User talk:Xaosflux/Archive47

Tech News: 2023-42

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

Recent changes

• The Unified login system's edge login should now be fixed for some browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera). This means that if you visit a new sister project wiki, you should be logged in automatically without the need to click "Log in" or reload the page. Feedback on whether it's working for you is welcome. [1]
• Edit notices are now available within the MobileFrontend/Minerva skin. This feature was inspired by the gadget on English Wikipedia. See more details in T316178.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 October. It will be on all wikis from 19 October (calendar).

Future changes

• In 3 weeks, in the Vector 2022 skin, code related to addPortletLink and #p-namespaces that was deprecated one year ago will be removed. If you notice tools that should appear next to the "Discussion" tab are then missing, please tell the gadget's maintainers to see instructions in the Phabricator task.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 October 2023

• News and notes: Where have all the administrators gone?

• In the media: Thirst traps, the fastest loading sites on the web, and the original collaborative writing

• Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to know how to restore images to make massive improvements

• Featured content: Yo, ho! Blow the man down!

• Traffic report: The calm and the storm

• News from Diff: Sawtpedia: Giving a Voice to Wikipedia Using QR Codes

• Humour: New citation template introduced for divine revelations, drug use, and really thinking about it

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-43

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

Recent changes

• There is a new Language and internationalization newsletter, written quarterly. It contains updates on new feature development, improvements in various language-related technical projects, and related support work.
• Source map support has been enabled on all wikis. When you open the debugger in your browser's developer tools, you should be able to see the unminified JavaScript source code. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 October. It will be on all wikis from 26 October (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:15, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-44

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

• The Structured Content team, as part of its project of improving UploadWizard on Commons, made some UX improvements to the upload step of choosing own vs not own work (T347590), as well as to the licensing step for own work (T347756).
• The Design Systems team has released version 1.0.0 of Codex, the new design system for Wikimedia. See the full announcement about the release of Codex 1.0.0.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 November. It will be on all wikis from 2 November (calendar).
• Listings on category pages are sorted on each wiki for that language using a library. For a brief period on 2 November, changes to categories will not be sorted correctly for many languages. This is because the developers are upgrading to a new version of the library. They will then use a script to fix the existing categories. This will take a few hours or a few days depending on how big the wiki is. You can read more. [3][4]
• Starting November 1, the impact module (Special:Impact) will be upgraded by the Growth team. The new impact module shows newcomers more data regarding their impact on the wiki. It was tested by a few wikis during the last few months. [5]

Future changes

• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. You can help by reviewing this proposal and sharing what you think about it.
• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

mediawiki:Newpages-summary

Hi Xaosflux, thanks for protecting and editing my fork of the Page Curation script. I noticed that you had edited the MediaWiki page to include the script, but I think you might have substituted the wrong link. The fork is of this script which is linked in the sentence "A user script for accessing the Page Curation tool is also available". Could you link it there instead please? All the best and thanks for your IntAdmin work. Schminnte ^{[talk to me]} 19:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@Schminnte hi there, sorry if I got the wrong link somewhere and I'll certainly work to fix it. I'm not exactly what needs to be changed though, could you clarify? Which page needs to be edited, and which text should be changed to which new text? Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 19:24, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Certainly :)

• The page that needs to be edited is MediaWiki:Newpages-summary,
• The line at the bottom (An alternative script is available for the same.) should be reverted back to An alternative script is available for the same. as this is a different script from the one in forking,
• The link in the fmbox (A user script for accessing the Page Curation tool is also available.) should either be changed to link to User:Schminnte/PageCuration, or the redirect should be re-targeted to that page.

Thanks again, Schminnte ^{[talk to me]} 19:36, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

@Schminnte thank you!

1. I reverted my change
2. I changed Wikipedia:PageCuration script to point to User:Schminnte/PageCuration
3. (unrelated) I deleted An alternative [[User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages|script]] is available for the same. all together, as that script is unmaintained now.

Miss anything? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:41, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Don't think so, thanks for everything! Schminnte ^{[talk to me]} 20:26, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Help

Hello!

