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Wairarapa local body elections

I noticed that you removed a "Controversy" section from South Wairarapa District recently. I'm not opposed to your action, but I took the alternative approach of trying to clean up a similar section in a related article. I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand#Local body elections in the Wairarapa and welcome your contribution to it.-gadfium 21:14, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013–40

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

New features

• Special:Listfiles can now display old versions of files a user has uploaded. A new link was also added (Special:AllMyFiles) that gives a list of all files the current user has ever uploaded (that haven't been deleted).
• There is now an Android application to contribute to translatewiki.net from mobile devices. [1]

VisualEditor news

• VisualEditor now has a new toolbar with drop-down menus for advanced tools. [2]
• Many bugs were fixed, some related to copy-and-paste. [3]
• You can now move references, list of references, templates and other elements with the mouse ("drag-and-drop"). [4]
• You are invited to comment on designs for the interface to add references in VisualEditor.

Future

• Developers are looking for ideas of small technical projects that new developers could work on. Please add your ideas. [5]
• Developers are looking for wikis who would accept to try using secure links (HTTPS) for all users. [6]
• You can join an IRC discussion about "Beta features", a tool to try new features, on October 3. [7]
• You can join an IRC discussion about Flow, the new wiki discussion tool, on October 17.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:55, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Sue M. Cobb – My edits were deleted

Hi,

I think you reverted all the additions I made to the Sue M. Cobb page. I apologize if I am not contacting the correct person, but I am new to all of this and am just learning my way. If you did delete my additions to her page, can you please tell me why? I'm guessing I did something wrong. Thank you, Perezi22 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perezi22 (talk • contribs) 20:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Perezi22, I'm the right person and thank you for contacting me.

There were multiple problems. The two most serious ones:

1. No ref to back most of it up.
2. It was one big long list of accomplishments. You need to put only the highlights and not every honor she received. Ambassador to Jamaica and Secretary of State for Florida are some of the big things that should be mentioned. Saying she was admitted to the bar, received American Red Cross Humanitarian of the Year for Miami or she was on a committee for a company are relatively minor and shouldn't be mentioned.

Some of the minor problems were:

1. You tacked on your additions on the very bottom of the article.
2. You had headlines wrong.
3. Did the lists wrong. Use '*' character at the beginning of an item.

It would be best if you do up the article in your sandbox. You can edit away on the article without somebody like me coming along and messing with it. Once you are ready, just copy your sandbox version over to Cobb's.

As always, if you have questions or need help, please ask me. Bgwhite (talk) 21:13, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to me and so quickly at that! I am actually updating the page for my boss (Ambassador Sue M. Cobb) so the information I listed was because she asked me to insert it. Now that you have given me all these answers, I think I can develop something a little better, so thank you! I do have another question; when adding references, can I paste web addresses that mention her in that organization, etc? Is that considered a good reference?

Thanks again for your time and patience with me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perezi22 (talk • contribs) 16:16, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Perezi22, no problem. Ask me questions anytime. Answer to your question is yes with conditions. If the reference to the organization says only basic facts, it is fine to use. Basic facts would be her title, how long she stayed with the organization and basic duties. Things you can't use would be reason for being fired, how well she did or did not at her job. An example... if she was fired, both the organization and Cobb would put a positive spin on things, ie "need to spend more time with the family". In those cases, a neutral 3rd party, like a newspaper article, would be in order. Bgwhite (talk) 23:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for your help. I am a new user and just trying to get it right. NPASHF (talk) 12:09, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Page format edits – The Execution of Gary Glitter

Hi

Can you explain why your bot has changed the lvl 4 header for a lvl 3?

The summary claims this is to "fix section headings". There was nothing to fix, I chose the lvl 4 header as a concious decision – Is there something in the style guides which suggests this practice should be avoided?

How long has the bot been doing this? How many pages has it done it to? Chaosdruid (talk) 20:25, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Chaosdruid, per WP:MOSHEAD, heading sections should be a == heading, followed by a === heading, then ==== and so forth. The more important reason is WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings. Those using a screen reader need to have it in descending order. It is also in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Bgwhite (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

MOSHEAD does not say "should be ... followed by a "; nor does it say "You must not use a lvl 4 without a lvl 3 present".

"==Title== for a primary section; ===Title=== for the next level (a subsection); and so on to the lowest-level subsection, with =====Title====="

Indeed, the Acessibility MoS merely says that they must be uniform, and that going from lvl2 to 4 to 3 is wrong.

Missing out lvl3 is commonplace, and is indeed an accepted practice, as lvl 3 appear more bold/larger/stand out more, and so ppl opt to go lvl2 -> lvl4 as the lvl 4 header is more graphically correct.

My main issue is that the Main MoS does not specificy this, and individual Mos' are applied to articles within that topic, not ALL articles.

THe WCA talks about h1, h2 headings – are you saying that these are exactly equal?

I would suggest that you go about getting the main MoS changed, rather than try to apply the Accessibility MoS to all articles. Chaosdruid (talk) 20:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

A level h1 heading is a = Level h2 heading is ==

Main MOS does say 2, followed by 3, "so forth" to 5. It clearly states things go in numerical order. Nowhere does it even imply you can skip.

It is not commonplace nor accepted practice to skip headings around here. It is not found in any articles on Wikipedia.

WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings gives an example that clearly states skipping a section is wrong... 3rd example labeled "Skipping levels".

WP:ACCESSIBILITY is a MOS guideline. WP:MOSHEAD does have a link to WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings. WP:ACCESSIBILITY is one of the few that does apply to ALL articles. It is one of the few were you CAN'T go against what is written. By messing with headings, you are making a person using a screen reader miss sections... If headings go 2 then 4, when a blind person is done reading heading 2, the screen reader goes to the first level 3 header it finds. Bgwhite (talk) 21:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

That last comment cannot possibly be right. IF the headings go 2,2,4,2,2 you say it will skip to lvl 3. That would mean that if it went 2,3,4,2,3 it would also miss sections.

