User talk:Jarble/Archive 5

Animal Sexual Behaviour
Dear Jarble, on this comparing revisions page of Animal Sexual Behaviour you can see (with ctrl+f or other search function) those offspring. English is not my mother language (Dutch is), but I am right, I guess, asserting that those should be followed by a plural noun. I don't know how to correct the sentence or maybe the whole paragraph, started by Flyer22 on 8 March 2014. Would you be willing to correct this avenue of thought?

Since you are an important editor of this big article, I write this to you, rather than mentioning this in general. As a Wikipedia-article gets older, I perceive, scrolling in the history of an article, that now and then some pieces or whole paragraphs from the past seem more reliable and/or stylish better than the actual version. -- Dartelaar  [write me!]  14:26, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
 * This issue should be discussed on the talk page, since it might also need attention from the article's other editors. 16:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

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Category discussion
If you wish, please join in this discussion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_October_14.

Marcocapelle (talk) 23:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

October 2014
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Penis
The Penis article has the picture of an apparently circumcised human penis. Don't you think that a biological article on the features of a penis should have an apparent foreskin?--186.213.176.88 (talk) 21:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Animal anatomy
Hello, I noticed you've been editing a lot of articles related to sexual reproduction and thought you might be interested in a discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Animal_anatomy about how we present and organise this information on Wikipedia. Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:49, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
Hi, thanks for adding some info to the Dec 2014 page. I've deleted the new section because those were all already on there or belonged to November. Please read the articles carefully and compare to what's listed. If you do think something is missing, just add an entry for it to the list, and someone else will clean it up. It's the same amount of time as adding to another section and keeps the page cleaner. Best, Eponymous-Archon (talk) 15:32, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Category:Individual bulls
Category:Individual bulls, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Herostratus (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Temperature conversion
You are improperly using the convert template when attempting to replace degrees Celsius to the template.

In general, a change of 10 degrees Celsius should be written as, except it doesn't work correctly. I've modified two of your recent changes (with "abbr" on), but removed one entirely, as "approximately 1 degree Celsius" doesn't convert to an approximate number of degrees Fahrenheit. In 350.org it is correct to convert 2 °C to 3.6 °F, as it's an exact goal, and I have no objection to the change in Karakalpakstan, even though quite possibly inaccurate. Please be careful not to introduce clear mistakes into articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:34, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Low-wage job listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Low-wage job. Since you had some involvement with the Low-wage job redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 00:23, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Low-paying job listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Low-paying job. Since you had some involvement with the Low-paying job redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 15:47, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Low-wage work listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Low-wage work. Since you had some involvement with the Low-wage work redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 15:48, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Linking
PLEASE do not add Wikilinks unless you understand the subject of the article and the target article sufficiently to determine the link is correct; also please do not add hatnotes related to redirects if it is obvious that the redirect is wrong. I have found the majority of your edits today to be wrong. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I added several links to algebraic simplification, which is a topic that has no corresponding page anywhere on Wikipedia: see WP:Red link. Are these links still considered "wrong"? Jarble (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It would only be appropriate if the article "algebraic simplification" could be written. I don't think it could be written as to be appropriate under that name, so I believe it would be wrong. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Algebraic simplification" usually refers to simplification of algebraic expressions, so it should link to a section that discusses this topic. Jarble (talk)

