Wikipedia

User talk:Rschen7754/Archive 39

< User talk:Rschen7754
Latest comment: 5 years ago by MediaWiki message delivery in topic The Signpost: 24 December 2018

Tech News: 2018-36

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

Recent changes

  • There is a new user right for users who can edit CSS and JavaScript for the entire wiki. Before this all admins could edit CSS and JavaScript. This was a security risk. This group is called interface administrators. Administrators can delete user CSS and JavaScript pages. [1][2]
  • There will be an A/B test on the Wikipedia mobile website. It starts this week. It tests how we show templates that show information about an article. The test will last two weeks. [3][4]
  • You can now use different CSS rules for different skins when you edit templates. This is because of TemplateStyles. [5]
  • wp10 in ORES is now called articlequality. [6]
  • When you get a new message on your talk page you get a yellow message in the toolbar. The preference to show or not show this has been removed. [7]

Problems

  • UploadWizard had problems with campaigns. Users could not upload files. This has now been fixed. [8]
  • You can get a notification when a link is made to a page you created. This has not worked since June. It was fixed last week. [9]

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 September. It will be on all wikis from 6 September (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

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

16:47, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-37

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

Recent changes

  • When you added or edited a template with the visual editor the input boxes were very big. This has been fixed. The input boxes will now be smaller until you click on them. Then they will change size to fit the text. [11]

Problems

  • Some diffs showed lines in the wrong order. This was fixed last week. [12]
  • Marking a cross-wiki notification as read didn't work every time. The other wiki was not updated. This has now been fixed. [13]
  • <maplink> did not work for a few days. This was because of a bug. This has now been fixed. [14]
  • {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} is used by some templates. For a period edits saved with {{subst:REVISIONUSER}} would save the previous user's name and not your username. This is now fixed. Edits made before the bug was fixed will still be wrong and need to be corrected. [15]
  • When you move a page the title still shows the old page name. The developers are working on fixing this. [16]

Changes later this week

  • Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
  • Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings

  •   You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 11 Septmber at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 12 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

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

22:35, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-38

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

Recent changes

  • The Wikimedia Commons mobile app has a new version. Images uploaded using Nearby are now automatically added to the associated Wikidata item. You can browse other images on Commons. You can see your achievements and your upload statistics. It has also fixed some bugs. [17]
  •   MediaWiki web requests now have a time limit of 60 seconds for GET requests and 200 seconds for POST requests. [18]

Problems

  • You could not see the menu on the notifications page on the mobile version. This has now been fixed. [19]

Changes later this week

  • Special:AncientPages can hide disambiguation pages. [20]
  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 September. It will be on all wikis from 20 September (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

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21:58, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Re: Meta

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"The problem is that this is an area that nobody is tasked with and nobody really has a mandate to do anything."[21] Well put. Also, I've been told that, once again, WMF will refuse to do anything. This is apparently a matter of principle, and has nothing to do with merit. Not just that: it seems that WMF will refuse to acknowledge there is a problem, again as a matter of principle.

I've been asked to write an article on the topic for the Signpost. Maybe that's the chance for a non-TLDR global discussion you mentioned.. GregorB (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-39

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

Changes later this week

  • The preferences form will change to use the standard look. If you see any problems please report them on Phabricator. [22]
  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 September. It will be on all wikis from 27 September (calendar).

Meetings

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15:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I moved the discussion over there. Famartin (talk) 19:08, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:45, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-40

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

Recent changes

  • Ordinary pages can no longer be loaded as javascript. You could do this using ?action=raw&ctype=text/javascript in the URL. Only fully protected pages in the MediaWiki: namespace or user javascript subpages can be loaded as javascript now. This is for better security. [23][24]

Problems

  • New and updated translations from translatewiki.net will not reach the wikis for a while. You can still translate messages on translatewiki.net. The Wikimedia wikis will be updated with the new translations later. This is because of work on the translation system. [25][26]

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 October. It will be on all wikis from 4 October (calendar).

Meetings

  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
  • You can join the meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation Search Platform team. The meeting will be on 3 October at 15:00 UTC. See how to join if you want to know how the search function works or have questions.

Future changes

  • Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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

17:34, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018).

 

  Administrator changes

  Justlettersandnumbers • L235
  Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

  Interface administrator changes

  Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

  Oversight changes

  Guerillero • NativeForeigner • Snowolf • Xeno

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
  • The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
  • Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

  Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
  • The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
  • Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
  • Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-41

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

Recent changes

Problems

  • There was a problem when you copied and pasted from a table with the visual editor. It could add href where it shouldn't be. This has now been fixed. [28]

Changes later this week

  • Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.
  • Because of the data centre test there will be no new version of MediaWiki this week. Changes for this week will come next week instead.

