User talk:K6ka/Archive 29

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg BusterD
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Kees08 • Nickshanks • Protonk • Schissel • Ultraexactzz • Wknight94



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg TheresNoTime

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg TheresNoTime
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg ST47

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news
 * Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import.

Arbitration
 * Following an amendment request, the committee has clarified that the Talk page exception to the 500/30 rule in remedy 5 of the Palestine-Israel articles 4 case does not apply to requested move discussions.

Miscellaneous
 * You can vote for candidates in the 2021 Board of Trustees elections from 4 August to 17 August. Four community elected seats are up for election.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-31
 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 If your wiki uses markup like  or  without the required  attribute, then these will no longer work in 2 weeks. There is a short-term fix that can be added to your local wiki's Common.css page, which is explained at T287701. From now on, all usages should include the full attributes, for example:  or  . This also applies to some other HTML tags, such as  or  . You can find existing examples on your wiki that need to be updated, using the instructions at T287701.
 * Reminder: Wikimedia has migrated to the Libera Chat IRC network, from the old Freenode network. Local documentation should be updated.

Problems
 * Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 30 minutes. There was a problem with generating dynamic lists of articles on the Russian Wikinews, due to the bulk import of 200,000+ new articles over 3 days, which led to database problems. The problematic feature has been disabled on that wiki and developers are discussing if it can be fixed properly.

Changes later this week
 * When adding links to a page using VisualEditor or the 2017 wikitext editor, disambiguation pages will now only appear at the bottom of search results. This is because users do not often want to link to disambiguation pages.
 * 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).

Future changes
 * The team of the Wikipedia app for Android is working on communication in the app. The developers are working on how to talk to other editors and get notifications. You can read more. They are looking for users who want to test the plans. Any editor who has an Android phone and is willing to download the app can do this.
 * The Beta Feature for will be updated in the coming weeks.  You will be able to subscribe to individual sections on a talk page at more wikis.  You can test this now by adding   to the end of the talk page's URL (example).

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

20:45, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-32
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * You can read but not edit 17 wikis for a few minutes on 10 August. This is planned at 05:00 UTC. This is because of work on the database.

Changes later this week
 * The Wikimania Hackathon will take place remotely on 13 August, starting at 5:00 UTC, for 24 hours. You can participate in many ways. You can still propose projects and sessions.
 * 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).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The old CSS  will not be supported after 12 August. Instead, templates and pages should use  . Please help to replace any existing uses on your wiki. There are global-search links available at T287962.

Future changes
 * The Wikipedia Library is a place for Wikipedia editors to get access to sources. There is an extension which has a new function to tell users when they can take part in it. It will use notifications. It will start pinging the first users in September. It will ping more users later.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Vue.js will be the JavaScript framework for MediaWiki in the future.

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

16:18, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-33
 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 add language links in the sidebar in the new Vector skin again. You do this by connecting the page to a Wikidata item. The new Vector skin has moved the language links but the new language selector cannot add language links yet.

Problems
 * There was a problem on wikis which use the Translate extension. Translations were not updated or were replaced with the English text. The problems have been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * A revision tag will soon be added to edits that add links to disambiguation pages. This is because these links are usually added by accident. The tag will allow editors to easily find the broken links and fix them. If your wiki does not like this feature, it can be hidden.
 * Would you like to help improve the information about tools? Would you like to attend or help organize a small virtual meetup for your community to discuss the list of tools? Please get in touch on the Toolhub Quality Signal Sessions talk page. We are also looking for feedback from tool maintainers on some specific questions.
 * In the past, edits to any page in your user talk space ignored your mute list, e.g. sub-pages. Starting this week, this is only true for edits to your talk page.
 * 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).

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

19:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-34
 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 Score extension ( notation) has been re-enabled on public wikis and upgraded to a newer version. Some musical score functionality may no longer work because the extension is only enabled in "safe mode". The security issue has been fixed and an advisory published.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not edit some wikis for a few minutes on . This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance. During this time, operations on the CentralAuth will also not be possible.

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).

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

21:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Read-only reminder
<section begin="MassMessage"/> A maintenance operation will be performed on. It should only last for a few minutes.

Also during this time, operations on the CentralAuth will not be possible (GlobalRenames, changing/confirming e-mail addresses, logging into new wikis, password changes).

