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Tech News: 2024-31

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

Feature news

  • Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.

Bugs status

  • Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
  • Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
  • There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [1]

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-32

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

Feature news

  • Advanced item Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [2][3]
  • Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
  • The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

  • Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
  • Advanced item The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

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

Administrator changes

readded Isabelle Belato
removed

Interface administrator changes

readded Izno

CheckUser changes

removed Barkeep49

Technical news

  • Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
  • Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

SPI

I think the Ahmed.bn.hossain SPI that you archived should be moved to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dhiyaa.2004 per ST47's comments! They must have forgotten to request a move. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 21:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Ooops, my bad, I missed that. Thanks for alerting me. RoySmith (talk) 21:20, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi again

Hey, sorry to bother you, just letting you know that I'm about to nominate Narwhal for FAC again. If you interested, you can perform a spot check on three sources before or during the FAC. Best, Wolverine XI (talk to me) 12:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it's probably best if somebody else picks this up. Good luck with the FAC. RoySmith (talk) 13:35, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll need all of it. Wolverine XI (talk to me) 17:01, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-33

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

Feature news

Project updates

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, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:49, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Trout

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

1 hour and 13 minutes ago, on Pan Am Flight 214, you mistakenly revision deleted my edit (21:18, 18 August 2024 UTC) per RD2. The edit was reverting vandalism, the edits right before and right after my edit were the vandalism. BombCraft8 (talk) (contributions) 23:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

You mean the one with the edit comment "This edit need to be <<<<<<<<<<Revision<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>Deleted>>>>>>>>>>"? RoySmith (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Yes. BombCraft8 (talk) (contributions) 02:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
That edit summary was because I was reverting vandalism and wanted the vandalism edit RDed BombCraft8 (talk) (contributions) 02:02, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
OK, I fixed it. Sorry about that. Trouting accepting. RoySmith (talk) 14:28, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
Thank you BombCraft8 (talk) (contributions) 18:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Sat August 24: Roosevelt Island Wiknic

August 24: Wiknic @ Roosevelt Island
2019 Wiknic group photo, last time we held it on Roosevelt Island

You are invited to the picnic anyone can edit on Roosevelt Island, at Southpoint Park.

Following up on this month's Wikimania in Poland, this Wiknic will have as guest of honor User:DerHexer, the 2024 Wikimedia Laureate of the Year, marking his triumphant North American tour!

Bring a picnic blanket and some potluck, as well as some sunscreen! We'll also provide a little something for everyone, but we encourage you to bring your own favorite dishes to share, especially for those food cultural topics you would like to improve on Wikipedia.

We'll also do a portal thing for a bit with West Coast friends at the WikiLA ocean life edit-a-thon.

All are welcome, new and experienced!

Saturday, August 24, 2024 NYC Wiknic @ Roosevelt Island (RSVP on-wiki)

  • Time: 2:00 - 7:00 pm (come by any time!)
  • Salon-style Discussions: 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm (session A) 5:00 pm - 5:30 pm (session B)
  • Location: Roosevelt Island (Southpoint Park, look for our Wikipedia/Wikimedia NYC banner).

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct.

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

--Wikimedia New York City Team via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-34

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

Feature news

  • Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
  • Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [6]
  • Advanced item Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [7][8]

Bugs status

  • Advanced item Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
  • Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.

Learn more

  • The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
  • The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:50, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-35

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

Feature news

  • Advanced item Administrators can now test the temporary accounts feature on test2wiki. This was done to allow cross-wiki testing of temporary accounts, for when temporary accounts switch between projects. The feature was enabled on testwiki a few weeks ago. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Temporary Accounts is a project to create a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors which are no longer made public. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
  • Later this week, editors at wikis that use FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") may notice that the indicators at the top of articles have changed. This change makes the system more consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface. [9]

Bugs status

  • Editors who use the 2010 wikitext editor, and use the Character Insert buttons, will no longer experience problems with the buttons adding content into the edit-summary instead of the edit-window. You can read more about that, and 26 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • Wishlist item Please review and vote on Focus Areas, which are groups of wishes that share a problem. Focus Areas were created for the newly reopened Community Wishlist, which is now open year-round for submissions. The first batch of focus areas are specific to moderator workflows, around welcoming newcomers, minimizing repetitive tasks, and prioritizing tasks. Once volunteers have reviewed and voted on focus areas, the Foundation will then review and select focus areas for prioritization.
  • Do you have a project and are willing to provide a three (3) month mentorship for an intern? Outreachy is a twice a year program for people to participate in a paid internship that will start in December 2024 and end in early March 2025, and they need mentors and projects to work on. Projects can be focused on coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, research). See the Outreachy page for more details, and a list of past projects since 2013.