Attendance
In order to resolve the current dispute over the correct target for Attendance, I have created Draft:Attendance, which I would propose directly addresses the core problem here, the lack of an article on the basic concept. Please help build this article to a state where it is worth moving to mainspace. bd2412 T 16:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:WINAD
Hi Jarble. I see you're incredibly active, so I may have missed it, but I don't see any discussion leading to this edit that added WP:WINAD to the list of content policies. I've been maintaining a list of quarterly updates for these policies for many years at WP:Update. If there was no discussion, I'll go ahead and revert, as is generally done for any really significant undiscussed change to content policies, and I'll call for discussion, probably at WT:NOT, the most closely related content policy page. - Dank (push to talk) 18:23, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This edit did not change any of Wikipedia's policies. I expected this edit to be uncontroversial because WP:WINAD is already included in Category:Wikipedia content policies, WP:List of policies, and WP:List of policies and guidelines. Jarble (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Understood. There are different types of policies, each with their own culture, and adding a content policy page changes content policy. Looking quickly, the only edit I can see that came before yours was this one in October 2012 by NTox, also apparently without discussion. NTox, am I missing some discussion that happened either before or after you moved that policy page from the deletion policies to the content policies over there? (My understanding is that it was classified as a deletion policy because it generally does function as a deletion policy, in the sense that pages created merely as dictionary definitions are sometimes removed per that policy, but I'm trying to stay neutral here, since I maintain the Update page.) - Dank (push to talk) 18:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, Dank. I have not been active with Wikipedia for some time (my last edit was eight months ago), but I received an e-mail about your mention of me here. Wikipedia:List of policies is, of course, simply a categorization scheme for those who are benefited by observing a simple framework of the English Wikipeda's policies. It is really like an essay, not a policy. If an editor adds or removes a page from one of the categories, that does not change policy (as the top of the page says, "Changing this page does not change policy"). I added Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary to the content category because it primarily describes the fact that dictionary material is not encyclopedic content, in the same way that Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not--a content policy--also describes inappropriate content ("Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is the first entry in the section that discusses content on WP:NOT, again a content policy). Of course, it is justifiable to ask questions about consensus when changes are made to WP:LOP--to that I would say my edit has persisted more than two years without argument, and consensus is generally assumed when there are no disagreements. Further, I am not aware of any discussion that firmly places WP:NAD in the deletion category regardless. NTox · talk 17:03, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Very little attention has been paid to LOP over the years; I believe we're in agreement that what happens there isn't determinative. Okay, I believe I've got the answer to my question ... there's been no discussion. I'll revert (except at LOP, I'll wait on the results of the discussion for that) and raise the question at WT:NOT later today. - Dank (push to talk) 17:12, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

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Criticism of conservatism listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Criticism of conservatism. Since you had some involvement with the Criticism of conservatism redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Mr. Guye (talk) 22:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This redirect page was re-targeted by User:Vejvančický. It used to point to Discrimination against conservatives, which was deleted because of its apparent political bias, among other reasons. Jarble (talk) 23:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Double redirects
Jarble, when you create redirects, please be sure to target them to an article, and not to another redirect. Please see Double redirects for more information. Double redirects don't work, since they don't take readers directly to the article they're looking for. Thanks, Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:32, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * These redirects are repaired automatically by bots. Is it still necessary to repair them manually? Jarble (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Not really, but it's better not to create them in the first place, just as a matter of principle. You're totally right that it's a waste of time for humans to fix these. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 12
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Category:Climate change skepticism
Category:Climate change skepticism, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. jps (talk) 18:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Huh
Unusual to be thanked for a simple redirect, but you're certainly welcome. Glad it was helpful. — Llywelyn II   14:20, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #2—2015
Did you know?

With Citoid in VisualEditor, you click the 'book with bookmark' icon and paste in the URL for a reliable source:



Citoid looks up the source for you and returns the citation results. Click the green "Insert" button to accept its results and add them to the article:



After inserting the citation, you can change it. Select the reference, and click the "Edit" button in the context menu to make changes.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and worked on VisualEditor's performance, the Citoid reference service, and support for languages with complex input requirements. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 11:00 (noon) PDT (18:00 UTC). You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker. Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug. Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.

Recent improvements
VisualEditor is now substantially faster. In many cases, opening the page in VisualEditor is now faster than opening it in the wikitext editor. The new system has improved the code speed by 37% and network speed by almost 40%.

The Editing team is slowly adding auto-fill features for citations. This is currently available only at the French, Italian, and English Wikipedias. The Citoid service takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. After creating it, you will be able to change or add information to the citation, in the same way that you edit any other pre-existing citation in VisualEditor. Support for ISBNs, PMIDs, and other identifiers is planned. Later, editors will be able to improve precision and reduce the need for manual corrections by contributing to the Citoid service's definitions for each website.

