User talk:Nick Moyes


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Mentor
Hi Hi mentor !!! You are in Mentor prog.

So you can be mine if you want to :) MumQuin (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2023 (UTC)


 * @MumQuin It's more the case that you're welcome to just drop by with any question about how to edit. I'll help you if I can. If I'm not around, you're also welcome to seek help at the Teahouse if you need it. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok thx. :) I will. :) MumQuin (talk) 14:27, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Is this normal here people just delet comments you did in a dabate and tell you they "BELIVE" it was not constructiv? See on my talk page. Very friendly behavior here :) MumQuin (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi there @MumQuin. I assume you mean this edit you made to the Vector 2022 discussion. I do know that page has attracted a huge amount of heated debate - sometimes from very new users who've just come to complain, so it's important to have contributions that take the discussions forward. I don't think yours was especially helpful (more hot air and annoyance than helpful comments). BUT (and it's a very big 'but'): I believe you made it in good faith because of your views, and that I don't think you deserved one of our low level templated notices left by one of my fellow administrators. It's very easy to be irritated by these impersonal templated messages, but please appreciate that it's a huge task ensuring that this encyclopaedia is kept running smoothly and sometimes we make mistakes. I know I do - even after 11+ years here. So, my advice is to try to see it from the other person's viewpoint, whilst considering how useful any particular comment is to take forward any debate. I might probably also have removed it with an edit summary saying 'not really very helpful', but wouldn't have left a message on your talk page. However, it could be argued that explaining to you (via a templated message) what I had done, it would at least have communicated clearly what my actions were and why. You might otherwise have wondered what happened to your edit. So, it's a balance thing.
 * I don't mean to be rude, but I suspect that English may not be your first language, and so it can be hard for people like me to see past the unintended blunt words to the intended contribution behind them (I know when I go to German speaking countries I must sound terribly rude at times because I only have a tiny vocabulary and limited knowledge of how to say things correctly. I certainly can't write in German.)
 * I hope this explains things. Bottom line: don't take this issue to heart. Wikipedia can seem like a harsh environment for new editors. My view is that new users are best advised to stay away from contentious areas like using WP:AFD and WP:PROD until they have more experience of creating content. Nick Moyes (talk) 12:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Man was born to suffer why woman are born for grace
Man was born to suffer why woman are born for grace Halabi51 (talk) 10:47, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (01:10, 8 October 2023)
How can I deal with Vandalism? --MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (talk) 01:10, 8 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @MrLegacyVideoMaker666 Thanks for your question. As a very new user yourself, first spend a bit more time simply learning the basics of editing. I've checked some of your contributions and not all were that appropriate. this, for example could be considered by some as unhelpful, bordering on vandalism. Yet you probably did it through Good Faith. But not to worry - new users make mistakes and need to learn (hence why I mention this), and why I welcome your question.
 * To answer your question more directly, I suggest you take a long read through this page: WP:VANDALISM) and follow some of the links to get a grasp of how Wikipedia defines and deals with vandalism. Then, after a bit more experience of editing, you could enroll at Counter-Vandalism Unit/Academy (there are minimum requirements of being able to show 200 WP:MAINSPACE edits first).
 * If I could make one suggestion: I would like to see you adding a very brief WP:EDITSUMMARY to all your edits, rather than simply reverting people with no explanation. That's pretty bad form and doesn't either help people learn, nor does it explain your motives for making any given edit. By guiding and steering people towards the right way to edit, we can change poor editing behaviour into really helpful editing., and I appreciate your interest and willingness to help out.
 * If you have favourite articles that you are concerned about (maybe they are your pet subjects, or maybe you've already suspected bad faith editing happening there) you could add them to your WP:WATCHLIST, and then view recent changes to those articles, or even get notifications of changes, if you modify your Notification settings in Preferences. You can then revert and warn an editor if they continue making bad faith edits. You could enable WP:TWINKLE to help you inform and warn users more easily and quickly, placing a series of increasingly firm notices on a vandals talk page before you ever consider reporting them for administrators to take action at WP:AIV. As an admin myself, I get irked when a user gives a final warning to a vandal editor and then immediately reports them to AIV. I expect that editor to watch the actions of that person and only to report them after they have continued with further bad editing activity.
 * On othre thing you might lie to look at as the live upodates of all edits at Special:Recentchanges. I use these settings to reveal the most likely bad faith edits. It is never wise to lurk at the top of the page - most editors tend to watch only these. Instead, go down the page to view older edits which might still be damaging, but which have been missed. Click on 'diff' to see their edit and then take time to assess and consider why those changes were made. e.g. Does it improve the page? If not, does it detract yet not appear like actual vandalism? view any edit summary; view the other Contributions of that editor; check their talk page for prior warnings; keep a Tab open with their contributions for half an hour or so (IP editors and brand new accounts tend to like causing havoc over a short period of time, and many stop when first warned. Make sure any warning you give is fair and proportionate, and that you explain why you have reverted someone. All things like this turn new editors into really helpful backroom folk. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 11:25, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I appreciate your help! and by the way, I am now autoconfirmed with 41 edits (As of right now the time I replied) :-) MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (talk) 22:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Editorrr164 on User:Editorrr164/sandbox (18:05, 11 October 2023)
Hello how can i create an article --Editorrr164 (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, Editorrr164. Your edit to User:Editorrr164/sandbox makes no sense to me. Your sandbox is the right place to prepare a new article, but doing so successfully is the hardest task anyone can do here on Wikipedia. For a total novice, it is much harder, still.
 * Unless the topic can be shown to meet our Notability Criteria, then it cannot have an article on Wikipedia. Please read WP:NSCHOOLS to understand how that applies to educational organisations. Be aware that Wikipedia is not here to help you promote or advertise any organisation. See WP:PROMOTION. If you are connected to the school or college, you will have a 'Conflict of Interest' and must declare that on your userpage. See WP:COI to understand this guideline. Having understood and acted on those COI guidelines, and assuming you still feel the school meets our Notability Criteria, you may then wish to read Help:Your first article. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Doc Lusion (20:12, 11 October 2023)
Hi there. I would like to write a biography of a living physician with multiple citations, contributions and a long and illustrious career. How do I begin? Thanks. --Doc Lusion (talk) 20:12, 11 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @Doc Lusion The best way is to first spend time learning the basics of editing Wikipedia -especially understanding how to add content and to cite Reliable Sources to substantiate it. Then, and only then, is it sensible to attempt to create a new article about a person. They will need to meet our 'notability criteria' for living people, found at WP:NBIO. And you can create a draft article in either your 'sandbox' or as a formal Draft article and submit it for review and feedback. See Help:Your first article.
 * If you either are, or know, this person, or are employed by them, then you would need to declare your connection to them by following guidance laid out at this page. I hope this helps? Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:33, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Growth team newsletter #28
Welcome to the twenty-eighth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations