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:29, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

August thanks

story · music · places

Thank you for helping with the Rihm question-mark! - My story today is about a woman, nominated for RD but needing support as I write this. A composer died whose article is long and mostly unreferenced. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:07, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Vandalism Report

Reason: Unjustified Removal of Content from Chaoui people.

Issue: A user has been repeatedly removing important content from the Chaoui people page, which is already a small article. This action violates Wikipedia’s guidelines regarding the removal of information, particularly in articles that are of limited length. ==

  • Policy Violations:
    • WP:PRESERVE: This policy encourages editors to preserve information rather than delete it, especially when the information is relevant and verifiable. The removal of content from a small article goes against this principle.
    • WP:VANDALISM: If the removal is done without valid reason or consensus, it could be considered vandalism. Removing content that is not inaccurate, unsourced, or non-compliant with Wikipedia's policies may qualify as disruptive editing.
  • Request: I request that an administrator review the actions of @Skitash and take appropriate measures to restore the removed content and prevent further unjustified deletions.

Potymkin (talk) 10:17, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2024

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

Administrator changes

removed Pppery

Interface administrator changes

removed Pppery

Oversighter changes

removed Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

removed

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
  • A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-36

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

  • Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualisation can now test the new software for charts. Its early version is available on beta Commons and beta Wikipedia. This is an important milestone before making charts available on regular wikis. You can read more about this project update and help to test the charts.

Feature news

  • Editors who use the Special:UnusedTemplates page can now filter out pages which are expected to be there permanently, such as sandboxes, test-cases, and templates that are always substituted. Editors can add the new magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ to a template page to hide it from the listing. Thanks to Sophivorus and DannyS712 for these improvements. [10]
  • Editors who use the New Topic tool on discussion pages, will now be reminded to add a section header, which should help reduce the quantity of newcomers who add sections without a header. You can read more about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
  • Last week, some Toolforge tools had occasional connection problems. The cause is still being investigated, but the problems have been resolved for now. [11]
  • Translation administrators at multilingual wikis, when editing multiple translation units, can now easily mark which changes require updates to the translation. This is possible with the new dropdown menu.

Project updates

  • A new draft text of a policy discussing the use of Wikimedia's APIs has been published on Meta-Wiki. The draft text does not reflect a change in policy around the APIs; instead, it is an attempt to codify existing API rules. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome on the proposed update’s talk page until September 13 or until those discussions have concluded.

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:04, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 September 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-37

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

Feature news

  • Starting this week, the standard syntax highlighter will receive new colors that make them compatible in dark mode. This is the first of many changes to come as part of a major upgrade to syntax highlighting. You can learn more about what's to come on the help page. [13][14]
  • Editors of wikis using Wikidata will now be notified of only relevant Wikidata changes in their watchlist. This is because the Lua functions entity:getSitelink() and mw.wikibase.getSitelink(qid) will have their logic unified for tracking different aspects of sitelinks to reduce junk notifications from inconsistent sitelinks tracking. [15]

Project updates

  • Users of all Wikis will have access to Wikimedia sites as read-only for a few minutes on September 25, starting at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [16]
  • Contributors of 11 Wikipedias, including English will have a new MOS namespace added to their Wikipedias. This improvement ensures that links beginning with MOS: (usually shortcuts to the Manual of Style) are not broken by Mooré Wikipedia (language code mos). [17]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 18:49, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Sep 25: Wikimedia NYC Annual Election Meeting (plus Latin music event on Sep 21!)

September 25: Annual Election & Members Meeting

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our Annual Election & Members Meeting, with in-person at Prime Produce in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, as well as an online-based participation option.

The Members' Meeting is similar to other WikiWednesday meetups, except that its primary function is to elect a new Board of Directors. We will elect three board seats, half of the elected seats on the board. After being elected, those elected can potentially appoint more seats.

We will also focus on the Wikimedia NYC Strategic Plan, our Financial Report, and Annual and Monthly event teams for the coming year.

Election info:

  • To run for election or to vote, you must be a dues-paying member of Wikimedia New York City, having renewed in the past 12 months.
  • Voting will be both online, via emailed ballots from the ElectionBuddy service, and in-person.
  • The poll will be open for the 48 hours between 8pm EDT on September 23 and 8pm EDT on September 25.
  • For additional information, please consult the Election FAQ.

Meeting info:

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct.