Meetings

  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 10 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

23:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-42

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

Problems

  • Some pages, edits and users disappeared for a short while after the server switch. Missing content and users was fixed within a day. Some preferences and other things might take a few more days to fix. [29]
  • Wikis are updated with new and updated translations from translatewiki.net again. This will happen once a week. The developers are working on fixing the problem so we can have translation updates more often again. [30]

Changes later this week

  • When you create an abuse filter that prevents edits you can now write a specific error message for it. Before this all abuse filters that prevented edits had the same error message. [31]
  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 October. It will be on all wikis from 18 October (calendar).

Meetings

  • There will be no more meetings with the Editing team. This is because not enough Wikimedians were interested. To tell developers which bugs you think are the most important you can use Phabricator as normal. [32]
  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 17 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

22:40, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-43

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

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 October. It will be on all wikis from 25 October (calendar).

Meetings

  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 24 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

  • The Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.

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

23:11, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:Map of Canada Hwy WPs.png

Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
 

The file File:Map of Canada Hwy WPs.png has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Orphaned map.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.

Please consider addressing the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated files}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and files for discussion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. ~ Rob13Talk 14:44, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: I have no objection, but since Mitchazenia has edited it I don't think it qualifies for U1. --Rschen7754 04:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
That certainly makes sense. It's probably best to wait out the seven days, given the other version uploaded. ~ Rob13Talk 10:27, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 30

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 30, August – Septmeber 2018

  • Library Card translation
  • Spotlight: 1Lib1Ref spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and beyond
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 October 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-44

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

Recent changes

  • You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
  •   The wikis now have a content security policy report. This means that you might get a warning in your javascript console when you load external resources in your user scripts. For security reasons it is recommended that you don't do this. It might not be possible to load external resources in your scripts in the future. [33]

Problems

  • Your watchlist can show which changes you have already seen. This did not work for a few days. It has been fixed. [34]

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 October. It will be on all wikis from 1 November (calendar).
  • The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer available. It will be removed from Special:Preferences. It has not been the standard editor for a long time. It was replaced by the 2010 wikitext editor. [35][36]

Meetings

  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 31 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

  Guideline and policy news

  Technical news

  • Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
  • A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
  • The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

  Arbitration

  • Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
  • The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-45

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

Recent changes

Changes later this week

  • You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
  • When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result. [38]
  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 November (calendar).

Meetings

  •     You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 7 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46

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

Recent changes

  • Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10. [39]

Problems

  • You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed. [40][41][42]

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 November (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations. [43]

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

19:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
  That cinnamon crumb cake really wasn't that good... Drmies (talk) 02:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
@Drmies: Thanks. I don't know how the actual candidates do it, writing meaningful questions is hard enough. Glad I quit the voting guide game long ago (and the functionary game too, but that's a different story...) --Rschen7754 06:05, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder/Evidence. Please add your evidence by November 27, 2018, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron11598 (Talk) 20:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
 

Hello, Rschen7754. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47

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

Recent changes

  • You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
  •   There is an A/B test for sameAs data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks. [44]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated. [45]
  • The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page. [46]

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

23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48

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

Recent changes

  • On wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use / to create a new page: /wiki/Page/Subpage. The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages. [47]

Changes later this week

  • The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia. [48]
  • Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDCATEGORY__. [49]
  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 November (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  •   The mw.util.jsMessage() function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning Use of "mw.util.jsMessage" is deprecated in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains mw.util.jsMessage. There is a migration guide. It explains how to use mw.notify instead. [50]

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

22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Closing that AN thread...

Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

...was the right thing to do, so thank you. That you got beat up a bit by "both sides" for closing it... well, no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. Cheers, 28bytes (talk) 14:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@28bytes: Thanks. I slept well last night (mainly because I didn't see this discussion until now!) but unfortunately it seems that I have done everything I can to resolve the above situation, so I intend on sleeping well tonight too. --Rschen7754 19:23, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018).

 

  Administrator changes

  Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
  Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

  Interface administrator changes

 Deryck Chan

  Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
  • A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
  • A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
  • A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

  Technical news

  Arbitration

  Miscellaneous

  • In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
  • Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

  Obituaries

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Toolforge: usrd-tools

Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I'm currently working on deprecating an infrastructure component in Toolforge called "BigBrother". I don't know if you're familiar with it but it basically restarts continuous jobs that failed and were not restarted automatically by the Grid Engine. There are certain situations where the Grid Engine might kill a job _and_ the wrapper script that was responsible for re-starting it.