Nowhere does it say you cannot skip.

There are plenty of examples, or there were – unless your bot has "fixed" them all.

I think there has been some confusion here with how the reader works and how it deals with headers. Is it possible that it would read 2,4,2,4,2,3 correctly? Chaosdruid (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Bot has been running almost 3 years. I was not the only bot doing this. There are no examples unless the detection routine is not picking it up or if they have been created the past few days.

WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings states, "should be nested sequentially". It gives two clear examples where you cannot skip. WP:ACCESSIBILITY trumps all as it applies to all articles and you cannot go against what is written. It does not say you cannot skip because it clearly states it has to be sequentially and gives examples. If you still stay with "nowhere does it say" routine, you are only wikilawyering.

WCAG clearly states, "To facilitate navigation and understanding of overall document structure, authors should use headings that are properly nested (e.g., h1 followed by h2, h2 followed by h2 or h3, h3 followed by h3 or h4, etc.)"

2,4,2,4,2,3... No. A screen reader cannot "see", so it has to interrupt by set rules. For example, you cannot put blank lines between each item on a bulletined list. Screen reader will think each bullet is a separate list. Bgwhite (talk) 22:10, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Really? A computer program cannot see? lol Anyway, if everything is as you say, MoS needs to be changed. MoS is where people go to look at how things should be, here, clearly, there are things that should apply to all articles, in which case MoS should tell ppl how it should be.

Accessibility MoS is an additional MoS, which contradicts MoS on this point (or as you see it "has a better explanation") – getting MoS updated should be how you proceed. Chaosdruid (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Wallack's Theatre

I can't tell if this is a revert of your edit or not, but it sure looks like it. I'll leave it up to you: I think they certainly deserve an EW warning. Later, Drmies (talk) 23:08, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, it looks like a revert, especially the size of the change, but it is not. They kept just the one photo at the beginning. They removed what I wrote, but replaced it with more material. They also added more material in the body of the article. Except for the utterly horrendous and confusing reference system, I have no problems. Bgwhite (talk) 23:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent--thanks. Hey, your talk page note makes me want to leave profanity. Ha! Fiddlesticks! Drmies (talk) 02:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Rather odd BG19bot edit

BG19bot made this edit to Highland Boundary Fault with an edit summary " (WP:CHECKWIKI error fix for #61. Punctuation goes before References. Do general fixes if a problem exists. - using AWB (9506))". In fact the edit (rightly) did not change a reference before punctuation and it instead made some other changes which I have not inspected closely but look OK.

The reference was only to support the claim in parentheses so it was right for it to be before the closing bracket.Wikipedia:REFPUNC#Punctuation and footnotes It seems to me that a reference before a closing bracket will usually (but not always) be correct. It will, I suppose, be most often wrong when the bracket is at the end of a sentence. To avoid this sort of problem would it not be better to accept references before or after closing parentheses? Thincat (talk) 08:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thincat please read WP:REFPUNCT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest. In fact I did, which is why I referred to it above. It says "where a footnote applies only to material within parentheses, the ref tags belong just before the closing parenthesis". Thincat (talk) 11:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The advice seems to have been introduced here and the wording was changed here. Maybe that's slightly recent in MOS terms. Thincat (talk) 11:55, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thincat, I agree with you that it is confusing. It gets worse when you account for the rules on when punctuation goes inside or outside the parentheses.

1. Generally, there will be punctuation after the parentheses in a sentence. So, normal REFPUNC applies as the ref goes after the punctuation.
2. When the info inside the parentheses is covered by one reference, the reference goes after the parentheses. Example: (born May 1, 1900)
3. When two separate bits of info inside the parentheses are covered by different refs, the reference goes inside the parentheses. Example: (born May 1, 1990 - died Jun 5, 1960)

One big whopping however. I'm assuming you are referring to the sentence, "...rocks of the Highland Border Complex (at one time called the Highland Boundary Complex), ..." in the Highland Boundary Fault article. I haven't a clue. However it is done, it will violate one of the rules above, especially with the ref only applying what is inside the parentheses and not outside. I'd keep it inside the parentheses just how you are doing it now and not worry about it. Bgwhite (talk) 17:06, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I think "where a footnote applies only to material within parentheses, the ref tags belong just before the closing parenthesis" leads to the opposite to what you say for "rule 2". I really don't know for "rule 3" but I do not necessarily disagree. Anyway, where I do agree is that it's best to just let this go! The actual edits were OK by me. Thincat (talk) 19:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Question on correction request

Hi, I was going to fix a error your reported on the Eye Tracking page, but I can't find what you commented on. You said "error fix for #61. Punctuation goes before References" but I don't see a #61 reference. It looks like it only goes up to 40. If you could clarify I would be happy to fix the error. Thanks, alvb — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alvb (talk • contribs) 17:47, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

"Alvb, references are supposed to go after punctuation and not before. See WP:REFPUNC. In the Eye Tracking page, it changed "...caused by eyelashes and other obscuring features." to "... caused by eyelashes and other obscuring features." It moved the period from after the ref to before. It is hard to spot in this case with all the space removal at the end of sentences. Bgwhite (talk) 17:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Alvb, #61 refers to the type of "error" being corrected. It is not the number of the reference. Thincat (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for the clarification. I went in and fixed the location of the punctuation as it relates to a reference. Alvb

Wilhelm of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken

The subject heading I've provided here is the title of the article in question (I'm sure of that; I copied and pasted). So it's not presented as a last name, and ought to be alphabetized in the category in the same way as the other Palatinate-Zweibrucken entries, which is by first name. The Yobot discussion only addresses certain automatic "corrections" that happen because certain dashes or hyphens and umlauts are problematic on category pages. What page did you mean to cite? The one you gave, WP:RELSORT, does not exist. Uporządnicki (talk) 02:22, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki installantion