For more details about the operation and on all impacted services, please check on Phabricator.

A banner will be displayed 30 minutes before the operation.

Please help your community to be aware of this maintenance operation. <section end="MassMessage"/>

20:33, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 August 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-35
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * Some musical score syntax no longer works and may needed to be updated, you can check Category: on your wiki for a list of pages with errors.

Problems
 * Musical scores were unable to render lyrics in some languages because of missing fonts. This has been fixed now. If your language would prefer a different font, please file a request in Phabricator.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-tools.svg The parameters for how you obtain tokens in the MediaWiki API were changed in 2014. The old way will no longer work from 1 September. Scripts, bots and tools that use the parameters from before the 2014 change need to be updated. You can read more about this.
 * 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).

Future changes
 * You will be able to read but not edit Commons for a few minutes on . This will happen around 05:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance.
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes in the week of 13 September. More information will be published in Tech News later. It will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:59, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Jake Wartenberg
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Emperor • Viridian Bovary
 * Pictogram voting rename.png →

Guideline and policy news
 * Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
 * A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
 * A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
 * A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news
 * The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration
 * A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Request
Hi I just need to tell that you blocked 2 user accounts named Thisoshwah and Sockoshwah. Could you please explain why you blocked them? They have even not started editing Wikipedia. Could you please unblock them. Thank you. 106.223.4.236 (talk) 08:50, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The accounts you mentioned are known long-term abusers and have also been locked by stewards. They will not be unblocked. — k6ka  <span title="Canadian!" style="color:red">🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 14:25, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-36
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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 wikis that have Growth features deployed have been part of A/B testing since deployment, in which some newcomers did not receive the new features. Now, all of the newcomers on 21 of the smallest of those wikis will be receiving the features.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg In 2017, the provided jQuery library was upgraded from version 1 to 3, with a compatibility layer. The migration will soon finish, to make the site load faster for everyone. If you maintain a gadget or user script, check if you have any JQMIGRATE errors and fix them, or they will break.
 * Last year, the Portuguese Wikipedia community embarked on an experiment to make log-in compulsory for editing.  The impact report of this trial is ready. Moving forward, the Anti-Harassment Tools team is looking for projects that are willing to experiment with restricting IP editing on their wiki for a short-term experiment. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-37
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * 45 new Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features.
 * A majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features. The Growth team has published an FAQ page about the features. This translatable FAQ covers the description of the features, how to use them, how to change the configuration, and more.

Problems
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 14 September. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

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).
 * Starting this week, Wikipedia in Italian will receive weekly software updates on Wednesdays. It used to receive the updates on Thursdays. Due to this change, bugs will be noticed and fixed sooner.
 * You can add language links in the sidebar in the new Vector skin again. You do this by connecting the page to a Wikidata item. The new Vector skin has moved the language links but the new language selector cannot add language links yet.
 * The syntax highlight tool marks up code with different colours. It now can highlight 23 new code languages. Additionally, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> can now be used as an alias for the Go programming language, and a special <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> mode has been added to show a program's output.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

15:31, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-38
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * Growth features are now deployed to almost all Wikipedias. For the majority of small Wikipedias, the features are only available for experienced users, to test the features and configure them. Features will be available for newcomers starting on 20 September 2021.
 * MediaWiki had a feature that would highlight local links to short articles in a different style. Each user could pick the size at which "stubs" would be highlighted. This feature was very bad for performance, and following a consultation, has been removed.
 * A technical change was made to the MonoBook skin to allow for easier maintenance and upkeep. This has resulted in some minor changes to HTML that make MonoBook's HTML consistent with other skins. Efforts have been made to minimize the impact on editors, but please ping Jon (WMF) on wiki or in phabricator if any problems are reported.

Problems
 * There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of an accidental restart of the search servers.

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).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The meta=proofreadpage API has changed. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> parameter has been renamed to <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . API users should update their code to avoid unrecognized parameter warnings. Pywikibot users should upgrade to 6.6.0.

Future changes
 * The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The previously announced change to how you obtain tokens from the API has been delayed to September 21 because of an incompatibility with Pywikibot. Bot operators using Pywikibot can follow T291202 for progress on a fix, and should plan to upgrade to 6.6.1 when it is released.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

18:30, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:56, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-39
<section begin="technews-2021-W39"/> 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
 * iOS 15 has a new function called Private Relay (Apple website). This can hide the user's IP when they use Safari browser. This is like using a VPN in that we see another IP address instead. It is opt-in and only for those who pay extra for iCloud. It will come to Safari users on OSX later. There is a technical discussion about what this means for the Wikimedia wikis.

