Hermes Visual Artist (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Evolution

The Universe create our Planet millions years ago. when our Planet was a ball of fire no species whatsoever was created.Our planet today is still in Evolution and no body can be sure what’s going to happen in the far far away Future ether we going to become a different species or our Planet will disappear for ever only the Universe knows. Hermes F Hernandez visionary 2025 Hermes Visual Artist (talk) 13:55, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Hermes Visual Artist (14:46, 16 March 2025)

Hi Vermont I already publish in my userpage and contribute with topics 2-3 articles….and I really need to publish my profile picture and a brief Bio how do I do that can you help please Have a great Day . Hermes Visual Artist --Hermes Visual Artist (talk) 14:46, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from WhyLuiz (16:28, 16 March 2025)

Hello, I have a short question about gendering. How do you do that, more precisely which type of gendering do you use? (e.g. a : , a / , etc.) (As I am also editing in German where gendering is very important) Thanks, Luiz --WhyLuiz (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@WhyLuiz: I'm not sure what "gendering" is in this context – are you referring to something like MOS:GENDER? Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 01:42, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In German there are several ways to indicate gender inclusivity in writing.

So for example when you have students you could have Student/innen (if you use a slash) or Student:innen (if you use a colon).

For more information see https://medium.com/language-lab/how-to-use-gender-neutral-language-in-german-and-french-31d72712b0c0

Scroll down a bit or search for "The options". Polygnotus (talk) 23:06, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-12

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

Weekly highlight

Twice a year, around the equinoxes, the Wikimedia Foundation's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team performs a datacenter server switchover, redirecting all traffic from one primary server to its backup. This provides reliability in case of a crisis, as we can always fall back on the other datacenter. Thanks to the Listen to Wikipedia tool, you can hear the switchover take place: Before it begins, you'll hear the steady stream of edits; Then, as the system enters a brief read-only phase, the sound stops for a couple of minutes, before resuming after the switchover. You can read more about the background and details of this process on the Diff blog. If you want to keep an ear out for the next server switchover, listen to the wikis on March 19 at 14:00 UTC.

Updates for editors

The improved Content Translation tool dashboard is now available in 10 Wikipedias and will be available for all Wikipedias soon. With the unified dashboard, desktop users can now: Translate new sections of an article; Discover and access topic-based article suggestion filters (initially available only for mobile device users); Discover and access the Community-defined lists filter, also known as "Collections", from wiki-projects and campaigns.
On Wikimedia Commons, a new system to select the appropriate file categories has been introduced: if a category has one or more subcategories, users will be able to click on an arrow that will open the subcategories directly within the form, and choose the correct one. The parent category name will always be shown on top, and it will always be possible to come back to it. This should decrease the amount of work for volunteers in fixing/creating new categories. The change is also available on mobile. These changes are part of planned improvements to the UploadWizard.
The Community Tech team is seeking wikis to join a pilot for the Multiblocks feature and a refreshed Special:Block page in late March. Multiblocks enables administrators to impose multiple different types of blocks on the same user at the same time. If you are an admin or steward and would like us to discuss joining the pilot with your community, please leave a message on the project talk page.
Starting March 25, the Editing team will test a new feature for Edit Check at 12 Wikipedias: Multi-Check. Half of the newcomers on these wikis will see all Reference Checks during their edit session, while the other half will continue seeing only one. The goal of this test is to see if users are confused or discouraged when shown multiple Reference Checks (when relevant) within a single editing session. At these wikis, the tags used on edits that show References Check will be simplified, as multiple tags could be shown within a single edit. Changes to the tags are documented on Phabricator. [18]
The Global reminder bot, which is a service for notifying users that their temporary user-rights are about to expire, now supports using the localized name of the user-rights group in the message heading. Translators can see the listing of existing translations and documentation to check if their language needs updating or creation.
The GlobalPreferences gender setting, which is used for how the software should refer to you in interface messages, now works as expected by overriding the local defaults. [19]
View all 26 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the Wikipedia App for Android had a bug fixed for when a user is browsing and searching in multiple languages. [20]

Updates for technical contributors

Later this week, the way that Codex styles are loaded will be changing. There is a small risk that this may result in unstyled interface message boxes on certain pages. User generated content (e.g. templates) is not impacted. Gadgets may be impacted. If you see any issues please report them. See the linked task for details, screenshots, and documentation on how to fix any affected gadgets.
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 23:46, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Isay tv (09:30, 18 March 2025)

Hi --Isay tv (talk) 09:30, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from -denishjohn on Mujtaba Aziz Naza (20:13, 22 March 2025)

There’s no refrence link in this article, I believe it should not be on Wikipedia, Am I correct or should I find refrence links? ---denishjohn (talk) 20:13, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-13

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

Weekly highlight

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking your feedback on the drafts of the objectives and key results that will shape the Foundation's Product and Technology priorities for the next fiscal year (starting in July). The objectives are broad high-level areas, and the key-results are measurable ways to track the success of their objectives. Please share your feedback on the talkpage, in any language, ideally before the end of April.