P.S. Also upcoming just before our annual meeting is the Latin music edit-a-thon, Wikicurious: Editing to the Beat (RSVP at Eventbrite), on Saturday September 21!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

--Wikimedia New York City Team via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Wierzba/IsraPara2/שקולניק block

Hi Roy. In May you blocked Wierzba (talk · contribs), IsraPara2 (talk · contribs) and שקולניק (talk · contribs), saying that CheckUser showed them to be the same person, despite the fact that none of them were the editors being reported for sockpuppetry – they simply seem to have been picked up during a scan of some kind. I have only just found out about this, and I don't think it is correct. I've been editing since 2005 and have interacted with Wierzba occasionally in that time (they have been editing since 2006). In the time I've known them, they have shown no inclination for disruption or controversial topics and generally stuck to gnome-like edits on Israeli politicians.

While I never interacted with IsraPara2 or שקולניק, I see that similarly, they were largely focussed on one topic (Israeli para-athletes and Israeli politicians respectively) and did not edit in any controversial topic areas nor get into any disputes. All three of them also edit Hebrew Wikipedia without issue.

A few years ago, several Israeli editors, two of whom that I had interacted with and were not in any way troublemakers were accused of being sockpuppets and blocked based on checkuser evidence. You can see that case here. However, it appears that the two I knew (Eranrabl (talk · contribs) and SuperJew (talk · contribs)) had been caught up in some weird Israel-related IP issue that made it appear they were the same editor but they were not.

I appealed to ARBCOM and provided evidence of the two editors' real life identities. Several other editors also supported them (as seen here and here) and eventually both were unblocked (you can see in the block logs that they made successful appeals).

There is clearly some weird issue with Israeli IPs, and I believe the Wierzba/IsraPara2/שקולניק situation is the same as previously occurred with Eranrabl and SuperJew – the three accounts were not disruptive and there was no benefit or rationale for them socking. Please could you consider unblocking them. I am happy to make the case at WP:AN if needed. Cheers, Number 57 01:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Number 57 I think the best I can do here is repeat what I wrote in the SPI: the technical and behavioral data really are indisputable that IsraPara2, שקולניק, and Wierzba are all the same person, but there's no good reason to believe they are Tombah. I just reviewed my notes from my original investigation, and I'll stand by that statement. I also just consulted off-wiki with another CU who agrees with me. You are welcome to take this to WP:AN if you want, but given how heavily this depends on checkuser data, I think arbcom is really the place to file an appeal, per WP:CUBL. RoySmith (talk) 01:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
OK, I will contact ARBCOM. However, could you clarify the behavioural argument? I've looked at their contributions and I don't see any behavioural links between IsraPara2 and the other two. Number 57 14:27, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm unable to say anything more in a public forum. If arbcom contacts me, I will be happy to answer their questions. RoySmith (talk) 14:43, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Minor barnstar
Thanks for managing to get Austin J. Tobin Plaza on the 9/11 queue! Sir MemeGod :D (talk - contribs - created articles) 16:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

iMac G4 PR

Hey Roy, hope you're doing well. I really valued your nitpicks and fine-tooth combing over iMac G3 when it was up at FAC. I've got a peer review open for the iMac G4 right now at Wikipedia:Peer review/IMac G4/archive1 in preparation for a Featured Article nomination, and if you had any time I'd appreciate a look-see. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:12, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey, I think we had one of those in my office! No promises, but if I get a chance I'll take a look. RoySmith (talk) 20:42, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Sep 21: Wikicurious for Latin Music: Editing to the Beat ♫

Sat Sep 21: Wikicurious - Editing to the Beat ♫ @ Lehman College

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for the "Editing to the Beat" event of the beginner-focused Wikicurious series at Lehman College. This is the second event of the series, following the inaugural event at Civic Hall in July. Led by a 9-person live band demonstrating Caribbean and Latin musical genres, we'll engage with efforts such as WikiProject Latin Music, and will encourage editing on both English and Spanish Wikipedia. All are welcome, and newcomers and aspiring editors are especially encouraged to attend. Registration via Eventbrite is required for building entry, and is also encouraged on the event page on Meta.

The Wikicurious series is supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Wikimedia NYC is an official affiliate and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Also supporting this event are Equis, The Celia Cruz Foundation, and the International Museum of Salsa. In association with WikiCari and AfroCrowd.

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct.

Meeting info:

  • RSVP is necessary for building entry.

P.S. Upcoming WikiNYC meetups:

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

--Wikimedia New York City Team via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:20, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

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