User talk:Moonythedwarf/Archives/2021/January

Administrators' newsletter – January 2021
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2020).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Hammersoft
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Andres • Brion VIBBER • Rkitko • Thatcher

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek • Primefac

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Barkeep49 • BDD • CaptainEek
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Joe Roe

Guideline and policy news
 * Speedy deletion criterion T3 (duplication and hardcoded instances) has been repealed following a request for comment.

Technical news
 * You can now put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time.

Arbitration
 * By motion, standard discretionary sanctions have been temporarily authorized for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes). The effectiveness of the discretionary sanctions can be evaluated on the request by any editor after March 1, 2021 (or sooner if for a good reason).
 * Following the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , ,.

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ArchiveSent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

deleting content
Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Falling-sand_game, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear to be constructive and has been reverted. If you only meant to make a test edit, please use your sandbox for that. Thank you.

I have noticed in your history that you aren't adding any content, just nominating for removal or directly deleting content. Is there a reason? ~ Smellymoo (talk) 13:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Smellymoo, I'm not sure why you're warning moony for unexplained content removal for an edit from a year ago(!), where the content removal certainly wasn't unexplained. As for the rest, I'm not sure what you're getting at – removing bad content and nominating unsalvageable pages for deletion is just as worthwhile as creating content; some people are simply more comfortable working in maintenance areas. Best, Blablubbs | talk 13:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah Blablubbs, I understand that maintenance is very important. Best way of saying what I wanted to say is that if that page was worth reducing to a stub it should have been nominated for removal rather than just bombed. As in the talk page it has been nominated for removal twice, each time it was rejected. so it was against consensus and protocol to just delete everything on the page. ~ Smellymoo (talk) 13:24, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Hi!
 * The content I removed was removed with good reason. I am not interested in deleting the page either, as I know it is a notable topic, but wikipedia doesn't host fancruft. If it makes you feel any better, I'm probably biased toward the topic's inclusion as I've contributed to The Powder Toy. Keep in mind we have notability rules. I would hope you know that considering your account age. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 20:05, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , morning :).
 * well that explains why the page is dominated by powder toy then and why more notable examples like "the falling sand game" were absent altogether. All I want is a good page on the subject, and I am not a very literate person, so I am finding it hard to improve it, but I still feel a whole page that is a WIP is better than a dying stub. I am going to read more guides on how to improve the page and do my best, but please stop reducing it to a stub without talking about it in the talk page first, as I don't feel that is very constructive. We both agree that the page as a whole meets the Notability_(web) requirements, what we disagree on is what content is useful, I have seen many pages on other similar topics (like List_of_Tetris_variants or Comparison_of_raster_graphics_editors for example) having a list of examples as a table, with features listed, I think that would be useful. And I think what is missing is a proper opening paragraph and history, but I really am not the person to write that, that is why I am trying to make a complete list of the examples with proper citations. Can we work together to make the page better instead? reducing it to a stub is not an improvement, it's like writing an assay then when it's half finished, you see it has spelling mistakes, so you burn it all, as if it doesn't exist it can't have spelling mistakes, lol.
 * to quote Dispute_resolution "When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text. For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or make the wording more neutral. Include citations for any material you add. If you do not know how to fix a problem, ask for help on the talk page. " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smellymoo (talk • contribs) 09:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Now, I will admit that, 1yr ago, I should've set aside the time to work on it a bit!
 * I think TPT domination isn't intentional from me, and more just because TPT is one of the dominant games in that group. I'll be happy to help as I can. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 13:59, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , However, I strongly feel that the existing "Features" section is entirely useless, being composed of mainly un-sourcable content and Original Research. Hence me consistently removing it. It needs restarted from scratch —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 14:23, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , The article is to group games of the same genre, so it is important to detail how certain features differentiate them, I will pepper it with citations from the rest of the sources, as they do highlight these features. Don't remove, discuss in the talk page. That is the way on wikipedia. ~ Smellymoo  14:29, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , I, at least, know how the site works, but "Removal is never OK" isn't how the site works at all. Constantly reverting me trying to clean up just gets us no-where, because as nice as it would be to include everything, we can't. I am cleaning up exactly per policy, and, for example, me trimming the examples list is specifically because each one needs a reliable, independent, third party source. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 14:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , didn't say removal isn't ok, "I am cleaning up exactly per policy", I disagree. that is why I quoted the policy above. It clearly says to improve not delete, that is the policy.
 * There is a good reason to include the differentiating features, as this page is for the genre as a whole, so it highlights viants on the theme, otherwise every falling sand game would just be a clone. I am currently working on the page adding citations and correcting it. So deleting it isn't constructive.