Any idea what could be going wrong in here? It shows a file broken link but not sure where that is coming from. I've spent like 6 hours checking everything but still have no clue. - Klein Muçi (talk) 22:08, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Better now? I null edited the dependent templates to force them to recalculate. Way too much dynamic loading going on in my opinion. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:14, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah... So nothing was wrong per se... Thank you!
Yeah... I know what you mean. I've tried making things as easy/automatic as I've can. Everything comes with a drawback. If things get heavy I'll start changing them back. Thank you again! — Klein Muçi (talk) 23:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Can you please take a look at the link above again and our main page and tell me what is going on with the border and padding? Is this a still a problem arising from the aforementioned dynamic loading? Is the specific chosen photo problematic? It's been 2 days now trying to solve it, ever since you fixed the problem with the broken link, but nothing seems to work.
This is the CSS page: Link
The photo is supposed to have an inline border and align with the text body with a small padding in-between. — Klein Muçi (talk) 11:49, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure and don't have time to delve in to all of it. First thing to check, it looks like some of that image is getting styles with multiple template style loads on the template, but only one of those is on the main page (is what you are missing in: Stampa:Artikulli i javës/styles.css ?) — xaosflux ^Talk 12:00, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

That works in unifying the looks but all sections have their own CSS page. Do they all need to be included in the Main Page? I thought it was enough to include it on the local template page and if you transcluded it, it would come with the associated styles as well. Am I wrong in that assumption? — Klein Muçi (talk) 12:09, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Apparently with the other cases the inclusion doesn't make a difference but with that template it does. Hmm... — Klein Muçi (talk) 12:12, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

It looks like on the template, you have the templatestyles in the "noinclude" section, so they would not be used when the template is called. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Why would I do that... :'( You are right. That solved the problem. Now I just need to give them the correct styling I suppose. Thank you very much! — Klein Muçi (talk) 12:24, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Request

I've started a revamp of Wikipedia:Tools/Optimum tool set.

Please take a look and let me know if there are any essential techniques or must have tools that you think should be included.

Thank you.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   06:40, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Watchlist messages

So, rather than go ahead and kill even more electrons on MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages with the clearly-excessive 37-step repro I have written up,^† is there any way I can convince you to just turn on the gadget (if you have it off), reload your watchlist, and type mw.storage.get('hidewatchlistmessages') into a console? Not getting 596 in the results anymore despite having dismissed the RFA message is 95% of the proof, and I suppose I could demonstrate the rest over on testwiki if it's kosher to hand out interface-admin there. —Cryptic 00:38, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

^†Too many of the steps started to look like

• "click on 'skip this survey' and dismiss the popup and all the other not-very-welcoming stuff we inflict on new users", and
• "stop to chat with the userspace police, who've shown up on your usertalk to complain that the account name you picked is illegal despite you only existing for half an hour, you've never made an edit, and WP:USERNAME says nothing of the sort", and especially
• "you might want to stop now, unless you want to find out what happens when the zero-edit account you've just granted extended-confirmed with your admin goes ahead and disrupts RFA and everybody's watchlist to prove this point".

Regarding that test, same result before and after disabling the notice:

:>mw.storage.get('hidewatchlistmessages')
:<null

However I have no recollection of what I may or may not have recently dismissed. It does sound like the 'empty the storage' may be running when it shouldn't, and I pinged in the last script developer who had requested changes to the conversation on the wl talk page. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:01, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

There's a fallback in the gadget js, mw.storage.session.get('hidewatchlistmessages'), that's used if mw.storage.get(...) fails. I had thought it was intended for old versions of MediaWiki, or perhaps minority or mobile browsers - both of the ones I tested with use mw.storage; I didn't try on mobile - but it's documented to last only the lifetime of the open browser tab. Try that?