Problems
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some gadgets and user-scripts add items to the portlets (article tools) part of the skin. A recent change to the HTML may have made those links a different font-size. This can be fixed by adding the CSS class <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">.

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).
 * The GettingStarted extension was built in 2013, and provides an onboarding process for new account holders in a few versions of Wikipedia. However, the recently developed Growth features provide a better onboarding experience. Since the vast majority of Wikipedias now have access to the Growth features, GettingStarted will be deactivated starting on 4 October.
 * A small number of users will not be able to connect to the Wikimedia wikis after 30 September. This is because an old root certificate will no longer work. They will also have problems with many other websites. Users who have updated their software in the last five years are unlikely to have problems. Users in Europe, Africa and Asia are less likely to have immediate problems even if their software is too old. You can read more.
 * You can receive notifications when someone leaves a comment on user talk page or mentions you in a talk page comment. Clicking the notification link will now bring you to the comment and highlight it. Previously, doing so brought you to the top of the section that contained the comment. You can find more information in T282029.

Future changes
 * The Reply tool will be deployed to the remaining wikis in the coming weeks. It is currently part of "" in Beta features at most wikis. You will be able to turn it off in Editing Preferences. See the list of wikis.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W39"/>

22:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Blablubbs
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Alvestrand • Black Falcon • Deathphoenix • Dppowell • Mark Arsten • JGHowes (deceased)



Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Callanecc
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Mkdw

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

Guideline and policy news
 * Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
 * Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.

Technical news
 * DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under.

Arbitration
 * A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
 * Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
 * The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous
 * Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
 * The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-40
<section begin="tech-newsletter-content"/> 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
 * A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them has been enabled for the following 10 wikis: mediawiki.org, the Italian, Catalan, Hebrew and Vietnamese Wikipedias, French Wikisource, and English Wikivoygage, Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikinews. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist on those wikis you can let the developers know.

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).
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some gadgets and bots that use the API to read the AbuseFilter log might break. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> property will no longer say an entry is <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> for unsuppressed log entries about suppressed edits. If your bot needs to know this, do a separate revision query. Additionally, the property will have the value <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> for visible entries; previously, it wasn't included in the response.
 * A more efficient way of sending changes from Wikidata to Wikimedia wikis that show them will be enabled for all production wikis. If you notice anything strange about how changes from Wikidata appear in recent changes or your watchlist you can let the developers know.

Future changes
 * You can soon get cross-wiki notifications in the iOS Wikipedia app. You can also get notifications as push notifications. More notification updates will follow in later versions.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The JavaScript variables <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> , and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will soon be removed from <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . These are not part of the "stable" variables available for use in wiki JavaScript.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The JavaScript variables <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> , <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> , and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will soon be removed from mw.config. Scripts should instead use <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> from the "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">mediawiki.cookie " module.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="tech-newsletter-content"/>

16:28, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-41
<section begin="technews-2021-W41"/> 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
 * 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).


 * The "auto-number headings" preference is being removed. You can read T284921 for the reasons and discussion. This change was previously announced. A JavaScript snippet is available which can be used to create a Gadget on wikis that still want to support auto-numbering.

Meetings
 * You can join a meeting about the Desktop Improvements. A demonstration version of the newest feature will be shown. The event will take place on Tuesday, 12 October at 16:00 UTC. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W41"/>

15:29, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Username Clarification Response
Added a to my page to make my identity clear in response to [|username change] clarification notice. Thank you for all you do for the community! George Fulton (talk) 20:47, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Help
Hi Czar. I need a help. How can I request to change my username without no reason? My name is Orbit Wharf. But I wanna change it to Golden Wing in my own wish. How can I do it? I hope that you'll help me. Thanks. ||  G olden   W ing  06:29, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You can simply write "Personal preference" when asked for a reason. You don't need to be specific; "personal preference" is sufficient.
 * Also, my name is not "Czar"; please don't call me that!
 * — k6ka  <span title="Canadian!" style="color:red">🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 13:47, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! Ok! I won't call you Czar. :) ||   O rbit   W harf  13:49, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-42
<section begin="technews-2021-W42"/> 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
 * Toolhub is a catalogue to make it easier to find software tools that can be used for working on the Wikimedia projects. You can read more.