Do you have experience in MediaWiki installation process? Tito☸Dutta 20:24, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I did install it about 5 years back on a Linux system. I needed a wiki type system to keep notes on the couple hundred computers and software that was installed. I ended up going with DokuWiki as it was a better fit. Mediawiki needs a database and webserver. I'm more familiar with MariaDB and Apache. Bgwhite (talk) 22:23, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

ISBN

I fixed most of ISBN wrong syntax entries but there are still some mysterious situations like ISBN-UNKNOWN, ISBN-PDF, [8], etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:05, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I need you to make User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI#cite ref-16 explicit. What are the exact F&R rules? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:14, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I usually delete the mysterious ones unless I know it belongs elsewhere. There are cases where it is obvious it is not an ISBN number... ones with several letters, doi numbers, ISSN numbers. Some other nice ones say "ISBN ISBN", ISBN-X, ISBN IO, (that's not '10').

The three F&Rs I have are:

1. ISBN\s*-\s*(10|13)(-|:| ) -> ISBN
2. ISBN\s*(-|:)\s* -> ISBN Note there is a space before the two ISBNs. This is to not find ISBN that show up in web links.
3. \{\{ISBN\s*-\s*(10|13)\|([0-9-xX ]*)\}\} -> ISBN $2

Bgwhite (talk) 05:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Dave and Chuck Undid Revision

Greetings. Today I had noticed that you undid a revision I have made to the Dave and Chuck "The Freak" Wiki over the weekend and feel that this was done in error. While I understand the reason why you did it, I haven't listed every "incident" that had happened on the Detroit morning radio show. I only listed the huge major ones that made news and was pretty big on the show and also smaller notes I felt the page needed for others to read if they were looking for information on them. In the state of the page I left it in after my last edit I still felt like the page was still brief. There is so much that has happen on the show that isn't even on the page. Can I please ask to have it returned back? Honestly I spent like 4 hours creating that edit. It really hurt that now it was time wasted and I'm more inclined to never do that again if all my work could be undone by just one click of the button. Thanks for your time to read this. Have a good day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by DetroitViper (talk • contribs) 18:27, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Bracket problem

Please stop “correcting” bracket problems in Assyriology articles if you are unfamiliar with the conventional method of marking reconstructed text. I have reverted your spurious edit for the second time in article Eriba-Adad II. By removing these philological markers, you are degrading the article. Would you kindly check the other Assyriology articles you may have also unintentionally degraded? BigEars42 (talk) 00:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

BigEars42, months ago, I told you I will probably make the same mistake at some point. You were extremely rude about it then. Stop with your "degrading" crap. Again, I suggest you use the {{Not a typo}} template. Bgwhite (talk) 00:25, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Degrade: to cause (something complex) to break down into simple substances or parts. By removing the brackets, it implies the text is certain when it is in fact conjecture. Assyriology has conventions peculiar to it due to the fragmentary state of extant inscriptions that are not pertinent elsewhere. If you don't feel confident with the appropriate conventions, why edit? BigEars42 (talk) 01:06, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to have another discussion with you where all you do is throw insults and show your contempt for everybody because they are beneath you. Again, degrade is the wrong word and you are using it in the wrong context. Again, removing a ] does not "degrade" the entire article. Again, nobody knows the nuances of Assyriology. Again, use the template. You use the template, I don't work on the page. Use the template and stay away. Bgwhite (talk) 01:34, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I added Not a typo. But we may need a footnote too. It is not obvious to a common reader what is going on. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:45, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

64

Pages that appear in both September and October dump of error #64 can be found at User:Magioladitis/sandbox. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Scribunto module

We have installed Scribunto. We are facing some issues. See this and this Tito☸Dutta 02:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Tito, sorry, Scribunto is a new module only released this year. I don't know anything about it or the Lua language it uses. Bgwhite (talk) 05:48, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• For some reason scripts are not working. Our Script Path is $wgScriptPath "/" (and not "/wiki"). Do you think it may cause problem? --Tito☸Dutta 11:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, it may cause problems. I wouldn't not use /. You don't have to use /wiki, but use some name.
• Also, when I install software for the first time, I use as many system defaults as I can and get things running. You then have a base system in which to judge changes. Try to make one change at a time. It is not always possible, but do as small of steps as possible. Bgwhite (talk) 06:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

AWB edits

1. Some modules have been imported to our Wiki by copy paste where we had to make changes "replace" 'text/plain' with 'CONTENT_FORMAT_TEXT'. I have made changes in the "modules" i have found. But, how to find all the modules and make changes using AWB "replace" option. Any idea/

   Are you looking for changes in text files, do grep "text/plain" *. If files could be in several sub directories change * to */*

2. Please spend 2 minutes and see the errors in this page. Any idea how to fix? Thank you. --Tito☸Dutta 04:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

   From reading things, it appears the scribunto version you have is out of date compared to what some lua scripts want. Download the latest version here and install it. Bgwhite (talk) 07:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• • The latest version is installed. Hosting customer care has confirmed it is not a server issue and installation has been done correctly. Could you please register at Sarkarverse and check the problem yourself? For last 2 days (almost 15 hours) I have been trying to fix it. --Tito☸Dutta 09:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • If you register, please send me an email trulytito [at] gee//mail [doht] com, I'll grant admin and bureaucrat rights immediately so that you can access all tools. Tito☸Dutta 09:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Titodutta Which hosting company are you using? It might be very funny, well not for you, if I'm correct on who you are using. I've created an account. What access do you have on installing/configuring things? I'm going to bed for the night. Oh, so an interesting TV show on the 1857 revolt/First War of Independence. Unfortunately, it was from a British perspective and focused too much on Cawnpore. Bgwhite (talk) 10:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The site is using iPage hosting service. I have assigned user rights. --Tito☸Dutta 10:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
    • iPage/StartLogic Tito☸Dutta 10:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Nouvelle cuisine