Citoid requires good TemplateData for your citation templates. If you would like to request this feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

The special character inserter has been improved, based upon feedback from active users. After this, VisualEditor was made available to all users of Wikipedias on the Phase 5 list on 30 March. This affected 53 mid-size and smaller Wikipedias, including Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Breton, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Mongolian, Tatar, and Welsh.

Work continues to support languages with complex requirements, such as Korean and Japanese. These languages use input method editors ("IMEs”). Recent improvements to cursoring, backspace, and delete behavior will simplify typing in VisualEditor for these users.

The design for the image selection process is now using a "masonry fit" model. Images in the search results are displayed at the same height but at variable widths, similar to bricks of different sizes in a masonry wall, or the "packed" mode in image galleries. This style helps you find the right image by making it easier to see more details in images.

You can now drag and drop categories to re-arrange their order of appearance ​on the page.

The pop-up window that appears when you click on a reference, image, link, or other element, is called the "context menu". It now displays additional useful information, such as the destination of the link or the image's filename. The team has also added an explicit "Edit" button in the context menu, which helps new editors open the tool to change the item.

Invisible templates are marked by a puzzle piece icon so they can be interacted with. Users also will be able to see and edit HTML anchors now in section headings.

Users of the TemplateData GUI editor can now set a string as an optional text for the 'deprecated' property in addition to boolean value, which lets you tell users of the template what they should do instead (T90734).

Looking ahead
The special character inserter in VisualEditor will soon use the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki will also have the option of creating a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Instructions for customizing the list will be posted at mediawiki.org.

The team is discussing a test of VisualEditor with new users, to see whether they have met their goals of making VisualEditor suitable for those editors. The timing is unknown, but might be relatively soon.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Can you translate from English into any other language? Please check this list to see whether more interface translations are needed for your language.  Contact us to get an account if you want to help!
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
 * File requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the character formatting menu in Phabricator.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you!

-Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk), 17:50, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Creating WP:Double redirects
Jarble, I've reverted you and pointed you to the WP:Double redirects page more than once, but you still create WP:Double redirects. Why do you keep doing that? Yes, a bot will eventually come along and fix the double redirect, but you still shouldn't be creating them. Take this "gay rights opponents" redirect you very recently created, for example. Instead of redirecting it straight to the LGBT rights opposition article, you redirected it to another redirect you created -- "Opposition to gay rights." That created a WP:Double redirect. Flyer22 (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I often create these double redirects unintentionally, since many redirect page titles are easily confused (such as Religion and violence and Religious violence). These double redirects are automatically repaired within 24 hours by User:Xqbot, so we shouldn't worry too much about fixing them manually. Jarble (talk) 22:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)


 * No need to WP:Ping me; your talk page is on my WP:Watchlist, and has been since I initially complained on your talk page about WP:Overlinking. As for the double redirects being automatically repaired, yes, I noted that above. But I still fail to see why you so often create these double redirects. You are an experienced enough Wikipedia editor now to be more careful not to create them, except in the case of a WP:Move creating them (and, once the move is made, the moved page does ask editors to check and make sure that no double redirects are created; it links to a tool -- the "What links here" feature -- for editors to easily see if they have created double redirects). I'm asking you to be more careful not to create double redirects. Flyer22 (talk) 22:17, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

December 2014
Yes I lost access to my account. Everything about Mithraism and Roman Christianity is false. Persians never were Pagans! I know Persian History and everything I edited on my old account is lost. Now I have to re write everything.
 * Are you referring to the edits on the Yalda article? Jarble (talk) 18:08, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 21
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Nomination for deletion of Template:Merge sections
Template:Merge sections has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Steel1943 (talk) 16:42, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia maintain a list of frequently vandalized articles?
There are many articles on Wikipedia that are not protected against vandalism. Does Wikipedia maintain an automatically generated list of the most-frequently vandalized articles?