Updates for editors

The CampaignEvents extension will be released to multiple wikis (see deployment plan for details) in April 2025, and the team has begun the process of engaging communities on the identified wikis. The extension provides tools to organize, manage, and promote collaborative activities (like events, edit-a-thons, and WikiProjects) on the wikis. The extension has three tools: Event Registration, Collaboration List, and Invitation Lists. It is currently on 13 Wikipedias, including English Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, and Spanish Wikipedia, as well as Wikidata. Questions or requests can be directed to the extension talk page or in Phabricator (with #campaigns-product-team tag).
Starting the week of March 31st, wikis will be able to set which user groups can view private registrants in Event Registration, as part of the CampaignEvents extension. By default, event organizers and the local wiki admins will be able to see private registrants. This is a change from the current behavior, in which only event organizers can see private registrants. Wikis can change the default setup by requesting a configuration change in Phabricator (and adding the #campaigns-product-team tag). Participants of past events can cancel their registration at any time.
Administrators at wikis that have a customized MediaWiki:Sidebar should check that it contains an entry for the Special pages listing. If it does not, they should add it using * specialpages-url|specialpages. Wikis with a default sidebar will see the link moved from the page toolbox into the sidebar menu in April. [21]
The Minerva skin (mobile web) combines both Notice and Alert notifications within the bell icon (). There was a long-standing bug where an indication for new notifications was only shown if you had unseen Alerts. This bug is now fixed. In the future, Minerva users will notice a counter atop the bell icon when you have 1 or more unseen Notices and/or Alerts. [22]
View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

VisualEditor has introduced a new client-side hook for developers to use when integrating with the VisualEditor target lifecycle. This hook should replace the existing lifecycle-related hooks, and be more consistent between different platforms. In addition, the new hook will apply to uses of VisualEditor outside of just full article editing, allowing gadgets to interact with the editor in DiscussionTools as well. The Editing Team intends to deprecate and eventually remove the old lifecycle hooks, so any use cases that this new hook does not cover would be of interest to them and can be shared in the task.
Developers who use the mw.Api JavaScript library, can now identify the tool using it with the userAgent parameter: var api = new mw.Api( { userAgent: 'GadgetNameHere/1.0.1' } );. If you maintain a gadget or user script, please set a user agent, because it helps with library and server maintenance and with differentiating between legitimate and illegitimate traffic. [23][24]
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 22:40, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question from Mrxghana (09:30, 28 March 2025)

i mistakenly deleted an edit, how do i restore it back --Mrxghana (talk) 09:30, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Mrxghana: Looking at your edit history, I'm not seeing a removal. Do you mean that you accidentally closed an edit window mid-edit? If so, while it probably depends on your browser, the edit is unfortunately lost. I've had that happen a number of times :( so I recommend publishing changes relatively often. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 14:10, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-14

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

Updates for editors

The Editing team is working on a new Edit check: Peacock check. This check's goal is to identify non-neutral terms while a user is editing a wikipage, so that they can be informed that their edit should perhaps be changed before they publish it. This project is at the early stages, and the team is looking for communities' input: in this Phabricator task, they are gathering on-wiki policies, templates used to tag non-neutral articles, and the terms (jargon and keywords) used in edit summaries for the languages they are currently researching. You can participate by editing the table on Phabricator, commenting on the task, or directly messaging Trizek (WMF).
Single User Login has now been updated on all wikis to move login and account creation to a central domain. This makes user login compatible with browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies, which have prevented users of some browsers from staying logged in.
View all 35 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

Starting on March 31st, the MediaWiki Interfaces team will begin a limited release of generated OpenAPI specs and a SwaggerUI-based sandbox experience for MediaWiki REST APIs. They invite developers from a limited group of non-English Wikipedia communities (Arabic, German, French, Hebrew, Interlingua, Dutch, Chinese) to review the documentation and experiment with the sandbox in their preferred language. In addition to these specific Wikipedia projects, the sandbox and OpenAPI spec will be available on the on the test wiki REST Sandbox special page for developers with English as their preferred language. During the preview period, the MediaWiki Interfaces Team also invites developers to share feedback about your experience. The preview will last for approximately 2 weeks, after which the sandbox and OpenAPI specs will be made available across all wiki projects.
Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

Sometimes a small, one line code change can have great significance: in this case, it means that for the first time in years we're able to run all of the stack serving maps.wikimedia.org - a host dedicated to serving our wikis and their multi-lingual maps needs - from a single core datacenter, something we test every time we perform a datacenter switchover. This is important because it means that in case one of our datacenters is affected by a catastrophe, we'll still be able to serve the site. This change is the result of extensive work by two developers on porting the last component of the maps stack over to kubernetes, where we can allocate resources more efficiently than before, thus we're able to withstand more traffic in a single datacenter. This work involved a lot of complicated steps because this software, and the software libraries it uses, required many long overdue upgrades. This type of work makes the Wikimedia infrastructure more sustainable.

Meetings and events

MediaWiki Users and Developers Workshop Spring 2025 is happening in Sandusky, USA, and online, from 14–16 May 2025. The workshop will feature discussions around the usage of MediaWiki software by and within companies in different industries and will inspire and onboard new users. Registration and presentation signup is now available at the workshop's website.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:03, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]