Anyway, the gadget is mostly doing what it says it should do: it removes old cookie-ids that are no longer referenced. (It fails to do that if there are no hidden or hideable messages at all, so it forever stores the last one to expire, maybe intentionally, maybe not; in practice, there's always another watchlist message between RFAs.) The problem is the way we've been abusing it with the RFA message, which removes itself entirely - not just makes itself invisible - when there are no RFAs, and updates itself immediately when the number of RFAs changes. Even if nobody looks at their watchlist or is irritated enough to complain about it between when a new RFA starts and when the cookie is manually updated, it's still going to say "there are 2 rfas open" as soon as a second one opens to people who haven't dismissed the message yet, no matter that we wait a half a day to bump the number on Mediawiki:Watchlist-messages a second time. —Cryptic 15:50, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Seems like the fix needs to be to not purge the old values, waiting for the response from the last script writer that I expect is related to that. As far as the edge case of:

1. There is a visible RFA that has a new cookie
2. You don't dismiss it
3. A second simultaneous RFA opens saying "there are n RFA's"
4. You dismiss it during the window before its cookie gets incremented by an admin
5. The RFA cookie gets incremented
6. The WLN shows

I don't think that alone is going to get solved while being able to maintain some of the automation; but it is quite a small edge case.

— xaosflux ^Talk 16:15, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't particularly concerned about this case, no, other than that some of the options for dealing with my complaint would also fix that. We're not really saving much effort from the automation anyway since we're still manually updating the cookie numbers. I'd be happy to take over maintenance of the rfa messages if we went to an more-manual method, btw, so this isn't entirely a "This doesn't working exactly how I want! You, over there, do more unpaid labor for me!" complaint.

Documentation for mw.storage warns that the space is limited - albeit in the context of old keys, I don't know if it also applies to their values - so I don't know whether leaving all the values in there forever is wise. Not a webdev. —Cryptic 16:35, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Agree, also think there is something else going on here - I still haven't been able to replicate the actual problem even if I can replicate some of the signals. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:44, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

• Arbitration report: Admin bewilderingly unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin who was extremely banned in 2015

• In the media: UK shadow chancellor accused of ripping off WP articles for book, Wikipedians accused of being dicks by a rich man

• News and notes: Board candidacy process posted, editors protest WMF privacy measure, sweet meetups

• Opinion: An open letter to Elon Musk

• WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2023

• News from Wiki Ed: Equity lists on Wikipedia

• Recent research: How English Wikipedia drove out fringe editors over two decades

• Featured content: Like putting a golf course in a historic site.

• Wikidata: Evaluating qualitative systemic bias in large article sets on Wikipedia

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:45, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Bug?

If you use {{Special:NewPages|namespace=0|limit=1}} you get this result:

7 November 2024

• 19:4819:48, 7 November 2024 2015 Dakota State Trojans football team (hist | edit) [5,661 bytes] SS2027 (talk | contribs) (←Created page with '{{short description|American college football season}} {{Infobox college sports team season | year = 2015 | team = Dakota State Trojans | sport = football | image = | image_size = | conference = North Star Athletic Association | short_conf = NSAA | record = 6–5 | conf_record = 4–2 | head_coach = Josh Anderson | hc_year = 7th | off_coach = | oc_year = | def_coach = | dc_year = | def_scheme = | captain = |...')

If you inspect its classes you'll see that the talk and contribute links are inside a single class called "mw-usertoollinks" but article history and edit are not. The parentheses, space and pipe characters are plain text, outside of the classes themselves. Therefore, if you decide to hide them, like I tried here, you'll get left with those characters with no way to target them (JS aside). Is this considered a bug? Can I talk with someone for this to be changed? I can of course just open a phab ticket but not sure how to report the problem in a clear way without using live examples like I did here. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:55, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi this does not appear to be a bug, just something that doesn't exist. It appears to be the mediawiki default behavior as well. You can open a feature request at phabricator. Leave out anything superfluous (such as "if you use x in a transclusion" - as this happens on the native output as well). Your request would be something like

• Story: I want to be able to target the group of page tool links on Special:NewPages with css to style them differently.
  • Then as a comment, perhaps a suggestion to "add a span element with a unique class to the output of Special:NewPages between the '.a with class mw-newpages-pagename' and '.span with class mw-newpages-length'".

— xaosflux ^Talk 14:35, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-45

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

• In the Vector 2022 skin, the default font-size of a number of navigational elements (tagline, tools menu, navigational links, and more) has been increased slightly to match the font size used in page content. [6]

Problems

• Last week, there was a problem displaying some recent edits on a few wikis, for 1-6 hours. The edits were saved but not immediately shown. This was due to a database problem. [7]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 November. It will be on all wikis from 9 November (calendar).
• The Growth team will reassign newcomers from former mentors to the currently active mentors. They have also changed the notification language to be more user-friendly. [8][9]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Inform before blocking, explain about blocking, guide to avoid blocking.