Jarble (talk) 05:19, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure, but you can use the "undo" button or twinkle to revert vandalism no matter what, and huggle if you have rollback. Pages which are unusually prone to vandalism will get protected, either temporarily, or in rare cases, permanently. --I dream of horses (talk to me) (contributions) @ 05:32, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:Most vandalized pages is no longer maintained, but I haven't yet found a replacement for it. I hope there is a less tedious alternative to the requests for page protection process. Jarble (talk) 05:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Since most most vandalized pages was marked as historical in December 2014, I doubt it has been replaced, so the answer to your original question is "no".
 * One reason why most vandalized pages was marked as historical was because it wasn't being updated. I didn't even know it existed until now, and I am one of the more active vandal fighters. Another reason is because we protect any page that gets vandalism on a consistent gets semi-protection or pending changes, which I find to be quite effective at stopping the vandalism before it even begins.
 * If a page seems to be a target of a vandal spree (ie, several vandalistic edits from multiple accounts or IPs in a course of a few hours), then you need to use WP:RPP; if a page simply seems to be prone to non-spree vandalism (that is, only one or at most two accounts/IPs vandalizing in a day), you need to watchlist it. I dream of horses If you reply here, please ping me by adding to your message. (talk to me) (contributions) @  06:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

How can we find articles that are missing Wikidata links?
I'm trying to find articles on the English Wikipedia that I can add to Wikidata. Where can I find a list of pages that have not been added? Jarble (talk) 17:51, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hope, this helps. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 19:35, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Setting the default sort key for tables
Many tables in Wikipedia are sorted in an incorrect order, and I'm trying to rearrange them. For example, would it be possible to automatically sort this table using the data in the 3rd column instead of the 1st column?

Jarble (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2015 (UTC)


 * By default, tables are sorted by the order of entries in the wikicode, not by any column. So you can re-order the entries by the third column to make that the default order. Huon (talk) 19:15, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be tedious to rearrange the entire table manually. Does Wikipedia have any templates that would allow it to be sorted automatically? Jarble (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No. And it appears the table is deliberately sorted alphabetically for that very reason. I'm not sure I agree with that reasoning, but you may want to discuss the issue at the talk page before changing the default order. Huon (talk) 19:26, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Unsigned comments
On pages such as this one, I notice many comments that are not signed. There used to be a bot that would sign these comments automatically. Has it stopped working?

Jarble (talk) 21:59, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * No. I assume those comments are old, but another bot is archiving all newer, signed sections but cannot determine how old unsigned sections are and thus won't archive those. Huon (talk) 22:25, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Searching an editor's contributions
I'm trying to search my own contributions to Wikipedia, but I haven't found a search feature that allows this. For example, could I generate a list of all of my contributions that contain the words "algorithmic art"? Jarble (talk)


 * Hi Jarble. Unfortunately not directly. There are some powerful search options available at Help:Search, such as the User Contribution Search, which allows you to search a particular page for all contributions by a particular user. There's also advanced techniques for searching, such as wildcards and filtered searches, so see if that offers the result you're looking for, even if it may not be directly. RegistryKey(RegEdit) 06:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to search the edit summaries of a page's revision history, then? Jarble (talk) 07:26, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep. When you go to view the page history, near the top you'll see a line that says "External tools", just below the "browse history box" up top. There's a link there named "Revision history search" which will take you to the WikiBlame tool and pre-fill it for you. RegistryKey(RegEdit) 07:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #3—2015
Did you know?

When you click on a link to an article, you now see more information: The link tool has been re-designed: There are separate tabs for linking to internal and external pages.

The user guide has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has created new interfaces for the link and citation tools, as well as fixing many bugs and changing some elements of the design. Some of these bugs affected users of VisualEditor on mobile devices. Status reports are posted on Mediawiki.org. The worklist for April through June is available in Phabricator.

A test of VisualEditor's effect on new editors at the English Wikipedia has just completed the first phase. During this test, half of newly registered editors had VisualEditor automatically enabled, and half did not. The main goal of the study is to learn which group was more likely to save an edit and to make productive, unreverted edits. Initial results will be posted at Meta later this month.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations are available at a few Wikipedias through the citoid service. Citoid takes a URL or DOI for a reliable source, and returns a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. If Citoid is enabled on your wiki, then the design of the citation workflow changed during May. All citations are now created inside a single tool. Inside that tool, choose the tab you want (,, or ). The cite button is now labeled with the word "" rather than a book icon, and the autofill citation dialog now has a more meaningful label, "", for the submit button.

