User talk:TheSandDoctor/Archives/2021/February
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Administrators' newsletter – February 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).
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Arbitration
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
post-1992 politics of United States and closely related people
, replacing the 1932 cutoff.
- The standard discretionary sanctions authorized for American Politics were amended by motion to cover
Miscellaneous
- Voting in the 2021 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2021, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2021, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
- Wikipedia has now been around for 20 years, and recently saw its billionth edit!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Problems
- IPv6 addresses were written in lowercase letters in diffs. This caused dead links since Special:Contributions only accepted uppercase letters for the IPs. This has been fixed. [1]
Changes later this week
- You can soon use Wikidata to link to pages on the multilingual Wikisource. [2]
- Often editors use a "non-breaking space" to make a gap between two items when reading but still show them together. This can be used to avoid a line break. You will now be able to add new ones via the special character tool in the 2010, 2017, and visual editors. The character will be shown in the visual editor as a space with a grey background. [3][4]
Wikis use abuse filters to stop bad edits being made. Filter maintainers can now use syntax like 1.2.3.4 - 1.2.3.55as well as the1.2.3.4/27syntax for IP ranges. [5]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 February. It will be on all wikis from 4 February (calendar).
Future changes
- Minerva is the skin Wikimedia wikis use for mobile traffic. When a page is protected and you can't edit it you can normally read the source wikicode. This doesn't work on Minerva on mobile devices. This is being fixed. Some text might overlap. This is because your community needs to update MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext to work on mobile. You can read more. [6][7]
- Cloud VPS and Toolforge will change the IP address they use to contact the wikis. The new IP address will be
185.15.56.1. This will happen on February 8. You can read more.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
22:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
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 Wikipedia app for Android now has watchlists and talk pages in the app. [8]
Changes later this week
- You can see edits to chosen pages on Special:Watchlist. You can add pages to your watchlist on every wiki you like. The GlobalWatchlist extension will come to Meta on 11 February. There you can see entries on watched pages on different wikis on the same page. The new watchlist will be found on Special:GlobalWatchlist on Meta. You can choose which wikis to watch and other preferences on Special:GlobalWatchlistSettings on Meta. You can watch up to five wikis. [9]
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 February. It will be on all wikis from 11 February (calendar).
Future changes
- When admins protect pages the form will use the OOUI look. Special:Import will also get the new look. This will make them easier to use on mobile phones. [10][11]
- Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [12]
- Last week Tech News reported that the IP address Cloud VPS and Toolforge use to contact the wikis will change on 8 February. This is delayed. It will happen later instead. [13]
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Paint It Black
The article Paint It Black you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold 
. The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See Talk:Paint It Black for issues which need to be addressed. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Kyle Peake -- Kyle Peake (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Your GA nomination of Paint It Black
The article Paint It Black you nominated as a good article has passed 
; see Talk:Paint It Black for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Kyle Peake -- Kyle Peake (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
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
- There were problems with recent versions of MediaWiki. Because the updates caused problems the developers rolled back to an earlier version. Some updates and new functions will come later than planned. [14][15]
- Some services will not work for a short period of time from 07:00 UTC on 17 February. There might be problems with new short links, new translations, new notifications, adding new items to your reading lists or recording email bounces. This is because of database maintenance. [16]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 February. It will be on all wikis from 18 February (calendar).
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
17:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Can this user be blocked?
Hello admin, can RGX1996 be blocked for vandalism [17]? --Ashleyyoursmile! 16:10, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- They have been blocked, sorry to bother you. Ashleyyoursmile! 16:15, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) @Ashleyyoursmile: All good! I hope that you have a fantastic rest of your day/night!
--TheSandDoctor Talk 16:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) @Ashleyyoursmile: All good! I hope that you have a fantastic rest of your day/night!
Incorrectly deleted
Can you please tell me why you deleted my Wiki page?
All of my music releases since the 80's thru today are real releases and not made up in any way.
Just because there is not a ton of media coverage or reference material on them does not invalidate the authenticity and timeline of each release or tour.
Thanks fo your time.
Byron Nemeth — Preceding unsigned comment added by Byron Nemeth (talk • contribs) 04:03, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- Hello Byron Nemeth. The reason that it was deleted was because it was nominated for deletion and a rough consensus was reached that the article did not meet notability guidelines, as is determined by the quantity (or lack thereof) of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject that editors reviewing are able to locate. You can review the discussion here. This guide is also worth reviewing. --TheSandDoctor Talk 05:02, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Darrell Castle AFD
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Darrell Castle - I didn't notice this AFD until closed, but would have voted keep. There are not a lot of good sources, but Al Jazeera is one source about him, and he was the presidential candidate (not vice-presidential as a !vote claims) in 2016 for the Constitution Party. Darrell Castle 2016 presidential campaign is still an article, I would think that if that were merged with the biography it would be named Darrell Castle. I've changed Darrell Castle to redirect to Darrell Castle 2016 presidential campaign for now. Any thoughts? power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Power~enwiki: If you would like, I can reverse the close and put everything back as it was & relist for further consensus gathering. I don't see an issue with the redirect if you are happy with that though. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:44, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's fine as-is unless someone else complains. The redirect is a bit awkward, but the sourcing isn't great enough to demand a relisting. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Good article backlog drive in March
 | March 2021 Backlog Drive As you have taken part in previous GAN Backlog drives, or are a prolific GAN reviewer, you might be interested to know that the March 2021 GAN Backlog Drive starts on March 1, and will continue until the end of the month. |
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 visual editor will now use MediaSearch to find images. You can search for images on Commons in the visual editor when you are looking for illustrations. This is to help editors find better images. [18]
- The syntax highlighter now works with more languages: Futhark, Graphviz/DOT, CDDL and AMDGPU. [19]
Problems
- Editing a timeline might have removed all text from it. This was because of a bug and has been fixed. You might need to edit the timeline again for it to show properly. [20]
Changes later this week
- The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 February. It will be on all wikis from 25 February (calendar).
Future changes
- There is a user group for developers and users interested in working on Wikimedia wikis with the Rust programming language. You can join or tell others who want to make your wiki better in the future.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
00:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Deletion of PRFI Ltd.
Hi, I am a freelance technology writer who was asked by PRFI to improve their page and help to stop it being deleted, which I see that you actioned before I had a chance to do anything to it.
I know this means that I'm not independent, but I'm an experienced tech journalist who fully intended to take out all the promotional aspects and show that the company is noteworthy. I'm not however that experienced on Wikipedia - may main editing experience was in October 2016 when I improved Narrowband_IoT, which as you can see is a highly technical page. I see that I need to start a deletion review, but I'm not too sure how to do that and would appreciate your advice.
Reasons I think PRFI is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia:
- It's not actually part of the Plextek Group any more, having been purchased in March 2020 by CML Microcircuits, who had identified it as of strategic importance to its business.
- It is recognised worldwide as an expert in the niche of designing ICs for 5G mobile communications. Large companies in this field like Qorvo use PRFI to design chips for their own product ranges. (Obviously this would be described in a non-promotional way).
Thank you in advance for your help. Hduncan mwe (talk) 16:06, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
- @Hduncan mwe: In that case, the conflict of interest and (most likely) paid editing polices apply. You must declare if you are being compensated for edits. If you declare (if relevant) and feel you must edit related to the topic, I would strongly recommend using the Articles for Creation process. The notability guideline which must be satisfied is WP:NCORP. This guide is also worth reading. Please read everything that I have linked in full. --TheSandDoctor Talk 16:32, 23 February 2021 (UTC)