Community configuration 2.0

 * Community Configuration 2.0 is a feature that will enable Wikimedia communities to easily customize and configure features to meet their unique needs. This approach provides non-technical moderators with more independence and control over enabling/disabling and customizing features for their communities.
 * Technical approach and associated tasks are detailed in this Epic task on Phabricator.
 * Initial designs are drafted for two different approaches (see images). We will soon demo interactive prototypes to interested admins, stewards, and experienced editors (T346109). Please let us know if you have feedback on the design approach, or want to participate in prototype testing.

IP Masking

 * The Growth team has been working on several updates to ensure Growth maintained features will be compatible with future IP Masking changes. This work has included code changes to: Recent Changes (T343322), Echo notifications (T333531), the Thanks extension (T345679) and Mentorship (T341390).
 * Before December, the Growth team will initiate community discussions with the goal of migrating communities from Flow to DiscussionTools. This move aims to minimize the necessity for additional engineering work to make Flow compatible with IP Masking. (T346108)

Mentorship

 * We assembled some resources for mentors at Mediawiki wiki. This resource page is translatable and will be linked from the mentor dashboard.
 * We are working to resolve a bug related to mentors properly returning after being marked as "Away". (T347024)
 * Half of newcomers at English Wikipedia get a mentor assigned to them. To ensure every newcomer receives mentorship, we need additional volunteer mentors at English Wikipedia to achieve a 100% coverage rate. We also encourage experienced users from other wikis to help newcomers at their own community.