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).

Future changes
 * The developers of the Wikipedia Android app are working on communication in the app. You can now answer questions in survey to help the development.
 * 3–5% of editors may be blocked in the next few months. This is because of a new service in Safari, which is similar to a proxy or a VPN. It is called iCloud Private Relay. There is a discussion about this on Meta. The goal is to learn what iCloud Private Relay could mean for the communities.
 * Wikimedia Enterprise is a new API for those who use a lot of information from the Wikimedia projects on other sites. It is a way to get big commercial users to pay for the data. There will soon be a copy of the Wikimedia Enterprise dataset. You can read more. You can also ask the team questions on Zoom on 22 October 15:00 UTC.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W42"/>

20:52, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-43
<section begin="technews-2021-W43"/> 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 Coolest Tool Award 2021 is looking for nominations. You can recommend tools until 27 October.

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).

Future changes
 * Diff pages will have an improved copy and pasting experience. The changes will allow the text in the diff for before and after to be treated as separate columns and will remove any unwanted syntax.
 * The version of the Liberation fonts used in SVG files will be upgraded. Only new thumbnails will be affected. Liberation Sans Narrow will not change.

Meetings
 * You can join a meeting about the Community Wishlist Survey. News about the disambiguation and the real-time preview wishes will be shown. The event will take place on Wednesday, 27 October at 14:30 UTC. See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W43"/>

20:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Growth Newsletter #19
Welcome to the nineteenth newsletter from the Growth team!

The Growth team's objective is to work on software changes that help retain new contributors in Wikimedia projects.

Structured tasks

 * "Add a link" is the team's first structured task. It uses machine-learning to suggest wikilinks as easy edits for newcomers. It was deployed in May 2021 on four Wikipedias and then in July on eight more Wikipedias after we evaluated the initial results.  So far, we've seen a high level of engagement from newcomers. Communities that have the feature suggested valuable ideas for improvement.  We'll work on improvements and then contact more communities to deploy it.
 * "Add an image" is the team's second structured task, currently in development. It is an editing task that suggests Commons images for unillustrated Wikipedia articles.  We have conducted many community discussions and tests. Then, we've decided to build a first prototype.  We'll first deploy it only to our pilot Wikipedias, to learn whether newcomers can be successful with the task. The project page contains links to interactive prototypes. We are very interested to hear your thoughts on this idea as we build and test the early versions. These prototypes have already been tested by newcomers, in English and Spanish.

News for mentors

 * The Mentor dashboard is available at our pilot wikis: Arabic, Czech, and Bengali Wikipedias. It will soon be available at a few more volunteering wikis, as a test.
 * At wikis where the mentor dashboard is deployed, a new filter is available for mentors. Mentors can monitor their mentees' activity in Watchlist and RecentChanges, so they can help support their mentees' work. For privacy reasons, this filter can't be accessed by someone else than the mentor itself. This filter only filters mentees assigned to the mentor. This filter is not visible for people who are not listed as mentors

Community configuration

 * Communities now have the ability to configure how Growth features behave on their own wikis. At Special:EditGrowthConfig, community members can add a list of volunteer mentors, alter the templates used for suggested edits, update help links, and more. This special page is editable by administrators and interface admins.

Scaling

 * We are proud to announce that all Wikipedias now have the Growth features! Thank you to all the community members who helped the team build the features and bring them to their wikis.  The only exception is Chinese Wikipedia (zh), for technical reasons.
 * The wikis that have Growth features deployed have been part of A/B testing since deployment, in which some newcomers did not receive the new features. Now, all of the newcomers on 280 of the smallest of those Wikipedias have the features.
 * A test is undergoing at English Wikipedia: 25% of newcomers receive the Growth features. The results from this test will be part of a discussion of how to proceed on that wiki.
 * Now that Growth features are available at Wikipedia, the Growth team considers to extend them to other projects. Some Wikisource users have expressed some interest in getting Growth features. There is currently a discussion about implementing them on Wikisource.