The link tool has been redesigned based on feedback from Wikipedia editors and user testing. It now has two separate sections: one for links to articles and one for external links. When you select a link, its pop-up context menu shows the name of the linked page, a thumbnail image from the linked page, Wikidata's description, and/or appropriate icons for disambiguation pages, redirect pages and empty pages. Search results have been reduced to the first five pages. Several bugs were fixed, including a dark highlight that appeared over the first match in the link inspector (T98085).

The special character inserter in VisualEditor now uses the same special character list as the wikitext editor. Admins at each wiki can also create a custom section for frequently used characters at the top of the list. Please read the instructions for customizing the list at mediawiki.org. Also, there is now a tooltip to describing each character in the special character inserter (T70425).

Several improvements have been made to templates. When you search for a template to insert, the list of results now contains descriptions of the templates. The parameter list inside the template dialog now remains open after inserting a parameter from the list, so that users don’t need to click on "" each time they want to add another parameter (T95696). The team added a new property for TemplateData, "", for template parameters. This optional, translatable property will show up when there is text describing how to use that parameter (T53049).

The design of the main toolbar and several other elements have changed slightly, to be consistent with the MediaWiki theme. In the Vector skin, individual items in the menu are separated visually by pale gray bars. Buttons and menus on the toolbar can now contain both an icon and a text label, rather than just one or the other. This new design feature is being used for the cite button on wikis where the Citoid service is enabled.

The team has released a long-desired improvement to the handling of non-existent images. If a non-existent image is linked in an article, then it is now visible in VisualEditor and can be selected, edited, replaced, or removed.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, each Wednesday at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Portal.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q4 blocker.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the Editing team's Q4 blocker project with the bug.
 * If your Wikivoyage, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, or other community wants to have VisualEditor made available by default to contributors, then please contact James Forrester.
 * If you would like to request the Citoid automatic reference feature for your wiki, please post a request in the Citoid project on Phabricator. Include links to the TemplateData for the most important citation templates on your wiki.

Subscribe, unsubscribe or change the page where this newsletter is delivered at Meta. If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Search for revisions to one section of an article
Is it possible to search within the revision history of one section on Wikipedia? I'm trying to search for changes that were made to the Jeb Bush section, but I haven't found a tool that can do this.

Jarble (talk) 04:12, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * When you find the results you want in the main article history, then look in parentheses and you should see a right-pointing arrow that's clickable and the section title, provided the edit was done to that specific section and not to the page itself. Just Ctrl-F for your section title. RegistryKey(RegEdit) 04:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be easier to do this if more than 500 revisions could be displayed at the same time. Is this possible as well? Jarble (talk) 04:27, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That's possible, though the load time increases. You can manually fiddle with the "limit=" parameter in the URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeb_Bush&offset=&limit=1000&action=history I think the maximum is 5000, but I don't guarantee for that.
 * If you're interested in specific content that was added to or removed from that section, you can try WikiBlame, but it will search the entire page history, not just changes to that section. Huon (talk) 04:31, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Automatic generation of outlines of categories
There is a template in Wikipedia that can automatically generate outlines of categories. I have used this template before, but I don't remember its name. Does anyone know what this template is called? Jarble (talk) 03:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's called Template:Category tree. Jarble (talk) 03:56, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Bots
You are receiving this message because a technical change may affect a bot, gadget, or user script you have been using. The breaking change involves API calls. This change has been planned for two years. The WMF will start making this change on 30 June 2015. A partial list of affected bots can be seen here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-June/081931.html  This includes all bots that are using pywikibot compat. Some of these bots have already been fixed. However, if you write user scripts or operate a bot that uses the API, then you should check your code, to make sure that it will not break.