No clue what this ip wanted, they got blocked elsewise

I invite this page owner to discuss some important isuues to make every moment,user and effort productive and copetative for overall well being of everyone and everything who are part of Wikipedia in any manner. Kindly pay attention and free your time to be with me for a while Mister/Miss/Misses XOASFLUX. Don't you dare to miss it once you did to mess it. Come and start. I am here only. Bring some operations manual given to you for performing adminship along.22:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC) 2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 22:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC) Why you are misusing your admin powers to take other admins blocking legacy forward? I had appreciated you by calling you a helpful admin. I praised you while talking to my friend user. You can ask to verify. My friend is not given adminship yet otherwise I wouldn't be facing these difficulty. Read above message and join me as soon as possible. Call your boss and take special permission to discuss with me you find less time for it. Apply a sick leave, accident leave or marriage leave, whatever reason doesn't matter false , give and free yourself for this. I am awaiting Mr/Ms/Mrs XOASFLUX. 📢2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 22:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC) I'm sorry, you will need to be more specific, that address has never been blocked. — xaosflux Talk 23:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC) What does Wikipedia want me do?2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 00:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC) What does Wikipedia want me do? Why did you delete my content that I wrote yesterday night ? Why my mobile phone's more than 50 screenshots are having you proving you blocked me? 2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 00:59, 7 November 2023 (UTC) You better know who needs to be more specific, me or Wikipedia? I would suggest you not to assume who was what instead give my questions answer. Be honest. I don't care if you are going to murder me but do inform . I can lose myself to honest people. I neither can give nor take a second if you are a cheater/lier/dishonest/cruel/irresponsible/undiciplined. Egnore bad English not me I am more bad than it.2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 01:12, 7 November 2023 (UTC) I have no idea what you are talking about. If you have a question about a block I made, see the list of them here, be specific as to exactly which block you are asking about. Note, I haven't blocked anyone here on the English Wikipedia in almost 2 months. — xaosflux Talk 02:29, 7 November 2023 (UTC) Send your WhatsApp number lier. I'm sending you all photos. Instead of accepting what you did you are protecting yourself. I don't like this nature. I never hide if I do wrong. I don't care if people hate me. I am not a people pleaser. What specific?? Wikipedia needs to be specific, I don't. Mind it and eat your mind in regret. !! God sees all. I trust him. 2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 02:46, 7 November 2023 (UTC) Fight with me whole day. I challenge you for full time one to one combat. Later you can take all your gangs with you to counter me like Ganiac, Fr33man, Daniel, LS35 and many more with your entire brigade and I alon this side. I never forget name and face. I never forget what wrong I did to someone and what wrong someone did to me. Remember I am not who compromise or surrender without knowing the truth. I win or I lose I don't care but I do care what I am yet to know inspite of losing everything in attempts of knowing it. Do you have any idea how critial my situation was that became again a Suicidal state against I was already fighting a battle without medicine and doctor. I lost my students. I shut my classroom that I had started after lock down breakdown of almost 3 years. My half family members was in different hospitals. I was in Emergency of another hospital. Rest were permanent paitent of something already. Do you want proof? I can send all.I always worshipped knowledge and Wikipedia broke me like no other. I was about to hang this time for final successful result. Could it be worse?? 😭😭😭 Wikipedia blocked me in emails long ago. Who does this ?? No one today replies also except very few master pieces who says day's name if you ask them vegetable name !! How many emails for help which are not received yet ?? Any idea ??? I again gave Wikipedia money in toughest time. No confirmation no reply of anything. I am in war with thier email donor company Zendesk, you know? And many more, much more. You are admin but butcher in nature. Why this death plan wasn't in Wikipedia's work culture ?? I can bet thousands of innocent users would have killed themselves just because of this harrasment treat of Wikipedia. Remember not anyone is me. Why Wikipedia can't feel the pain, loneliness, guilt feel and hundreds of self harming acts of a victim in such case ?? Will Wikipedia give me students, books to write for thousands if school teachers and bear my all medical expenses?? Why this terror. Doesn't anyone from Wikipedia ever cry over sorrows??😭😭😭 My Wikipedia friend user is not allowed to reply me and I am told that user I am bad !! Already I don't have any friend in life. Where should I go then ?? Heaven or hell? Will Wikipedia buy poison for me to travel there?? Block me from commenting , it will be good for Wikipedia and you and every other admins in your gang. Not just book writing , classroom, government project I lost film writing work too. Who works in such Suicidal state ?? Others may be working but I can't. I am not a super man. I need positive and happy mind to perform anything. I would love to share each proofs what I'm telling about. 😭😭😭 2409:4081:AC14:BD4E:0:0:CC4A:7309 (talk) 02:39, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2023).