Scaling Growth features

 * We continue the deployment of the structured task "add a link" to all Wikipedias. We plan to scale the task to all Wikipedias that have link suggestions available by the end of 2023.
 * We plan to scale the new Impact Module to all Wikipedias soon, but first we are investigating a bug with the job that refreshes the Impact Module data. (T344428)
 * At some wikis, newcomers have access to the "add an image" structured task. This task suggests images that may be relevant to add to unillustrated articles. Newcomers at these wikis can now add images to unillustrated articles sections. (T345940) The wikis that have this task are listed under "Images recommendations" at the Growth team deployment table.

Other news

 * We disabled the “add an image” task temporarily (T345188) because there was a failure in the image suggestions pipeline (T345141). This is now fixed.
 * You can read a report about the Growth team’s representation at Wikimania in Singapore here. Growth team members presented two sessions at Wikimania Singapore.
 * After a 2.5 years-long collaboration with Bangala Wikipedia, we have decided to start a collaboration with another wiki. Swahili Wikipedia is now a pilot wiki for Growth experiments.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' Trizek_(WMF) m:user_talk:trizek (WMF) 23:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (01:10, 18 October 2023)
What exactly is a Steward? --MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (talk) 01:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @MrLegacyVideoMaker666 Stewards are users with a very high level of technical access across all Wiki Projects and interfaces who help manage, maintain and restrict access to our platforms. There are only 31 stewards across the entire set of projects, and you and I rarely, if ever, need to worry about what roles they perform. However, you can find out more information here. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 13:22, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Ojando (22:42, 20 October 2023)
hi --Ojando (talk) 22:42, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi there, @Ojando. Do you need any help or advice on editing Wikipedia? Nick Moyes (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Jrmango (22:32, 21 October 2023)
How do I create a page? --Jrmango (talk) 22:32, 21 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Jrmango. Just a quick reply before I head off to bed tonight: Pages can be created about NOTABLE TOPICS, but not just about any old stuff you happen to know or like. If you tell be the type of topic (person, place, film, musician, species, nebula, etc, I can point you to the relevant notability criteria (such as WP:NBIO, WP:NMUSIC, WP:NFILM etc).
 * You can create a draft article either in your personal sandbox or as a proper DRAFT and submit it for review and feedback when you think it's finally ready to go into the main part of the encyclopaedia. Please follow guidance and use the 'Article Creation Wizard' at this page. Everything you add to a page must be based upon properly published, good quality Reliable Sources. Follow the hyperlinks for all the information you will need to get you started. Regards, and good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 23:57, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Moderator Tools newsletter - Issue #1
Welcome to the inaugural Moderator Tools newsletter! We’ll aim to publish new issues whenever we have big new updates about the projects we’re working on.

PageTriage
We’ve now wrapped up our work to support the English Wikipedia’s New Pages Patrol community by tackling some major technical debt in the PageTriage extension. The final project update gives an overview of all the work that we did over the past 6 months.

Automoderator
We’re currently working on a project called Automoderator, which will enable communities to automatically revert bad edits based on community-defined settings. We’re looking for input and feedback on our plans so far, and have a number of questions on topics we need patrollers and administrators to help us understand better. In addition to the overview and questions on the main project page, we now have two sub-pages with more specific information:
 * If you want to investigate Automoderator’s accuracy rate and check out how it would behave in practice, we’ve set up a testing process with data and scores so you can help us find new patterns we can take into consideration before Automoderator is deployed.
 * The measurement plan is the first draft of our plan to measure whether Automoderator is achieving its goals and not having negative consequences. Want to propose some data for us to capture to help evaluate this project? This is the place to go!

Other
Our team has also been working to ensure that software we’re responsible for is updated to support temporary accounts. We’ve made changes to PageTriage, Nuke, and The Wikipedia Library.

Although we have active engineering projects ongoing, we're always happy to chat about your community's content moderation tool needs - feel free to get in contact at Talk:Moderator Tools.