What, exactly, is breaking? The "default continuation mode" for action=query requests to api.php will be changing to be easier for new coders to use correctly. To find out whether your script or bot may be affected, then search the source code (including any frameworks or libraries) for the string "query-continue". If that is not present, then the script or bot is not affected. In a few cases, the code will be present but not used. In that case, the script or bot will continue working.

This change will be part of 1.26wmf12. It will be deployed to test wikis (including mediawiki.org) on 30 June, to non-Wikipedias (such as Wiktionary) on 1 July, and to all Wikipedias on 2 July 2015.

If your bot or script is receiving the warning about this upcoming change (as seen at https://www.mediawiki.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=allpages ), it's time to fix your code!


 * The simple solution is to simply include the "rawcontinue" parameter with your request to continue receiving the raw continuation data (example ). No other code changes should be necessary.
 * Or you could update your code to use the simplified continuation documented at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Query#Continuing_queries (example ), which is much easier for clients to implement correctly.

Either of the above solutions may be tested immediately, you'll know it works because you stop seeing the warning.

Do you need help with your own bot or script? Ask questions in e-mail on the mediawiki-api or wikitech-l mailing lists. Volunteers at m:Tech or w:en:WP:Village pump (technical) or w:en:Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard may also be able to help you.

Are you using someone else's gadgets or user scripts? Most scripts are not affected. To find out if a script you use needs to be updated, then post a note at the discussion page for the gadget or the talk page of the user who originally made the script. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Searching for text in the recent changes to Wikipedia
I notice a search box for a "tag filter" in the Special:RecentChanges page. Is it possible to search for individual words and phrases that were recently added in these revisions? Jarble (talk) 19:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * No. As the name implies, you can only filter for specific tags that were added to the edit summary, not for phrases contained in the revision itself. Huon (talk) 19:20, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact, there is a tool that can be used to search the full text of the Recent Changes: MediaWiki_talk:Recentchangestext Jarble (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting, but that also only searches edit summaries, not the content of the changes. The latter would be rather difficult - would you search for additions of that term, removals, both? What if a paragraph containing the term was moved to another location within the article? Huon (talk) 20:01, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Automatic replacement of redirect links on Wikipedia
To improve the readability and consistency of Wikipedia's markup, I'd like to replace several occurrences of Template:NPOV with Template:POV. Does Wikipedia have any tools that can help us to automate this task? Jarble (talk) 19:50, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I expect a bot or AutoWikiBrowser could do it, but I fail to see how that one letter in a template name impedes readability, or how consistency is an issue here. I'd strongly advise against bypassing a redirect merely for the purpose of bypassing a redirect. In fact I'd read WP:UNBROKEN to also argue against replacing these redirects. Huon (talk) 21:34, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 15
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Native Americans in the United States, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page John Harrington. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Speedy deletion nomination of Cuusoo


A tag has been placed on Cuusoo, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Please read the guidelines on spam and FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. agt x 17:50, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 22
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Glans penis, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Macropod. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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What happens after death listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect What happens after death. Since you had some involvement with the What happens after death redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. GZWDer (talk) 04:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

VisualEditor News #4—2015
Read this in another language •  Local subscription list  •  Subscribe to the multilingual edition

Did you know?

You can add quotations marks before and after a title or phrase with a single click.

Select the relevant text. Find the correct quotations marks in the special character inserter tool (marked as Ω in the toolbar). Click the button. VisualEditor will add the quotation marks on either side of the text you selected. You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use VisualEditor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team have been working on mobile phone support. They have fixed many bugs and improved language support. They post weekly status reports on mediawiki.org. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are improving language support and functionality on mobile devices.

Wikimania
The team attended Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. There they participated in the Hackathon and met with individuals and groups of users. They also made several presentations and the future of editing.

Following Wikimania, we announced winners for the VisualEditor 2015 Translathon. Our thanks and congratulations to users Halan-tul, Renessaince,  जनक राज भट्ट (Janak Bhatta), Vahe Gharakhanyan, Warrakkk, and Eduardogobi.