I'm going through all tools that use BigBrother to try and figure out to which extent they are using BigBrother. I noticed *usrd-tools* do use it.

I would like to ask your permission to convert the .bigbrotherrc definitions into crontab entries. I may have to create a small shell script to keep feature parity with BigBrother. Would that be okay? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GiovanniTirloni (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

@GiovanniTirloni: Do you work for WMF? Is bigbrother scheduled to be deprecated? --Rschen7754 17:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I created this topic using my volunteer account, sorry. My WMF account is "GTirloni (WMF"). We would like to deprecate BigBrother ASAP because very few authors are using it and it increases the maintenance burden for the platform. We're currently working on migrating everything to newer servers and, if we can deprecate BigBrother before doing that, it means our migration is less painful. I've successfully converted the functionality that BigBrother provides into a shell script that you could keep in the usrd-tools home directory and I'd be happy to assist in enabling that. GiovanniTirloni (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

@GiovanniTirloni: In the future, when leaving notices like this, it is best to use a WMF account, and also to provide the ticket number (which someone had to point me to). I try to keep up with lists like cloud-announce but had to drop off the main list because I simply could not keep track of all the emails, and I generally only log into Labs once or twice a year due to my other on-and-off wiki commitments.
Anyway, converting it is fine but I would like to be able to review what took place afterwards. --Rschen7754 07:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-49

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

Recent changes

  • Admins will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki. [51]
  • Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer. [52]
  • You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow. [53]
  • When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back. [54][55]

Changes later this week

  • There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

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16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Non-productive direction.

Latest comment: 5 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion

I found the direction I received at the Administrators Noticeboard edifying to an extreme. I received information that I needed and was able to assimilate easily, and it provided me with a clear and concise directive. I only mention this because your reasoning to close it was "Heading in a non-productive direction" or something to that effect, which was actually a bit of a fallacy, as I have just pointed out to you. Regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 06:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Hamster Sandwich: Quite specifically, this was to 1) prevent further passive-aggressive comments from you, and 2) to prevent further attacks from other editors. I understand that it must be disappointing for you to not have regained your adminship today, but making comments like that don't reflect well on you (think RFA), and some admins might even consider it blockable behavior if it continues. I hope that you don't leave Wikipedia over this, but if you want to, then do so in a dignified way, not like this. If you want to stay, there's plenty of things to do that don't require the admin tools. While I am still an admin, most of my contributions have been to content or developing spaces for collaboration. --Rschen7754 07:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Please refrain from insulting me again with your half-baked psychological assessment. Advice?? I didn't ask for any. You and I probably have a widely divergent concept of what "dignified" actually is. My concept includes not arguing about things I find unimportant. I was clear in in my remarks in that "discussion". I will tell you now in no uncertain terms, after which I will ignore you, and your contributions for all time... I don't care. I have said goodbye to the appropriate people, and quite frankly, you can do whatever you want... apply as much caprice, as much whim and as much of that seat-of-your pants intellectualism that you have displayed thus far in our (thankfully limited) communications. Respond how you like, I probably won't look anyways. Hamster Sandwich (talk) 11:45, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I agree with Rschen7754's closure of the thread and his advice here. It would be reasonable to say I haven't exactly seen eye to eye with Rschen7754 on everything, (for example, compare point 4 in the orange box at the top of the page to User:Ritchie333#One revert guarantee) so you should take my endorsement of his view as a broad consensus, not because I'm chums with other admins. You said you wanted the admin tools back, and were advised you would need to reapply at RfA. You suggested via another edit that you were going to run immediately. All Leaky said was (paraphrasing) "I strongly advise you not to just reapply at RfA; you will not pass", and empirical evidence shows that he is right. You then proceeded to call Leaky a "dickhead" and have accused Rschen of having a "half-baked psychological assessment". You have also asserted you do not plan to write anything in mainspace here, and normally we call that "not here to write an encyclopedia". If you want to revert vandalism, check out the improved "Recent changes" page which should make it easier for you to do so. Alternatively, I've got a requirement for somebody to write an article on the Hermes 3000 typewriter, which we don't appear to have. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:01, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Ritchie333, I am afraid that you're wrong, as to what led Hamster to post the comment on Sarah's t/p.
After advising him at BN, LC went to his t/p and made this post, which is IMHO, something that shall really merit those often-abused NPA blocks.That was an entirely needless and intentional aggravation.
It's perfectly understandable that legacy-users can be a bit shaky, when denied the tools, (due to a multitude of factors, that he/she can comprehend at first glances). And, that's not a license to turn that into a shitshow of assuming bad faith and of being a jerk, when there are very valid scopes to assume good faith and deliver the same message in a far nuanced tone..
And, as much as this ain't any reason to to grant him the tools now, Hamster had the decency of choosing to opt for reinstatement of tools, only when he was certain about re-devoting enough time rather than at that very point, when he would have easily claimed back the tools. Somebody point those admins, who makes a sole edit to their user-page every-year, on receiving a notification of imminent-desysop and again, vanish into thin airs.
So, if you are (sort of) calling him out, for veering to NOTHERE, Iri's allegation about some weird sock-puppetry stuff (in one of the rare cases, where I disagree with his usually-pragmatic approach) and LC's t/p post ought be, as contributors to it.
To sum up:-- Across the BN thread and other areas, (prior to being made a party to some shitty reception), I see nothing wrong but a weak attempt to vouch for the fact that he was a solid guy, back in his days which does look credible, at first glances. ∯WBGconverse 17:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
And, Hamster, please avoid giving impressions of being pointy, despite the entire episode. There have been a whole lot of editors who have lent a welcoming-hand to you and have been supportive to your re-integration into the community. If you venture for a few days, you will see that there are numerous areas where policies/their interpretations have radically changed over the course of last decade or so which is a major factor, behind the denial of your request and as much as we may want to believe you, the policy does not permit so, as we don't have a way to verify your claims of being a logged-out active editor. Also, that a lot of tools has been unbundled from the admin-toolkit, lowers the necessity of having a huge number of admins, for basic day-to-day editing purposes. Edit solidly for two years or so; churn out new-creations and/or GAs et al, fight vandalism, resolve disputes, claim the unbundles rights at WP:PERM by exhibiting a demonstrated need for usage and use them for the advantage of the encyclopedia and the community will surely welcome back you into the fold of mop-brigade. ∯WBGconverse 17:16, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