Read past issues or sign up to this newsletter here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:21, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (22:01, 26 October 2023)
Can Autoconfirmed users like me get the rollback user right, or do you have to be extended confirmed? --MrLegacyVideoMaker666 (talk) 22:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @MrLegacyVideoMaker666 Extended confirmed is a rough indication of the amount of experience we would expect from someone requesting rollback rights, but is not 'set in stone'. Please read WP:Rollback so you are aware of what is involved. Note the section which states that "Rollback is not for very new users: it is unlikely that editors with under 200 mainspace edits will have their request granted."
 * I appreciate your keenness, but noting recent comments on your talk page, don't let your enthusiasm to revert vandalism blind you to good faith editing. Maybe also like to see WP:CVU and read WP:HATCOLLECTING. All the best, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:21, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from RobertoSanchez1990 (01:02, 27 October 2023)
Soccer player --RobertoSanchez1990 (talk) 01:03, 27 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @RobertoSanchez1990 This makes no sense. Do you have a question for me about editing Wikipedia? Nick Moyes (talk) 13:03, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Bobby Sh3p007 (20:32, 28 October 2023)
I used my IP for my first actual edit, and then read that creating a login would eliminate displaying my IP and just display my chosen User Name, however after completing registration it does not cross reference that my User Name is from that particular IP address, stating that I have 0 edits. Is there a way of fixing this? --Bobby Sh3p007 (talk) 20:32, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, . There is no technical way to officially connect an IP address to a registered account on Wikipedia. You can create a userpage and disclose anything you want about your previous IP editing. Cullen328 (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, Bobby Sh3p007. I'm afraid we can't 'merge' the edits from one user with those of another (or with an IP address). However, if you really wanted to link this account's edits with those when you were not logged in, you could easily add a note on your userpage stating that you formerly edited as IP 192.633.32.44 (or whatever it was). But it doesn't seem worth doing for just one edit, nor is it actually all that sensible to declare your real IP address that you're editing from. (Many registered users actually like to keep private the identity of their IP address and not link it to their account). Hope this (and Cullen328's reply) are of use. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Any advice?
I am debating whether or not to start regularly editing Wikipedia again. After looking at the contributions of my old account, I laugh at the foolishness of myself when I was immature and young. Based on my previous issues/complaints from three years ago, what are some specific things I need to improve on if I am to successfully return to this site? What was the main issue with my editing/behavior back then? What should I avoid? aeschylus (talk) 04:22, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @Aeschylus Hi. You have two accounts and a large number of very small archive pages which I don't really propose to wade through in detail. But, at a skim through, I don't see much that you were doing wrong. Sometimes one can get sucked into spending ages working in areas of Wikipedia that aren't really that satisfying, yet one continues with it until one runs out of steam. If you're thinking about returning to activity again, decide what it is you want to focus on, and make sure you understand those areas well by reading all the relevant guidelines. This applies just as much to article creation as it does to dealing with vandalism, grammar and copy editing, article assessment or copyright work. For article improvement and creation, decide which areas you want to focus on - maybe making a 'to do' list to help you stick in a narrow area of the most important things for you. You can do that on your own, or get involved with some of the WP:Wikiprojects by working through some of their suggested areas to focus on. Not allowing yourself to get sucked down a rabbit hole is one tip to avoid losing the will to contribute.
 * Perhaps I could turn the question around and ask you to link to things that have bothered you in the past and which you'd like guidance on?
 * As an aside, if ytou do return to activity, do please find better archive settings which don't make innumerable tiny archives (one per month with one thread in each!). Such settings make it very hard for someone to look back through. Have a read of the settings at User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis. I'd suggest that |format=Y/F could do with being changed to  |format= %%i to give you numbered archives (or at the most, have one archived talk page per year) and ensure that 'minkeepthreads' is set to something sensible, like |minkeepthreads=20 so that you've always got the last twenty topics available on your talk page. I tend to be a bit suspicious of users who archive everything off their talk pages all the time. It makes me wonder what they're trying to hide. OK, I do take things to extreme a bit myself so, if you look at my settings, I keep a large number of quick-to-refer-to threads on my talk page (50), and have | maxarchsize=200000 to give me a few large archives, not hundreds of tiny ones. This makes going back to look for a past thread and doing a Ctrl-F keyword search so much easier. For me, it would be a nightmare to have your archive settings; for you it's simply not needed.
 * Whether you're a new editor or not, the things to avoid are unreasonably accusing other people of doing bad stuff; being defensive and not open to listening to another person's point of view; failing to spend time to read policies and guidelines relevant to the area you're working on, and not being polite or welcoming to others. I didn't sense any great issue with your earlier interactions, though.
 * If someone challenges how you've made an edit, take time to read up and see if you've misunderstood something - and take the time to apologise if you have (I've had to grovel a few times over the years!) You handled a question about Mark Fowler (hitman) quite well. (I've since lost the link to one of those innumerable archives pages, so can't give you a diff), and you appear to have created some pretty good articles and DYKs in the past.
 * My feeling is that I don't see an issue with you returning to editing activity - and I think you'd be a net positive if you did. But it comes down to what you want out of it, what time you want to spend on this site.
 * I hope this helps a bit. If you want any further specific advice, do please ask. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:28, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback! I will follow this advice if I return. aeschylus (talk) 20:34, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Sunnykhurma (09:02, 29 October 2023)
Hello Nick, Hope you are well!