I've commented about a recent edit of yours at talk:Nouvelle cuisine. To answer your quesiton, I put nowiki tags around the link to gayot.com because I cannot restore it due to its being on the blacklist. Please do not reflexively tell me I need to participate in the whitelist process here — that is not a policy requirement. There is a misguided attempt right now to remove all links and mention to Gayot on the encyclopedia. To avoid damage to the encyclopedia I am preserving these links pending a broader resolution. Please let this link stand for now so I don't have to circle back and fix it later. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Do not undo again. You have already been involved in an edit war over this on other articles. The site is listed on the blacklist. See WP:BLACKLIST for instructions on how to remove it. Failure to follow proper resolution channels is not the way to do it. I cannot stand people who say it is only a "Guideline" or "Policy" and I don't have to follow it. You follow it UNLESS there is consensus otherwise. Gayot has been banned for awhile. Bgwhite (talk) 08:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

While we're issuing edicts, do not revert me again. I'm sorry you cannot stand me, but I have written well over a thousand articles here since 2007, and have a pretty good sense of when an automated process is spinning out of control, as it is now. You are mistaken in your approach. I am well aware of the whitelist process, and it is not an adequate response to inappropriate mass tagging of articles by a bot. In the long run, an RfC may be the way to go if people choose to escalate this, but it would be far simpler if people could leave it to editor discretion whether or not to remove old links from articles rather than trying to force an inappropriate process on people. Gayot is not banned. It is a reliable source. It is on the blacklist solely for socking reasons, not because the site itself is spam. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:58, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Take it to the whitelist. State your cases, sounds like you have a good one. Then this is over with.

But instead, you have gotten in edit war on this page. You got in an edit war on another page in which an admin had to protect the page. You jump right in after protection is lifted to start up the edit war again. Can you see why I said don't revert? This has escalated over multiple articles with multiple editors. This is a problem right now and it will continue to be a problem even if we stop everything right now. Go thru the whitelist process and the problem is solved now, for all articles, for all editors and for the future. Your objections on why it got on this list is not an excuse to not get it off. Bgwhite (talk) 09:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It's not clear that gayot.com will be taken off the blacklist because the socking is fairly recent. However, that does not mean that citation links to gayot.com should be removed from the encyclopedia. I would have to submit a few hundred whitelist requests to adequately deal with gayot.com alone (a few dozen from my watchlist, but likely a few hundred overall), a pointless process. Or perhaps one whitelist request with a few hundred URLs. That may well overwhelm the whitelist review. I'm trying to avoid unnecessary escalation, simply reviewing the articles on my watchlist and removing the tags where the links are not spam. The practical solution is to avoid mass tagging links as spam if the reason a site is on the blacklist is to deal with COI sockpuppets. If an editor like me reviews the link and determines it is a reliable source and not spam, it's a poor content edit to replace the link with a {{fact}} tag simply to support a mass tagging effort. - Wikidemon (talk) 09:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Improper robot edit

This edit incorrectly moved punctuation. This:

... attributed to a lack of a tail.{{sfn|White|1961|pp=100–101}}<ref name=SA>{{cite ... }}.

to this:

... attributed to a lack of a tail.{{sfn|White|1961|pp=100–101}}.<ref name=SA>{{cite ... }}

Apparently the robot does not consider {{sfn}} templates to be references.

Additionally, the robot blindly changed |date=<year> parameters to |year=<year>. There is no need for that. In this case, there are now two |year= parameters and the links from the short form references in §References to the full citations in §Bibliography are now broken.

There is no need to change |date=<year> to |year=<year>. In fact, in most cases, |date= should be preferred because it allows easy upgrade to more specific dates and because when used with |year= as I did here to disambiguate short form references by the same author in the same year, |year= is the disambiguator and |date= is the displayed value.

For these reasons I have reverted the edit.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:25, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

1. Per WP:REFPUNC. Punctuation goes before refs and not after. This is why I visited the article. There was a period after four consecutive refs, which should be removed. The AWB code did not do it correctly, but you just reverted it back to its original incorrect state. I'm not the only bot fixing this. Therefore, by not fixing it the first place, you made it so my bot or another bot will come by and do the same thing all over again.
   1. Note: problem in AWB has been fixed with Patch 9541. Bgwhite (talk) 06:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
2. Per Template:Sfn#More than one work in a year, {{cite book |last=Needham |first=Joseph |authorlink=Joseph Needham |title=[[Science and Civilisation in China]] |volume=IV (part 1) |year=1965a |date=1965 |isbn= |ref=harv}} is incorrect and broken to begin with. You cannot use |year= and |date= parameters in this fashion. You complaining that, "here are now two |year= parameters" is invalid. The bot changed something that was broke to something that was still broke. Again, fixing the original problem is the correct way and not reverting.
3. "...blindly changed |date=<date> parameters to |year=<year>". It is not blindly changing. In most cases, the bot change date->year in cite book templates. The |date= field is for full dates. Per Template:Cite book#date, "date: Full date of source being referenced", "year: Year of source being referenced." Other cite templates say the same thing. As books usually only contain the year of being published and not the date, using |year= is the correct way to deal with it. There is no "easy upgrade" as year is usually the only value. Bgwhite (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
4. Yes, the cite templates have undone massive changes this past year. They were breaking so much in March and April I wanted to strangle someone. Some documentation is out of date. But, I go by what they say, try to be consistent with what the majority are doing and not out on my own. Bgwhite (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Good that the punctuation issue is resolved. I had intended to not include that in my revert but I spaced it.

I think you misunderstand how {{sfn}} and the |date= and |year= parameters in a cite template work.

Smith, John (2013). Cite book using date. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Jones, Bob (2013). Cite book using year. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Smith uses |date= while Jones uses |year=.