 * you mentioned the noita guys mentioned the origins of the falling sand games, that would be very helpful if you could add it :) ~ Smellymoo  15:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , They didn't mention the origins, they simply provided a counterpoint to that one being the original, by noting one of the developers worked on their own toy falling sand games in the DOS era. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 15:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , interesting, until I can find better origins, what about if I just say the first notable online version, or words to that affect. Been busy finding secondary citations for the notable games, one I am having problems with is sand:box, as although they have 10 million downloads (as opposed to 1 million for powder toy) I can't find secondary citations. Can we call a cease fire for deletions for 1-2 days while I try to citation it all properly :). ~ Smellymoo  15:43, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have an issue, it's very hard to search for citations for sand:box because search engines ignore punction in searches, so searching for "sand:box" results in "sandbox" which is too broad, meaning I can't find the pages that link to it easily, but as sand:box has more than 10x the downloads than "powder toy" and equal downloads to "the sandbox" on android, it must ne notable. I will dig further. ~ Smellymoo  18:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , try searching it with quotes. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , even that doesn't fix it, ended up doing reverse link (backlink) search and found a few ~ Smellymoo  19:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Notability (software) sums up the problem nicely - "Before nominating an unsourced article for deletion, be sure to verify that it is non-notable, not just missing citations. One way to do this is to perform a Google books, Google news, or Google scholar search for the app in question if relevant. Simply stating "non notable" and "unreferenced" is not a valid rationale for deletion. Also keep in mind that the number of Google hits itself do not impart notability, it is the quality of each source (or breadth of a search) that influences such numbers." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smellymoo (talk • contribs) 18:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , That's for deletion discussions, not removal of improperly sourced entries. Alongside that, do you really think I didn't look for sources at all?
 * Also, do not write about sand:box yourself. You made it, it's a WP:COI, and if there's anything I specialize in it's that. "Lots of downloads" != notability. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * yup, that one I agree (COI and downloads != notability). I have found a few proofs of notability (newspaper, 2 others), but the COI means I can't post it at all even though it is valid? I guess maybe not. I will post it to the talk page. Is everything else improving? ~ Smellymoo  19:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , You can make an edit request on the talk page. The features section hasn't improved at all, and, as I said, needs rewritten into just an overview of the genre. There's no way you'll get the required sources for it as it is now, and alongside that it's simply not too appropriate for the encyclopedia. I'm not removing it solely because of WP:3RR. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:18, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , if you look at the conical Sandbox_game page, you will see the whole first defining section doesn't have a single citation, and it probably needs them, but doesn't have (now) unneeded citation warnings. Also it has a similar section included in history showing differation of the genre. The only difference with Falling-sand_game is that it is a WIP and split into separate sections, so I think I will start trying to merge them all into the history section. But any further edit warring will need a Third opinion. No page is ever perfect, but that isn't a valid reason for deleting it. If you want to remove whole sections, get consensus on the talk page first. ~ Smellymoo  19:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , So, to make this clear, I am not deleting the page. The AfD process and removal of text are entirely different. Alongside that, there is nothing wrong with Sandbox game. You don't need to source the lead, as long as it is only restating facts that are sourced elsewhere in the article. Please stop trying to apply AfD policy to normal editing, mis-applying the rules, unintentionally or otherwise, simply makes it harder for other editors to collaborate with you. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 19:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , you were circumventing the AfD policy by removing 95% of the page because the AfD was denied twice. Dispute_resolution says "When you find a passage in an article that is biased, inaccurate, or unsourced the best practice is to improve it if you can rather than deleting salvageable text". No one else is calling for this page to be reduced to a stub, only you, which means you are against consensus, which is not wikipedia's ethos at all. I mean there are multiple people complaining in the talk page of the page being reduced to a stub, no one is asking for it to be, consider that. Are you with or against the consensus? ~ Smellymoo  20:08, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , he was not. AfD is for addressing notability concerns, not concerns about the actual text of the article. Those are generally addressed via directly altering the text. Moony has explicitly stated he has no problem with the notability of the article, but rather has found and removed text that the he deems unnecessary. He isn't circumventing anything - text removal and AfD are completely different processes for completely different things.
 * There is also no consensus on the talk page for anything related to that article. There are various complaints regarding the length of the article, but as far as I can see the most recent of those was over seven years ago. Take this as a third opinion, as you requested. Giraffer (talk·contribs) 09:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * thanks, I mean multiple people asked for it to be recovered, none asked for it to be truncated. "he isn't circumventing anything", he removed almost the whole article. and left around 2 lines originally. To me that is circumventing AfD. if you look at his history, all of his edits are AfD... so adds up to me. But if you say it's not, then I'll accept that :). Thank you for your time. ~ Smellymoo  11:56, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Just for future note, what you feel doesn't affect policy. AfD policy is separate even if you feel it shouldn't be in some scenario. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 20:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Just for future note, what you feel doesn't affect policy. AfD policy is separate even if you feel it shouldn't be in some scenario. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 20:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