Administrator changes

0xDeadbeef

Tamzin

Dennis Brown

Interface administrator changes

Pppery

• Ragesoss
• TheresNoTime

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

• The WMF is working on making it possible for administrators to edit MediaWiki configuration directly. This is similar to previous work on Special:EditGrowthConfig. A technical RfC is running until November 08, where you can provide feedback.
• There is a proposed plan for re-enabling the Graph Extension. Feedback on this proposal is requested.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves from 12 November 2023 until 21 November 2023 to stand in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections.
• Xaosflux, RoySmith and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2023 Arbitration Committee Elections. BusterD is the reserve commissioner.
• Following a motion, the contentious topic designation of Prem Rawat has been struck. Actions previously taken using this contentious topic designation are still in force.
• Following several motions, multiple topic areas are no longer designated as a contentious topic. These contentious topic designations were from the Editor conduct in e-cigs articles, Liancourt Rocks, Longevity, Medicine, September 11 conspiracy theories, and Shakespeare authorship question cases.
• Following a motion, remedies 3.1 (All related articles under 1RR whenever the dispute over naming is concerned), 6 (Stalemate resolution) and 30 (Administrative supervision) of the Macedonia 2 case have been rescinded.
• Following a motion, remedy 6 (One-revert rule) of the The Troubles case has been amended.
• An arbitration case named Industrial agriculture has been opened. Evidence submissions in this case close 8 November.

Miscellaneous

• The Articles for Creation backlog drive is happening in November 2023, with 700+ drafts pending reviews for in the last 4 months or so. In addition to the AfC participants, all administrators and New Page Patrollers can conduct reviews using the helper script, Yet Another AFC Helper Script, which can be enabled in the Gadgets settings. Sign up here to participate!

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Gadget tags for sister projects

Howdy. I noticed that a couple years back we got some new tags for the gadgets, like "default", "sister", etc. I was wondering if there were any relevant discussions about the introduction of those tags that I could look at for some of the reasoning behind introducing them? Thank you. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:32, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

@Enterprisey not a lot, there is some discussion in phab:T65598 about the (E) marking - and I sort of took that upon myself to start doing something to try to mitigate some of those concerns. The (D) default one is half-implemented in software now (it displays in Special:Gadgets but not yet in Special:Preferences (phab:T51501 may one day implement that). The S, and U were things I came up with mostly in isolation to help our users make better risk decisions for themselves. I'm wide open to any feedback, additional improvements or workshopping overhauls if you would like. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:41, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-46

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

• Four new wikis have been created:
  • a Wikipedia in Moroccan Amazigh (w:zgh:) [10]
  • a Wikipedia in Dagaare (w:dga:) [11]
  • a Wikipedia in Toba Batak (w:bbc:) [12]
  • a Wikiquote in Banjar (q:bjn:) [13]

Problems

• Last week, users who previously visited Meta-Wiki or Wikimedia Commons and then became logged out on those wikis could not log in again. The problem is now resolved. [14]
• Last week, some pop-up dialogs and menus were shown with the wrong font size. The problem is now resolved. [15]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 November. It will be on all wikis from 16 November (calendar).