References

Clicking on the linked text Smith 2013 and Jones 2013 in §References takes the reader to the appropriate full-length citation.

If Smith published a second book in the same year, and that book is also used as a reference, some method is necessary to disambiguate between the two books and still maintain {{sfn}} functionality. The standard disambiguation is to use both |date= and |year= where |year= has a letter suffix:

Smith, John (2013). A second cite book using date and year. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Jones still uses |year= but Smith uses |date= here and both |date= and |year= here.

References

Clicking on the linked text Smith 2013a in §References again takes the reader to the correct full-length citation.

I've stated all of this because of the condition of the references following the last two edits you made to the article.

One last point on this topic. At {{sfn}} there is a recommendation to add the disambiguator that is used in |year= to the value in |date=. This should not be done because the value in |date= is used in the citation's COinS metadata. Any characters in the |date= that are not actually part of the date corrupt the metadata.

Yes, the documentation does say that |date= is the full date and |year= is the year. I would argue for the sake of simplicity, that except in the case where both are required for disambiguation, |date= is the preferred parameter. |year= (along with |month= and |day=) was implemented because early-on the templates weren't able to extract the year portion of the date from |date= to create the CITEREF anchors. That has been remedied so strict adherence to the |date= documentation is no longer required. I'll fix that.

If you would strangle anyone, strangle me. I claim to be the editor who suggested the red CS1 error messages. I don't think that the cite templates broke anything. Instead, they revealed flaws in the citations that had gone unnoticed or ignored for some period of time.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

rev 9540 deals with the date-year thing too. Please report bug with Efn in AWB bug's page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Juvenaly of Alaska

Hi, Bgwhite. How are you? I am back from my wikibreak. Thank you for monitoring and replying to messages in my talk page. Keep up the good work. Best wishes. --Meno25 (talk) 16:56, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Broken bracket fix

Your fix at Rosemary Sutcliff was a use of {{awd}}} inline (diff). That should not be, and I reverted both edits, the first evidently copy-and-paste from {infobox writer} where the use of {awd} is appropriate. (Perhaps I improved punctuation of the reference; at least "No." is now consistent on this page).

I don't know how thoroughly your work is automated or how (in)flexible any automation must be. Maybe you know how to catch the real problem in the future. --P64 (talk) 18:29, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

It was entirely a manual edit. I was not aware that {{awd}} should only go in infoboxes. Thank you for telling me and hopefully I remember that in the future. Bgwhite (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

There may be other structured contexts where its use is reasonable. Not in prose. Indeed I doubt that that preceding editor viewed the Sutcliff biography after making that change (old version, lead section). --P64 (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

GIBSIDE article

Please check the references and then remove the citation tag – all references are correct as far as we can see. Cheers Mike — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.10.139 (talk) 06:30, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Best image ALT I have ever seen

From Google News, I somehow found this article. The article is a junk, but, the captions — those are not captions, but mainly ALTs — these are the best image ALTs I have ever read. --Tito☸Dutta 07:46, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Please consider permanently banning a user from editing one specific page

Hello Bgwhite,

Again the user whom I must not talk about is back to editing the Camille and Kennerly Kitt page. Please check the edits. I left a long message on the talk page of Lesser Cartographies a few hours ago (please read that, too), and typically I would wait for him to take action, and I'm sure he will, but I'm so stressed out right now that I have not been able to sleep. That user simply refuses to go away, and I doubt very much that whatever actions Lesser Cartographies will take will put an end to this issue which has become a nightmare to me. Hadn't you already banned him? Anyway, he's back to the same attitude he had when the article was nominated for deletion, calling practically every source a blog. I'm fed up, sick and tired. And chances are that if I write to you after Lesser Cartographies does something (I trust his judgment entirely), there will be a sign on your talk page saying that you're on vacation or something. So, since this situation has no reasonable solution, I ask you to please consider banning that user permanently from editing the Harp Twins page. That would give me much-needed peace of mind, especially since he already retired the other main contributor (Robcamstone), while allowing him to continue to have fun with virtually countless other articles. Sending very kind greetings to your beloved mother-in-law. Dontreader (talk) 08:08, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello again, Bgwhite,

I must have completely forgotten that you told me not to edit the Harp Twins page. Certainly I never intended to disobey you. When Duff recently edited the page, I decided to inform Lesser Cartographies first, not wanting to bother you with this matter since you have many duties as an administrator, but then I could not sleep, fearing that anything that Lesser Cartographies might do would not stop Duff, so I informed you too. I am highly disappointed in Lesser Cartographies, whom I trusted, for agreeing entirely with Duff's edits (and therefore he took no action), so I myself edited the page. Furthermore, Lesser Cartographies criticized me on the talk page of the article (as if Duff had shown civil behavior), reverted my edits, and posted a second warning against personal attacks on my page, as you saw.

For more context, when I discovered the Harp Twins article, it had no picture, so I decided to add one; I thought it would be easy since we have a motto here that reads "It's easy, it's a Wikipedia!" However, it took me over 100 hours to learn how to get the picture uploaded and approved. After that experience I certainly was determined to protect the page if necessary, which I did during the discussion for deletion in March (where the militant proponent for deletion was Duff), and now again because I refuse to let Duff get away with trying to edit the article (his mentality, which he openly displays, is the same as during the deletion discussion). How am I supposed to assume good faith at this point on his part (which Lesser Cartographies is demanding) when he claims to be there to "improve" the article, yet he put a lot of effort into trying to get it deleted? The logical thing, in my opinion, would be for Duff to stay away from an article that he tried so hard to get deleted, and which he continues to show disdain for.