hey, sorry for all the hassle, we both had good intentions. You can delete this section of chat now. I feel like the Falling-sand_game page is now hitting minimum requirements, and can develop from there. Your pressure did help in the end, guess that is all that matters :). ~ Smellymoo  12:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-02
 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 choose to be reminded when you have not added an edit summary. This can be done in your preferences. This could conflict with the CAPTCHA. This has now been fixed.
 * You can link to specific log entries. You can get these links for example by clicking the timestamps in the log. Until now, such links to private log entries showed no entry even if you had permission to view private log entries. The links now show the entry.
 * Admins can use the abuse filter tool to automatically prevent bad edits. Three changes happened last week:
 * The filter editing interface now shows syntax errors while you type. This is similar to JavaScript pages. It also shows a warning for regular expressions that match the empty string. New warnings will be added later.
 * Oversighters can now hide multiple filter log entries at once using checkboxes on Special:AbuseLog. This is how the usual revision deletion works.
 * When a filter matches too many actions after it has been changed it is "throttled". The most powerful actions are disabled. This is to avoid many editors getting blocked when an administrator made a mistake. The administrator will now get a notification about this "throttle".
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is a new tool to build new skins. You can also see existing skins. You can give feedback.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Bots using the API no longer watch pages automatically based on account preferences. Setting the  to   will still work. This is to reduce the size of the watchlist data in the database.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Scribunto's file metadata now includes length.
 * Octicons-tools.svg CSS and JavaScript code pages now have link anchors to line numbers. You can use wikilinks like w:en:MediaWiki:Common.js.
 * Octicons-sync.svg There was a new version of MediaWiki last week. You can read a detailed log of all 763 changes. Most of them are very small and will not affect you.

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.  15:41, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-03
 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).

Future changes
 * The Growth team plans to add features to get more visitors to edit to more Wikipedias. You can help translating the interface.
 * You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on at 07:00 (UTC).
 * MassMessage posts could be automatically timestamped in the future. This is because MassMessage senders can now send pages using MassMessage. Pages are more difficult to sign. If there are times when a MassMessage post should not be timestamped you can let the developers know.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:09, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Tech News: 2021-04
 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 will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for a short time on at 07:00 (UTC). You will not be able to read or edit Wikitech for a short time on at 09:00 (UTC).

Changes later this week
 * Bracket matching will be added to the CodeMirror syntax highlighter on the first wikis. The first wikis are German and Catalan Wikipedia and maybe other Wikimedia wikis. This will happen on 27 January.
 * 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.  18:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)