News for communities

 * Do you have questions about the Growth features? This translatable FAQ contains answers to the most common questions about the Growth team work.
 * The Growth features were recently used in a test amongst Latin American donors to give donors the opportunity to learn to edit. You can see the results here.
 * Interface translations are important for newcomers. Please help for your language, by translating or copyediting interface translations for the Growth features.
 * Help:GettingStarted was a feature developed in 2013, which directed newcomers to articles that needed editing. We recently removed this feature from all wikis, because it has been replaced by the Growth features.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 18:36, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:14, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Clpo13
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

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

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news
 * Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news
 * Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration
 * , and  have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections.  and  are reserve commissioners.
 * Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-44
<section begin="technews-2021-W44"/> 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 limit on the amount of emails a user can send each day. This limit is now global instead of per-wiki. This change is to prevent abuse.

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).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W44"/>

20:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-45
<section begin="technews-2021-W45"/> 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
 * Mobile IP editors are now able to receive warning notices indicating they have a talk page message on the mobile website (similar to the orange banners available on desktop). These notices will be displayed on every page outside of the main namespace and every time the user attempts to edit. The notice on desktop now has a slightly different colour.

Changes later this week
 * Wikidata will be read-only for a few minutes on 11 November. This will happen around 06:00 UTC. This is for database maintenance.
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes
 * In the future, unregistered editors will be given an identity that is not their IP address. This is for legal reasons. A new user right will let editors who need to know the IPs of unregistered accounts to fight vandalism, spam, and harassment, see the IP. You can read the suggestions for how that identity could work and discuss on the talk page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W45"/>

20:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-46
<section begin="technews-2021-W46"/> 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
 * Most large file uploads errors that had messages like "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> " or "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> " have now been fixed. An incident report is available.

Problems
 * Sometimes, edits made on iOS using the visual editor save groups of numbers as telephone number links, because of a feature in the operating system. This problem is under investigation.
 * There was a problem with search last week. Many search requests did not work for 2 hours because of a configuration error.

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).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W46"/>

22:05, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Revdel
Hi! I noticed you deleted some revisions of a deleted page. I don't know if you're aware, but this doesn't have any greater effect: the group of people who can view revdel'd edits is the same as the group which can view the history of a deleted page (ie all 1,000 or so administrators). If something has been deleted but needs to be removed further from view, contact the oversight team. Best, <b style="color: teal; font-family: Tahoma">HJ Mitchell</b> &#124; <span style="color: navy; font-family: Times New Roman" title="(Talk page)">Penny for your thoughts? 18:08, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-47
<section begin="technews-2021-W47"/> 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.
 * The template dialog in VisualEditor and in the new wikitext mode Beta feature will be heavily improved on a few wikis. Your feedback is welcome.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W47"/>

20:01, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-48
<section begin="technews-2021-W48"/> 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
 * 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).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W48"/>

21:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-49
<section begin="technews-2021-W49"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * MediaWiki 1.38-wmf.11 was scheduled to be deployed on some wikis last week. The deployment was delayed because of unexpected problems.

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).
 * At all Wikipedias, a Mentor Dashboard is now available at <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . It allows registered mentors, who take care of newcomers' first steps, to monitor their assigned newcomers' activity. It is part of the Growth features. You can learn more about activating the mentor list on your wiki and about the mentor dashboard project.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The predecessor to the current MediaWiki Action API (which was created in 2008), <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to the corresponding API module.
 * Octicons-tools.svg An old ResourceLoader module, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">, which was deprecated in 2016, will be removed this week. Any scripts or bots using it will need to switch to <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> instead.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W49"/>

21:57, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).



Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg A Train • Berean Hunter • Epbr123 • GermanJoe • Sanchom • Mysid

Technical news
 * Unregistered editors using the mobile website are now able to receive notices to indicate they have talk page messages. The notice looks similar to what is already present on desktop, and will be displayed on when viewing any page except mainspace and when editing any page.
 * The limit on the number of emails a user can send per day has been made global instead of per-wiki to help prevent abuse.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
 * The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:52, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-50
<section begin="technews-2021-W50"/> 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 are now default short aliases for the "Project:" namespace on most wikis. E.g. On Wikibooks wikis, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will go to the local language default for the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> namespace. This change is intended to help the smaller communities have easy access to this feature. Additional local aliases can still be requested via the usual process.

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).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W50"/>

22:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-51
<section begin="technews-2021-W51"/> 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
 * Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 10 January 2022.