Please, what do you suggest? If you deem it unwise to permanently ban him from editing that article, may I simply ask you for help indefinitely whenever Duff makes changes to the article? Might it work if I take this case to Wikipedia:ANI requesting that Duff be banned permanently from editing that page? I have a long list of things to use against him, including the fact that when I sought help on a reliable sources board, he showed up with an answer, posing as an impartial user, even though I was there because Duff was reverting my edits, plus the fact that he targeted the other main contributor with two page deletion proposals, which lead to his retirement from Wikipedia, among other things. Besides, the more time I spend trying to defend that page, the less time I have to improve others. I'm sorry for the long message, and I won't edit the article again until you give me permission. Thanks... Dontreader (talk) 23:41, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I just put the article on my watchlist so I can notice changes faster. I can't block duff from the article as he hasn't done serious damage to it. I may not agree with the past few editors, but he did nothing wrong there. He did do wrong with his talk message.

The problem here is that both of you have done things wrong. Both of you are at fault. If Duff were blocked from the page, you would also be blocked. In October, Duff has only made 50 edits. I don't see any activity of going after one person right now.

Just stay away from the page. Don't touch it all. Tell me or Lesser if something happened, but otherwise drop it. If duff chooses, let duff hang by his own rope. Bgwhite (talk) 23:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Bgwhite for your advice and help. I will do exactly what you said. I'll continue to try to improve other articles in the meantime. All the best... Dontreader (talk) 01:17, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Award

		Ukraine Barnstar
		I give you this Ukraine Barnstar for for your Wiki-gnomish improving of Ukrainian related articles the past years! — Yulia Romero • Talk to me! 13:48, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

BG19Bot error

BG19Bot creates a redlink. The bot shouldn't modify date text in file names or links.—Kww(talk) 17:26, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

rev 9549 fixes the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:07, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

GIBSIDE page

Please check all spelling and references so that you can REMOVE the warning block at the top of the page Cheers mike — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.10.139 (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013–42

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

New features

• You can now choose which language to show for SVG files that contain several languages, using the "lang" option, like [[File:Gerrit_patchset_25838_test.svg|lang=de]] for the German layer of File:Gerrit patchset 25838 test.svg.
• Developers are looking for wiki communities to try the new search system. [9]

VisualEditor news

• You can now create and edit references inside media captions. [10]
• You now need to press the "delete" key twice to delete a template, reference or image; the first time, they only become selected, to avoid accidental deletion of infoboxes and similar content. [11]
• When you resize images, you will now still see them, and their size will also be seen in the center. [12] [13]

Future

• The new notifications system ("Echo") will be added to almost all wikis that don't already have it on October 22. It will notify you of changes and events that affect you. [14]
• MediaWiki 1.22wmf22 was added to test wikis on October 17. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 21 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 24 (calendar).
• The interface to reset your password will soon be changed. [15]

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:10, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

A challenge

I note that your edits are almost all CHECKWIKI edits. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as it is useful work, but how about actually writing an article for a change? Suggest that MV Alexander Maersk might be a good topic for an article! Best, Mjroots (talk) 21:58, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

You have alot of nerve Mjroots. You've already told me you don't care about the syntax of pages, don't care if you make major mistakes and you don't like me fixing your pages, even with 40 broken brackets on a page. Now you tell me what I can or can't do? I haven't told you to stop working on only ship articles. Don't tell me or anybody else what they can or can't work on. Bgwhite (talk) 22:32, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Whoa there! I'm not telling you what to do at all! I was merely suggesting that you might actually try writing an article for a change, and suggesting a possible subject. Agree we have a difference of opinion as to what constitutes a "major" error, and I've tried to reduce the number of bracket errors I make. If you don't want the challenge of actually writing an article, that's fine. I just thought it might give you a bit of insight into researching and writing an article, instead of just fixing errors, that's all. Mjroots (talk) 22:42, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I've gotten articles to FA, GA and FL statues. I've helped get ~25 articles to DYK. All done in different topics and not just one topic area like ships. I spent a year looking at all new biography articles coming in and fixing, tag or what have you. Spent the past week help out getting a new mediawiki site up on a Indian philosopher. Spent the summer transferring Checkwiki from toolserver to WMFlabs and recoding much of it. I'm currently helping around 10 new editors with their articles. When you refuse to fix problems on your articles, you will see me visit and fix them. Don't assume that is the only thing I do. Don't assume I haven't written articles. Everybody has their own interest and strengths. You like writing about ships. Other people like writing about their area of interest. Others only like creating articles while others only like taking article to FL or FA. Bgwhite (talk) 23:11, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

You both do very valuable work. Best to you. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:19, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Thanks for the help. Bill (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm strongly against the new proposal made by Lesser Cartographies

Hello Bgwhite,

I read your Final Warning late last night, and all I can say is that I'm very sorry for the headaches this situation must have caused you. Today you can see that I decided to edit the page of the song "Roar" by Katy Perry (of all things) to stay away from the Kitt page and to improve the encyclopedia (you can easily notice that there was a tag on that "Roar" article saying that some links lead to disambiguation pages, so I cleaned that up, and probably nobody will thank me, but that's fine). Anyway, I see with great concern that not even 24 hours have passed, and already Lesser Cartographies wants to radically change the Kitt article, asking me to make suggestions on my talk page, which means to drag me into a dangerous place, considering that I'm on the verge of being blocked. I strongly disagree with this proposal. I think Lesser Cartographies can choose from a wide variety of pages to edit and improve, instead of bringing me back to the Kitt page which you wanted me to basically forget about. I must assume good faith on Lesser's part, but at the same time I have to take into consideration this confession which he made today on his talk page: "Some of us have also figured out how to provoke editors we don't like into getting themselves kicked out."