Future changes

• Reference Previews are coming to many wikis as a default feature. They are popups for references, similar to the PagePreviews feature. You can opt out of seeing them. If you are using the gadgets Reference Tooltips or Navigation Popups, you won’t see Reference Previews. Deployment is planned for November 22, 2023.
• Canary (also known as heartbeat) events will be produced into Wikimedia event streams from December 11. Streams users are advised to filter out these events, by discarding all events where meta.domain == "canary". Updates to Pywikibot or wikimedia-streams will discard these events by default. [16]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Sandbox template

Hello, Xaosflux!

Can you please help me understand and adapt a specific part of {{Sandbox heading}}? I just want to know how the button to "reset the sandbox" works. What are those pages and those edit id numbers? What exactly would I need to put for my homewiki if we are using this page as a sandbox: sq:WP:Livadhi ? - Klein Muçi (talk) 11:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi those are just some "know good versions" from the history of those various sandboxes, e.g: Special:Permalink/1152694269 is a known good version of Wikipedia talk:Sandbox. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:38, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

So to adapt it for my homewiki I just set it to a known good old version of our page? What exactly happens with those versions? Are they edited? Restored? What happens when you edit an old version of a page as I've never tried that before. Just asking so I don't end up ruining page histories in general. — Klein Muçi (talk) 13:49, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

It makes a link with the &oldid parameter, which is the same if you go to a page, go to the history, and open an old version. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! — Klein Muçi (talk) 14:28, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Adding template

Hello @Xaosflux I have seen that you have interface-admin right here so I am confirmed that you have some knowledge of CSS or JavaScript so can you help adding protected page template to Public Test Wiki. Nexovia (talk) 12:44, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

testwiki:Template:Pp already exists. Keep in mind, it is just for testing things we don't actually mark up every protected page with it there. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks :)

Hi

Just wanted to say thanks very much for making me the template on Meta, the request got archived just after you replied so couldn't reply there.

Thanks again

John Cummings (talk) 13:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Hope it works out for you! — xaosflux ^Talk 13:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Xaosflux. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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.

—asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 14:10, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

@Asparagusus  Done you may want to follow up with that editor on copyvios, COI, and USERNAME issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:18, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! :) —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 14:19, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

• In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

• News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health

• Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads

• Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom

• Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:45, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-47

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

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [17][18]
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Quechua Wikipedia, Romansh Wikipedia, Romani Wikipedia, Rundi Wikipedia, Aromanian Wikipedia, Tarandíne Wikipedia, Rusyn Wikipedia, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sakha Wikipedia, Santali Wikipedia, Sardinian Wikipedia, Sicilian Wikipedia, Scots Wikipedia, Sindhi Wikipedia, Northern Sami Wikipedia, Sango Wikipedia, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, Sinhala Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Slovenian Wikipedia, Samoan Wikipedia, Somali Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Serbian Wikipedia, Sranan Tongo Wikipedia, Swati Wikipedia, Southern Sotho Wikipedia, Saterland Frisian Wikipedia, Sundanese Wikipedia, Silesian Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Tulu Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Tetum Wikipedia, Tajik Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia, Tagalog Wikipedia, Tswana Wikipedia, Tongan Wikipedia, Tok Pisin Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Tatar Wikipedia, Twi Wikipedia, Tahitian Wikipedia, Tuvinian Wikipedia, Udmurt Wikipedia, Uyghur Wikipedia, Uzbek Wikipedia, Venda Wikipedia, Venetian Wikipedia, Veps Wikipedia, West Flemish Wikipedia, Volapük Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [19][20][21]
• The Vector 2022 skin will have some minor visual changes to drop-down menus, column widths, and more. These changes were added to four Wikipedias last week. If no issues are found, these changes will proceed to all wikis this week. These changes will make it possible to add new menus for readability and dark mode. Learn more. [22]

Future changes

• There is an update on re-enabling the Graph Extension. To speed up the process, Vega 2 will not be supported and only some protocols will be available at launch. You can help by sharing what you think about the plan.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Assistance ?