After several days of reflection, I am compelled to offer a sincere apology to you. I also thank you for your- frankly- vast and admirable contributions to the project. I must also thank you for your intercession at the AN page. You will not find me haunting any of those boards in the future. I shall leave it at that. Best regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 07:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

@Hamster Sandwich: I accept your apology. FWIW, for all those contributions, I've made plenty of mistakes down the line. Whatever you decide, I wish you the best. --Rschen7754 07:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Two things I have always found to be true, in life as in art: 1.The truth always emerges; and 2.The proof is in the pudding. I thank you for your kind acceptance. Best regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 08:03, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
We also have Template:Did you know nominations/Hermes 3000, so all is well. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:12, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-50

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

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 December. It will be on all wikis from 13 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [56][57]
  • When you hover over a footnote it will show you the reference as a pop-up. This is so you don't have to jump down to the bottom of the page to see a reference. This will happen in 2019. Some wikis already have gadgets that do this. You will be able to turn it off. [58]

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

17:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-51

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

Tech News

  • Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 7 January 2019.

Recent changes

  • Some templates that show notices about the content of the page will now be shown on the mobile website. In many cases they were hidden before. [59][60]
  • Admins can no longer unblock themselves, except for self-blocks. A blocked admin can block the user who blocked them but no one else. This is so no one can block all admins on a wiki without being stopped. [61]
  •   The ParserMigration extension has been removed. It compared the result of two versions of the MediaWiki wikitext parsing pipeline. It was used when we moved to the Remex parsing library instead of Tidy.

Problems

  • <ref> tags can use parameters such as "name" or "group". For example <ref name="adams" group="books">. If a <ref> tag has more than two parameters all parameters are ignored. You don't get a warning that they don't work. This will soon be fixed. [62]

Changes later this week

  •   The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 December. It will be on all wikis from 20 December (calendar).

Meetings

Future changes

  • The Wikimedia Foundation Android app team are working on making it easier to edit on mobile phones. You can read more about these plans. If you have an Android phone and speak at least two languages you can help testing in English. Tell Dchen (WMF) you want to be part of the testing by writing on her talk page or email her.
  •   tiles.wmflabs.org and wma.wmflabs.org will stop working. They have no maintainers and run an old operating system. Tools which use it could stop working. This includes the mapnik gadget, hill shading, and hike and bike layers. New maintainers could help out and keep it going. [63]

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

20:34, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Happy Saturnalia

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  Happy Saturnalia
Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:06, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 31

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 31, October – Novemeber 2018

  • OAWiki
  • Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
  • Global branches update
  • Bytes in brief

French version of Books & Bytes is now available on meta!
Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2018

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:36, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
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