For interface messages (translated at translatewiki.net), we saw the initiative affecting 42 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 56.5% before the translathon, and 78.2% after (+21.7%). In particular, Sakha improved from 12.2% to 94.2%; Brazilian Portuguese went from 50.6% to 100%; Taraškievica went from 44.9% to 85.3%; Doteli went from 1.3% to 41.2%. Also, while 1.7% of the messages were outdated across all languages before the translathon, the percentage dropped to 0.8% afterwards (-0.9%).

For documentation messages (on mediawiki.org), we saw the initiative affecting 24 languages. The average progress in translations across all languages was 26.6% before translathon, and 46.9% after (+20.3%). There were particularly notable achievements for three languages. Armenian improved from 1% to 99%; Swedish, from 21% to 99%, and Brazilian Portuguese, from 34% to 83%. Outdated translations across all languages were reduced from 8.4% before translathon to 4.8% afterwards (-3.6%).

We published some graphs showing the effect of the event on the Translathon page. Thank you to the translators for participating and the translatewiki.net staff for facilitating this initiative.

Recent improvements
Auto-fill features for citations can be enabled on each Wikipedia. The tool uses the citoid service to convert a URL or DOI into a pre-filled, pre-formatted bibliographic citation. You can see an animated GIF of the quick, simple process at mediawiki.org. So far, about a dozen Wikipedias have enabled the auto-citation tool. To enable it for your wiki, follow the instructions at mediawiki.org.

Your wiki can customize the first section of the special character inserter in VisualEditor. Please follow the instructions at mediawiki.org to put the characters you want at the top.

In other changes, if you need to fill in a CAPTCHA and get it wrong, then you can click to get a new one to complete. VisualEditor can now display and edit Vega-based graphs. If you use the Monobook skin, VisualEditor's appearance is now more consistent with other software.

Future changes
The team will be changing the appearance of selected links inside VisualEditor. The purpose is to make it easy to see whether your cursor is inside or outside the link. When you select a link, the link label (the words shown on the page) will be enclosed in a faint box. If you place your cursor inside the box, then your changes to the link label will be part of the link. If you place your cursor outside the box, then it will not. This will make it easy to know when new characters will be added to the link and when they will not.

On the English Wikipedia, 10% of newly created accounts are now offered both the visual and the wikitext editors. A recent controlled trial showed no significant difference in survival or productivity for new users in the short term. New users with access to VisualEditor were very slightly less likely to produce results that needed reverting. You can learn more about this by watching a video of the July 2015 Wikimedia Research Showcase. The proportion of new accounts with access to both editing environments will be gradually increased over time. Eventually all new users have the choice between the two editing environments.

Let's work together

 * Share your ideas and ask questions at VisualEditor/Feedback.
 * Can you read and type in Korean or Japanese? Language engineer David Chan needs people who know which tools people use to type in some languages. If you speak Japanese or Korean, you can help him test support for these languages. Please see the instructions at VisualEditor/IME Testing if you can help.
 * If your wiki would like VisualEditor enabled on another namespace, you can file a request in Phabricator. Please include a link to a community discussion about the requested change.
 * Please file requests for language-appropriate "" and "" icons for the styling menu in Phabricator.
 * The design research team wants to see how real editors work. Please sign up for their research program.
 * The weekly task triage meetings continue to be open to volunteers, usually on Tuesdays at 12:00 (noon) PDT (19:00 UTC). Learn how to join the meetings and how to nominate bugs at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings.  You do not need to attend the meeting to nominate a bug for consideration as a Q1 blocker, though.  Instead, go to Phabricator and "associate" the main VisualEditor project with the bug.

If you aren't reading this in your favorite language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact Elitre directly, so that she can notify you when the next issue is ready. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Anal explosion listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Anal explosion. Since you had some involvement with the Anal explosion redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so.

Noticed your comment and have proposed this redirect for deletion. Please feel free to add your support. PriceDL (talk) 05:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 1
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Disambiguation link notification for September 23
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Politics, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Power. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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VisualEditor update

 * This note is only delivered to English Wikipedia subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.

The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.

This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.

We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)