I tried to create a candidacy statement, and I think that my candidacy statement is in some sort of limbo. Do I need to start over, or is there somewhere that I can pick up the pieces and continue the process in the next eight hours? Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon thank you for self-nominating. Your statement was created and is located here: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2023/Candidates/Robert McClenon/Statement; the minimum needed to complete the nomination is to transclude it to the candidates page. Edit this section of this page: Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2023/Candidates#Standing_candidates and insert your candidate page along with the others. There may be some other pages to clean up (talk pages, the questions page, etc - but those can be cleaned up after). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn't know that I was allowed to do that. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

You're in; any other cleanups someone else may handle. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 18:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Yep, the coordinators can assist and getting all the other pages set up. Thanks for applying. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 19:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Request for deletion

Dear Xaosflux, Hello, I'm going to accept an draft submission Draft:Environmental issues in Myanmar but I saw this topic is already exist in article namespace and redirect to Myanmar, so, I request to you please delete Environmental issues in Myanmar and I will be able to accept this submission only after this page is deletion, I'm waiting for deletion of this page under WP:G6. ~~ αvírαm|(tαlk) 14:16, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Aviram7 not sure why you looked for me on this one, but I've gone ahead and deleted Environmental issues in Myanmar under the CSD. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:20, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Dear Xaosflux, Thanks for about that. :) ~~ αvírαm|(tαlk) 14:57, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message (test)

(This is a test message. You are getting this, because you are either a coordinator or an electoral commissioner for the Arbitration Committee Elections.)

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed 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 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-48

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 November. It will be on all wikis from 30 November (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [23][24]
• MediaWiki's JavaScript system will now allow async/await syntax in gadgets and user scripts. Gadget authors should remember that users' browsers may not support it, so it should be used appropriately. [25]
• The deployment of "Add a link" announced last week was postponed. It will resume this week.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:07, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed 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 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 December 2023

• News and notes: Beeblebrox ejected from Arbitration Committee following posts on Wikipediocracy

• In the media: Turmoil on Hebrew Wikipedia, grave dancing, Olga's impact and inspiring Bhutanese nuns

• Disinformation report: "Wikipedia and the assault on history"

• In focus: Tens of thousands of freely available sources flagged

• Comix: Bold comics for a new age

• Essay: I am going to die

• Featured content: Real gangsters move in silence

• Traffic report: And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain

• Humour: Mandy Rice-Davies Applies

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:11, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-49

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

• The spacing between paragraphs on Vector 2022 has been changed from 7px to 14px to match the size of the text. This will make it easier to distinguish paragraphs from sentences. [26]
• The "Sort this page by default as" feature in VisualEditor is working again. You no longer need to switch to source editing to edit {{DEFAULTSORT:...}} keywords. [27]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [28][29]
• On 6 December, people who have the enabled the preference for "Show discussion activity" will notice the talk page usability improvements appear on pages that include the __NEWSECTIONLINK__ magic word. If you notice any issues, please share them with the team on Phabricator.

Future changes

• The Toolforge Grid Engine shutdown process will start on December 14. Maintainers of tools that still use this old system should plan to migrate to Kubernetes, or tell the team your plans on Phabricator in the task about your tool, before that date. [30]
• Communities using Structured Discussions are being contacted regarding the upcoming deprecation of Structured Discussions. You can read more about this project, and share your comments, on the project's page.

Events

• Registration & Scholarship applications are now open for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2024 that will take place from 3–5 May in Tallinn, Estonia. Scholarship applications are open until 5 January 2024.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Protection of Template:CatAutoTOC

I would like to clarify Special:Diff/1188777839 – removal of protection from Template:CatAutoTOC. Per transclusion counter, it has more than half a million transclusions. It seems that the removal of protection was done by accident. Perhaps it was supposed to be upgraded from template protection (it was protected since 2019) to full protection? —⁠andrybak (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

@Andrybak thank you for your vigilance. I had indeed intended to move that the other way (to FP); this should now be resolved. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2023).

Administrator changes

• Ganesha811
• JPxG

• Ajpolino
• Lourdes
• Mairi
• RockMFR
• Somno
• WilyD

Beeblebrox → Just Step Sideways

CheckUser changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Oversight changes

• Beeblebrox
• Opabinia regalis

Guideline and policy news

• Following a talk page discussion, the Administrators' accountability policy has been updated to note that while it is considered best practice for administrators to have notifications (pings) enabled, this is not mandatory. Administrators who do not use notifications are now strongly encouraged to indicate this on their user page.