I need your help in updating one article. --Sunnykhurma (talk) 09:02, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @Sunnykhurma Please cold you give me a link to the article you want to update, and tell me what you want to add or change. Linking to a source would be extra helpful so that I can guide you most effectively. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:14, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for Reply, Draft:The Jalandhar Times Please go through with this and suggest to move this on main page Sunnykhurma (talk) 09:20, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Sunnykhurma I'm afraid I won't do that as the draft does not show how the newspaper meet our notability guidelines]. There are no references at all - and any you do use must be independent of the subject and have talked about this newspaper in detail and in depth. At the moment it is not written in a language appropriate to an encyclopaedia, and sounds more like an advertisement - and that is not our purpose. There are thousands upon thousands of local and regional newspapers around the world. Whilst most are reliable enough to be sources of references for use on Wikipedia, few meet the criteria of actually being notable themselves. See [[The Kyiv Independent as an example of one that is. Sorry I can't help you, but you are free to continue working to improve it. Finding good sources to use as references should be your priority. Without them, you would be wasting your time, I'm afraid. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 11:31, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Now, Please have look. I have modified the things which you suggest me to do. Please Sunnykhurma (talk) 17:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Sunnykhurma All your sources are still based on The Jalandhar Times, or on its social media presence. To be notable, we need to see evidence that at least three other media outlets have written in detail and in depth about this newspaper. Simply existing is not a rationale for a Wikipedia article, I'm afraid. Nick Moyes (talk) 17:45, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqBwgKMImXoQswoaG5Aw?ceid=US:en&oc=3
 * Will these links help? Sunnykhurma (talk) 17:50, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Sunnykhurma No, they won't The first six all linked TO the The Jalandhar Times. I assume the rest will, too. We need sources that talk ABOUT The Jalandhar Times. There is a significant difference! Nick Moyes (talk) 17:56, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * These Below links are talking about The Jalandhar Times
 * https://www.thecompanycheck.com/org/jalandhar-times/480e94c295 Sunnykhurma (talk) 18:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Sunnykhurma I'm really sorry. All that link does is prove that the company exists - but that was never in doubt! Millions of companies, newspapers, shops and people exist too. Only a small number ever get noticed and written about by the world at large. Our notability criteria for businesses would be explained further at this page.
 * What you could consider doing is make mention in an existing article to demonstrate that the newspaper serves that region, alongside other newspapers and media. I assume Jalandhar would be the place. Kind regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:20, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Mariamkaram94 (18:57, 30 October 2023)
Hello, Why does Wikipedia keep deleting my translation? --Mariamkaram94 (talk) 18:57, 30 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @Mariamkaram94 I don't understand what you mean. We already have an article on English Wikipedia at Tantura massacre.
 * You appear to have created an equivalent article in German at User:Mariamkaram94/Tantura-Masskar, and appear to have successfully edited it after posting your question to me. To be frank: You should really be creating translations into Germans over at German Wikipedia. But, oh, I see you already are!
 * Assuming the version in German that you made here on English Wikipedia is no longer needed, would you like me to delete it for you? If you want to request deletion at a time of your choosing, just add to the top of the page, and someone like me will drop by and delete it for you.
 * Is there anything else you need from me? Nick Moyes (talk) 19:31, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * i was only trying to ass a German Translation to the already published article.
 * As far as I understood, it's now in my drafts and am blocked from publishing for 3 days till I finish my editing then it will be published.. correct? Mariamkaram94 (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Mariamkaram94 You said "I was only trying to ass a German Translation" I presume you meant ADD a German translation?
 * If so, please stop! That's not the way to do it. You must go to German Wikipedia and add your article there, first checking all the sources you cite to ensure they genuinely support the text you have translated. Just literally translating word for word is sloppy and doesn't guarantee a good article. I do not know the rules governing German Wikipedia, I'm afraid. But here, brand new users should go through Articles for Creation until they're 'autoconfirmed'.