Please don't blame me this time. I was minding my own business editing a Katy Perry song page. Dontreader (talk) 03:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I actually looked at the "some of us" wording and wondered if it was going to be misinterpreted, and decided the intended meaning of "established editors" was obvious enough and "some editors" was too divisive. But since you've brought it up: my very first set of edits several years ago did help provoke a user into getting an indefinite block. This editor was also a newbie, and I had interacted with him for many years on USENET. He announced there that he had modified an article to support his philosophical outlook ("rocks and the moon have free will, but machines don't"; yes, that kind of USENET personality), so I went into the article and reverted the changes. Multiple times, in fact. He rapidly burned through 24, 48, and 1 week blocks for edit-warring. As he wasn't a particularly stable person, I quickly figured out that all I needed to do was re-revert his edit and he would go (as computer scientists say) nonlinear. I certainly could have reached out and tried to educate him about the process, or just left well enough alone, but based on our previous interactions (and zero experience at wikipedia) I decided the best thing to do was, while remaining well within policy, evict him.

Several thousand edits later I still think I did the right thing, but I'm not particularly proud of it.

So yes, Dontreader, I do know how to provoke new editors into getting banned. In your case, though, I made the decision that you have the potential for making a positive contribution here, which is why I reached out to you and have tried to mentor you. I still think that's true. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 16:18, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

But Lesser Cartographies, then why would you do something that looks so suspicious? Duff's complaint on his own talk page did not send a notification to you or to Bgwhite, yet you quickly showed up on his page to suggest editing the Kitt page based on what he said in his complaint, making it seem as if you are trying to help Duff get around the Final Warning issued by Bgwhite. That's how it looks to me. And why did you notify me via Duff's page instead of my own talk page to suggest further edits? To see if perhaps I would slip and reply there? And why are you showing such interest in editing a page based on arguments made by someone who strongly wanted that page deleted and who obviously still believes it does not belong in Wikipedia? Wouldn't it be wiser to choose among many thousands of other pages to improve the encyclopedia? Besides, what you proposed would make me violate Bgwhite's Final Warning. I was told to forget about that page, and you know it, yet almost immediately you wanted me to write ideas about editing the page on my talk page.

Finally, the mere fact that Duff is so upset about not being able to edit the Kitt page (which he despises) is way too suspicious; he has the freedom to continue searching for pages to nominate for deletion, among countless other things that he can do, whereas I am no longer able to edit and update the page that obviously interests me the most, yet I'm not complaining. I do get the impression, Lesser Cartographies, that you are trying to help Duff circumvent Bgwhite's Final Warning, as well as trying to get me blocked. I don't see any other possible explanation for your behavior. Ever since I strongly objected to your very arbitrary decision to force me to make 1,000 edits before returning to the Kitt page, you seem to have turned against me. The Kitt page has become highly explosive, so the LAST thing you should have done was to immediately propose a joint effort to edit it. There are other pages that need editing. Dontreader (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the conversation you had with Bgwhite on my talk page has cleared up most of your questions here. If there are any that weren't answered, or any you'd like answered at greater length, go ahead and move them to my talk page. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:16, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Lesser Cartographies. I think everything is clear enough. I might ask you questions later on. Just please give me a couple of days or so before I return to Wikipedia because I must take measures to get my spiritual health back to where it usually is. Dontreader (talk) 04:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

No worries. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 04:12, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Thanks for the tip about Section cleanup. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:16, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Blanche of Portugal

Hello Bgwhite, the other day I moved Blanche, Viscountess of Huelgas (she never had that title) and moved it to Blanche of Portugal (1259–1321). I tried to change the links pointing to the "viscountess" but see that there are many articles where she is not mentioned and I suspect it could be hidden in a template. I changed a couple of those templates, but still see many articles and suspect there might be some hidden ones. I'm kind of illiterate when it comes to this. ¿Could you give me a hand and show me how to do it, or where I might find that hidden template? Many thanks, --Maragm (talk) 16:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Maragm, welcome to the the fun world of Wikipedia's job queue. The majority of pages listed use the {{Portuguese infantas}} template. You did change Blanche's link correctly in the template. The problem is with Wikipedia's cache. Wikipedia has cached the articles that contain the template, but it appears to the software that nothing has changed in the articles, which is technically true. This is where the job queue comes in. The articles are put on the job queue to be re-cached. Job queue length can vary between day and upto a month. So wait a few days to see if the job queue cleans things up. In the meantime, you can update the cache manually. Goto an article, click edit and then click save. This is called a null edit. Nothing is changed in the article, but this forces the software to re-cache the article. Bgwhite (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Thought I was doing something wrong. Best regards, --Maragm (talk) 01:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Bgwhite. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 15:15, 24 October 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Tito☸Dutta 15:15, 24 October 2013 (UTC) Lupton family LUPTON family page Please check references Are they all OK? cheers Mike — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.36.6 (talk) 01:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of George McConnell Davison for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article George McConnell Davison is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George McConnell Davison until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

de:User:TMg/autoFormatter

Hello, Bgwhite/Archive 19. You have new messages at de:User talk:TMg/autoFormatter.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Interwiki talkback}} or {{Itb}} template.

Leave Andrew Mikhail's article Alone. It is within the guidelines

You made a mess of our article and your edits have been undone/deleted. You are not the wiki police nor do you own wiki. We are aware anyone can edit. And that's fine, it's wiki. Any edits, like yours that were horribly full of errors and made a mess of the article, will continue to be undone and the article will return to how Andrew has requested it. Please don't waste our time or yours. Thanks!

Creator of Andrew Mikhail's article

Check the talk page, Sir. It is within the guidelines. If you don't like the article, simply don't visit it. Please stop vandalizing it.