Recent changes
 * Queries made by the DynamicPageList extension (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ) are now only allowed to run for 10 seconds and error if they take longer. This is in response to multiple outages where long-running queries caused an outage on all wikis.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.

Future changes
 * The developers of the Wikipedia iOS app are looking for testers who edit in multiple languages. You can read more and let them know if you are interested.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The Wikimedia Cloud VPS hosts technical projects for the Wikimedia movement. Developers need to claim projects they use. This is because old and unused projects are removed once a year. Unclaimed projects can be shut down from February.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2021-W51"/>

22:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas 2021
<div style="border-radius:1em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75); float: left; margin-top: 3px; background-color: #FC9; border: 1px solid #8888aa; padding: 10px; width: 425px; clear: both;"> <div style="border-radius:1em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75); border-style:solid; border-color:#4682B4; background-color:#900020; color:white; border-width:5px; text-align:left; vertical-align;top; padding:18px;" class="plainlinks"> "And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,  I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10-11 (King James Version)  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) is wishing you a  Merry Christmas. This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove. Spread the cheer by adding to their talk page with a friendly message.

CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 22:21, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!
<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:#FF4646; background-color:#F6F0F7; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:7px; border-radius:1em; box-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.5em rgba(0,0,0,0.75);;" class="plainlinks">Happy Holidays text.png Hello K6ka: Enjoy the holiday season&#32;and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, The SandDoctor  Talk 04:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC) Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

The Signpost: 28 December 2021
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2021).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Amalthea • Ihcoyc (deceased) • Kateshortforbob • Kirill Lokshin • Rifleman 82 • Ryan Norton • Wrp103

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Mr. Stradivarius



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Opabinia regalis
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Cabayi • Donald Albury • Enterprisey • Izno • Wugapodes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Opabinia regalis
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Casliber • David Fuchs • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy

Guideline and policy news


 * Following consensus at the 2021 RfA review, the autopatrolled user right has been removed from the administrators user group; admins can grant themselves the autopatrolled permission if they wish to remain autopatrolled.


 * Additionally, consensus for proposal 6C of the 2021 RfA review has led to the creation of an administrative action review process. The purpose of this process will be to review individual administrator actions and individual actions taken by users holding advanced permissions.

Arbitration


 * Following the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , , ,.

Miscellaneous


 * The functionaries email list () will no longer accept incoming emails apart from those sent by list members and WMF staff. Private concerns, apart from those requiring oversight, should be directly sent to the Arbitration Committee.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

How we will see unregistered users
Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. /Johan (WMF)

18:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!
<div style="display: flex; align-items: center; height: 60px; padding: 1em; border: solid 7px orchid; background-color: yellow;"> '''Wishing K6ka a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Best wishes! CAPTAIN RAJU''' (T) 08:49, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-02
<section begin="technews-2022-W02"/> 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 A <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> variable has been added to the AbuseFilter to enable identifying changes made by specific tools.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets are now able to directly include JSON pages. This means some gadgets can now be configured by administrators without needing the interface administrator permission, such as with the Geonotice gadget.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets can now specify page actions on which they are available. For example, <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will load a gadget only while editing and on history pages.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets can now be loaded on demand with the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> URL parameter. This can be used to replace an earlier snippet that typically looks like <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> or <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">.
 * Octicons-tools.svg At wikis where the Mentorship system is configured, you can now use the Action API to get a list of a mentor's mentees.
 * The heading on the main page can now be configured using MediaWiki:Mainpage-title-loggedin for logged-in users and MediaWiki:Mainpage-title for logged-out users. Any CSS that was previously used to hide the heading should be removed.
 * Four special pages (and their API counterparts) now have a maximum database query execution time of 30 seconds. These special pages are: RecentChanges, Watchlist, Contributions, and Log. This change will help with site performance and stability. You can read more details about this change including some possible solutions if this affects your workflows.
 * The sticky header has been deployed for 50% of logged-in users on more than 10 wikis. This is part of the Desktop Improvements. See how to take part in the project.

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).

Events
 * Community Wishlist Survey 2022 begins. All contributors to the Wikimedia projects can propose for tools and platform improvements. The proposal phase takes place from 18:00 UTC to  18:00 UTC. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2022-W02"/>

01:22, 11 January 2022 (UTC)