 * Having done that, and had it accepted on German Wikipedia (not here!), you can make a link using the 'add language' function. Because de.wiki and en.wiki use different 'skins' which give you a slightly different layout, on de.wiki it's on the lower left hand column in desktop view, whilst here it's on the top right, just about the 'View History' tabs etc. You can make the link from either page back to the other - it doesn't matter which you start from. You only need to do it once. Hope this helps. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:50, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I'm pretty sure German Wikipedia would expect you to use INLINE CITATIONS. We certainly would! There are 28 inline citations in the English article; your draft in German has just one non-functioning reference right at the bottom. You're on the right track - but you've a fair bit more work to do to make this an article suitable for an encyclopaedia where each factual statement you add can be WP:VERIFIED to its source. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Question from Kishan singh rathore jalila on User:Kishan singh rathore jalila (15:46, 3 November 2023)
Colified areas as that could be there in the evening of computer science and technology University admission coaching centre of the day --Kishan singh rathore jalila (talk) 15:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Kishan singh rathore jalila Hello. Do you need advice on editing Wikipedia? If so, please explain exactly what help you need. I cannot respond to a random string of words, as they simply make no sense to me. Sorry. Nick Moyes (talk) 16:06, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Stenelmis concinna
That was a lovely manifesto. Cheers, Crawdad Blues (talk) 00:40, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Alieyah nicole (20:57, 7 November 2023)
Hello what can I do --Alieyah nicole (talk) 20:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Alieyah nicole. Sorry I didn't see your question until today - I'm afraid I was busy elsewhere.
 * The answer is very much that it's up to you. At it's simplest, you have a 'Homepage' Tab which offers newcomers some easy editing suggestions to get them started. Click that Tab; select the broad topic areas you might be interested in and scroll through what it offers you. These will be things like adding a link to other articles, or fixing grammar and spelling.
 * You could visit our WP:TASKCENTER, which offers categories of things people might like to do.
 * Bottom line: this is an encyclopaedia if 'notable things', collated from properly published sources. Nothing we add should be our own opinions or our personal knowldge. So, adding 'citations' to support statements which might be deemed questionable and currently cannot be verified, is a really useful thing to do.
 * I often suggest looking for topics on subjects that interest you, and reading through some of them, whilst asking oneself: "can I improve the sentence construction or readability?", or "are there big gaps in the article that I could find some books or good quality websites that would support the addition of new statements?"
 * If you wanted to tell me a bit more about yourself and yhour inteersts, I might be able to make further suggestiosn for you.
 * Meanwhile, I have left a welcome message on yor talk page with sme links to get you started, nd to teach you how to approrah editing with either of our two editing tools. gards, e Nick Moyes (talk) 20:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Jackalope256 (04:42, 8 November 2023)
Hello! I was thinking about adding to the 'In popular culture' section of the Antidisestablishmentarianism (word) article, as the word was featured as an answer to the New York Times crossword earlier this year (09/19), and I was wondering if that was considered significant enough to add, or something I would be able to add. On the page currently is a usage of the word by Eminem, so it looks like appearances of the word are considered noteworthy, and the New York Times crossword could be considered to be pop culture. Thank you! --Jackalope256 (talk) 04:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Jackalope256 That's a really interesting question! My initial reaction was 'No - don't be daft!', but then I looked at Antidisestablishmentarianism_(word) and I've shifted my view to 'Errm, maybe - why not give it a go?'. But I'm very doubtful the edit would stick, because I suspect the word is used in crosswords and quizzes all the time, and wouldn't be seen as significant enough. I also wonder if there was anything significant in the actual clue that was given, as maybe that could be worth quoting? You'd use  to add the relevant details, ideally including page number if you know it. Good luck (though I'm not holding out too much hope! Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:10, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Boxingrec2144 (14:53, 10 November 2023)
Hi I heard for boxing rec website I have to edit through a wiki account Is this true? --Boxingrec2144 (talk) 14:53, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, @Boxingrec2144. I really didn't understand your question until I went to our article on BoxRec. It seems they run a wiki about boxing. You can find it here.
