User talk:JamesR/TalkArchive/2019/October

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Barkeep49
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno
 * Pictogram voting rename.png JamesBWatson →

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Evad37

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news
 * As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration
 * The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
 * The arbitration case regarding was closed.  While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous
 * The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

Discuss this newsletter

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

HBC AIV Helperbot rangeblocks
Hello again! I've uploaded a patch to the AIV bot source that captures rangeblocks and removes those IPs from AIV as if they had been blocked directly. It was a matter of using bkip instead of bkusers when querying for IP addresses, which I do with a few regexes at the beginning of "check_user". I've also added a new parameter to the "remove_name" job, so that it gets both the user/ip listed on WP:AIV and the actual block target, which I've incorporated in to the edit summary that it uses when removing those lines. Please have a look and see if you can use the changes! Thanks, ST47 (talk) 01:18, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-41
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The abuse filter function now has a faster parser. This is to shorten the waiting time when you save an edit.

Problems Changes later this week Meetings
 * There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
 * The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example  would be   instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
 * There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42
 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
 * You can now use more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else.
 * In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43
 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
 * Octicons-tools.svg' prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.]] The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as . API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives.

Problems
 * There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed.
 * The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
 * Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  14:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!
 Happy First Edit Day! Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 21:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
 * Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist.
 * You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
 * Octicons-tools.svg OOUI now allows using  (pixels) instead of   (em) for some specific cases.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named  to  . The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:15, 28 October 2019 (UTC)