Talk:Andrew Mikhail
Creator of Andrew Mikhail's article

Help with Revised Doc in Sandbox

Hi Bgwhite, would you mind looking at my "sandbox page" and letting me know if that would work? for the Sue M. Cobb page. Thank you. perezi22

Amazon_Eve

Thank you for simplifying the Wiki references. I did not know that spaces would automatically be replaced by underscores!--66.108.158.173 (talk) 11:15, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

CONYERS BARONETS I keep doing the references incorrectly. Please canyou check the Conyers Baronets page Cheers and thanks so much M.E.Reed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.214.10.139 (talk) 04:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Erroneously marked edit by your bot

This edit had the edit summary WP:CHECKWIKI error fix #80. Syntax fixes. Do general fixes if a problem exists. - using AWB (9549)). However, there was no error #80s being fixed there; the only edit was changing a template redirect (which didn't need changing, mind you, but that's an AWB situation.) I'm not sure if this is a problem that resides in your bot or in AWB, but misreporting the error can waste the time of those of us bears of little brain who are trying to figure out what's going on. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Nat Gertler the bot detected the problem but it was unable to fix it. It usually fixes it. This time something went wrong. I fixed the unbalanced bracket. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 20:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Question

I see you run a bot script to fix issues that includes special fixes. Is there any chance you would be willing to share it so I could assist in the maintenance tasks? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

ChrisGualtieri, oh heaven's yes. Please. It's better to talk to Magioladitis, as he is the benevolent dictator. We just use AWB and work off of Checkwiki errors. The AWB and CHECKWIKI page shows what we can and can't do. Bgwhite (talk) 21:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Alright! Thanks. I see it moved over to the labs now. That's cool. I used to do a bunch by hand and it was really tedious, but this looks manageable. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

ChrisGualtieri come on! Join the team! We need more pairs of eyes! -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

ChrisGualtieri there is not a real CHECKWIKI script. We just use AWB and do general fixes to the changes given to use by the Labs server. User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI provides some Modules, regexes and suggestions how to fix certain errors not fixed by general fixes or how to establish some skipping conditions. A full script is still (and may always be) under construction. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:26, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Tech News: 2013–43

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

New features

• The "Toolbox" section in the site sidebar is now called "Tools" in English. You can do the same in your language by editing the interface text on translatewiki.net. Someone else may have already done it. [16]

VisualEditor news

• On wikis with VisualEditor, you can now use it on pages in the File, Help and Category spaces. [17]

Problems

• On October 22 (UTC), an error in the site settings caused *.wikimedia.org sites (like Meta-Wiki and Commons) to redirect to wikimediafoundation.org for a few hours. [18]

Future

• MediaWiki 1.23wmf1 was added to test wikis on October 24. It will arrive to non-Wikipedia wikis on October 28 and all Wikipedia wikis on October 31 (calendar).
• In the next days, servers in San Francisco will start providing (cached) content to users located in Oceania. If you are in that area and notice problems, please tell us. [19]
• You will soon be able to test new features easily using the "Beta Features" view. VisualEditor will be in the list on sites where it works and isn't automatically enabled. Another example is a set of changes in the article text style.

Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by Global message delivery • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

09:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

database dump

would it be possible to get a database dump for 'rowspan=0' or 'rowspan="0" or ... and for 'colspan=0' or 'colspan="0"' or ... I just realized that this is only supported in Firefox and Opera. a typically safe replacement would be to change these to rowspan=99 and colspan=99, or whatever the maximum rows or columns are for the particular table. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Frietjes, list of rowspan hits are at User:Bgwhite/Sandbox1. I also have it in plain text format if you want that. The search also included the possibility of spaces around the = and " characters. If the lists are ok, I'll then get the colspan listings. Bgwhite (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

looks good, thank you, there are fewer than I had originally feared. I will fix these shortly, but it would probably be good to check again in the future. a colspan list would be great too, but I think there are probably fewer of those. Frietjes (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Frietjes, the colspan list is in the same place. Bgwhite (talk) 20:21, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

thank you again. I fixed them all, but it would probably be good to check again in the future. how rowspan=0/colspan=0 is handled is entirely browser dependent[20]. Frietjes (talk) 00:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Raul Cuero's biography page

Dear Bgwhite,

I have marked Raul Cuero page (Raul Cuero) for deletion due to its conflict of interest (autobiography), the recent controversies found due to his overinflated resumé and lack of notoriety to be included in Wikipedia. If you would read carefully the text of the page, you will notice the purpose and rationale for speedy deletion. Otherwise, any faculty member in the US should have a Wikipedia page, and that is not the scope of wiki. Please allow for its speedy deletion. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

Scientificreader (talk) 02:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Scientificreader, I'm an admin who can remove the speedy deletion. It doesn't qualify for a speedy deletion. It only qualifies for deletion via WP:AfD. You have been vandalising the page with your many accounts. You have also vandalised the talk page. Stop the vandalism and stop using multiple accounts, both of which will get you banned. Bgwhite (talk) 04:11, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Could I trouble you for a gentle nudge to SwinburneMel? Brand new user, wants the article to be the CV, hasn't really gotten his head around collaborative editing. Rather than continuing to revert him and sending it to WP:AN/EW, I'd like another voice suggesting he should open a conversation. If you're swamped, I can ask elsewhere. Thanks! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 23:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Lesser Cartographies, I've left a message at SwinburneMel's talk page. SwinburneMel is not a new account. I think there are two factions/people fighting it out. There have been seven new accounts created the past week whose only edits are Cuero's page. The IP addresses either come from Australia, Colombia or Illinois/Pennsylvania. The Colombian and Illinois IPs are listed as compromised. I don't think anybody will listen. But, then again... Bgwhite (talk) 00:20, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. We'll see what happens. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

And thanks for the page protection. I expect the scandal will be out of the newspapers in a few days and things will die down again. Relatively little page traffic considering the coverage, which I'm not begrudging at the moment. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	For allowing CHECKWIKI to take a list of articles as input. Now we rock! Magioladitis (talk) 08:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

a guy sending abusive messages and edit warring

This one guy keeps edit warring for the band Veil of Maya by adding unsourced and totally non notable info to the page and then afterward sends some very abusive messages to me http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:206.29.182.169&diff=579697909&oldid=579697719 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.29.182.169 (talk) 06:20, 1 November 2013 (UTC)