Arbitration

• Following a motion, the Extended Confirmed Restriction has been amended, removing the allowance for non-extended-confirmed editors to post constructive comments on the "Talk:" namespace. Now, non-extended-confirmed editors may use the "Talk:" namespace solely to make edit requests related to articles within the topic area, provided that their actions are not disruptive.
• The Arbitration Committee has announced a call for Checkusers and Oversighters, stating that it will currently be accepting applications for CheckUser and/or Oversight permissions at any point in the year.
• Eligible users are invited to vote on candidates for the Arbitration Committee until 23:59 December 11, 2023 (UTC). Candidate statements can be seen here.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:55, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-50

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

Recent changes

• On Wikimedia Commons, there are some minor user-interface improvements for the "choosing own vs not own work" step in the UploadWizard. This is part of the Structured Content team's project of improving UploadWizard on Commons. [31][32]

Problems

• There was a problem showing the Newcomer homepage feature with the "impact module" and their page-view graphs, for a few days in early December. This has now been fixed. [33][34]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 December. It will be on all wikis from 14 December (calendar). [35][36]

Future changes

• The 2023 Developer Satisfaction Survey is seeking the opinions of the Wikimedia developer community. Please take the survey if you have any role in developing software for the Wikimedia ecosystem. The survey is open until 5 January 2024, and has an associated privacy statement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 02:11, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Nomination of Santa Claus machine for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Santa Claus machine 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/Santa Claus machine until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, 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 until the discussion has finished.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:18, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-51

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

• The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 8 January 2024 because of the holidays.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 December. It will be on all wikis from 21 December (calendar). There is no new MediaWiki version next week. [37][38]
• Starting December 18, it won't be possible to activate Structured Discussions on a user's own talk page using the Beta feature. The Beta feature option remains available for users who want to deactivate Structured Discussions. This is part of Structured Discussions' deprecation work. [39]
• There will be full support for redirects in the Module namespace. The "Move Page" feature will leave an appropriate redirect behind, and such redirects will be appropriately recognized by the software (e.g. hidden from Special:UnconnectedPages). There will also be support for manual redirects. [40]

Future changes

• The MediaWiki JavaScript documentation is moving to a new format. During the move, you can read the old docs using version 1.41. Feedback about the new site is welcome on the project talk page.
• The Wishathon is a new initiative that encourages collaboration across the Wikimedia community to develop solutions for wishes collected through the Community Wishlist Survey. The first community Wishathon will take place from 15–17 March. If you are interested in a project proposal as a user, developer, designer, or product lead, you can register for the event and read more.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings!

Hello there, thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia! Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas and here's to a happy and productive 2024! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:09, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy holidays, ya filthy animal.

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2024!

Hello Xaosflux, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2024. Happy editing, The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1(The Garage) 01:55, 22 December 2023 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1^{(The Garage)} 01:55, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

A solstice greeting

❄️ Happy holidays! ❄️

Hi Xaosflux! I'd like to wish you a splendid solstice season as we wrap up the year. Here is an artwork, made individually for you, to celebrate. Looking forward to collaborating more on interface work in the coming year! Take care, and thanks for all you do to make Wikipedia better!

Cheers,
{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk

Solstice Celebration for Xaosflux, 2023, DALL·E 3.

(View full series)

Note: The vibes are winter solsticey. If you're in the southern hemisphere, oops, apologies.

{{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2023

• Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article?

• News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023

• In the media: Consider the humble fork

• Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI

• In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU

• Technology report: Dark mode is coming

• Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata

• Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

• Comix: Lollus lmaois 200C tincture

• Crossword: when the crossword is sus

• Traffic report: What's the big deal? I'm an animal!

• From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^

• Apocrypha: Local editor discovered 1,380 lost subheadings in ancient Signpost scrolls. And what he found was shocking.

• Humour: Guess the joke contest

• BJAODN: Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:00, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

badge

Thanks for replying, but the page you recommend:: (https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org) is the very one I I get when I click login. And I've never prohibited scripts etc. John Wheater (talk) 15:07, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

@JohnWheater would you please contact TWL people directly via: wikipedialibrarywikimedia.org. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:11, 28 December 2023 (UTC)