 * Whilst it uses the same underlying software (called MediaWiki) that we use here on Wikipedia, the running of that project has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with English Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.
 * A wiki is simply a website that any user can sign up to and contribute to. So, yes, if you want to do more than just read content about boxing (i.e. you want to edit and contribute there), then you will need to sign up to their wiki, and follow their rules. Your account you've just created here could not be used to edit the wiki at BoxRec nor, indeed, many thousands of other wikis around the world.
 * Just to reiterate: the wiki being run by BoxRec has nothing to do with us here at en.wikipedia.org, and I would suggest you use a different username if you do want to contribute over there. BTW: Should you ever want to add information about boxers to English Wikipedia, BoxRec would definitely not be regarded as a Reliable Source that you could cite as a reference here. We do not accept citations to other wikis because anyone can add or edit information without any oversight or editorial control.
 * I hope this answers your question. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 16:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi thanks mate I understand that. I made a boxing rec page but can't figure how to do it as I go edit it asks me to log into wiki witch yeah isn't this wikki cause I still couldn't log in so I'm abit confused I just saw email for help and this was where I was sent. Thanks for your time Ill give it another go with your links you shared. Kind regards Brodie 1.147.112.154 (talk) 13:00, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No worries. Happy to help. I hope you get the other wiki sorted. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:21, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Meetups
I'm having a blast at WikiConference North America. I remember you saying once that I should really try going to a meetup or editathon at some point, way back when I was a newbie. I'm also pinging because I think you might be able to help him find something he's looking for given your past experiences. Clovermoss 🍀 (talk) 18:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Clovermoss Hi there - that's great to hear. I missed online Wikimania this year because my ISP went down for about two days at the start of the event, and I never caught up. But being at events in person is better - especially if there aren't too many air miles involved. I'm definitely intrigued as to what you're alluding to by your second statement, but if Xeno wants to ping me, or email me off-wiki they can.
 * I don’t know who @Xeno is. I don’t know what they want. If they're looking for ransom I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you, but which Xeno might need.
 * So go for it guys! Nick Moyes (talk) 20:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi again Nick! I had typed this up yesterday, and I forgot to hit submit. Thanks for connecting us . What I was looking for was some kind of quick reference guides / cheatsheets / best practices on running meetups, edit-a-thons, that kind of thing. There's a lot of energy here in Toronto that we're trying to harness. –xenotalk 01:28, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi @Xeno That sounds wonderful (Please forgive the silliness above - I couldn't resist!)
 * I'm guessing you've already visited WP:EDITATHON and WP:MEETUPS? These are good places to start event planning
 * I will privately email you a link to a really useful 'Editathon Checklist' on Google Docs, put together by @Sara Thomas (WMUK). I don't want to publish it here as I can't seem able to make it 'read only'.
 * From my own, relatively limited experience of helping to run editathons, I've felt that two things were really important, but often overlooked.
 * Firstly, ensuring you capture the usernames of everyone who attends lets you monitor your event's success and support participants afterwards. Anything from a simple 'white board' to a properly logged event at the 'Outreach Dashboard' can be really useful (or even do both!).
 * Secondly, give participants something to take away with them towards the end of the event so they don't feel bewildered once editing on their own. For one event I made a 2-sided A4 handout in MS Word. I put the text HERE. With hindsight, it was probably too detailed and lengthy. I still like the idea, though.
 * Finally, HERE are some short notes and observations I made after attending my first Editathon at a major UK university. Having an admin present to support people to make brand new Wikipedia accounts was very helpful. But be aware that both live projecting or prepared screenshots from an experienced editor's account won't look the same as a those from newcomer's account. I created for that very purpose.
 * I hope some of this helps. Shout if you want any further thoughts. Nick Moyes (talk) 15:32, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed write-up Nick. And also thank you for the Liam Neeson impression, we were laughing out loud here at the WikiCon NA/Toronto lobby party :). For now we’re starting with a Wikipedia Day meetup! –xenotalk 16:26, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Aha, that's because it's left on "comment" in case anyone in the course that it's a resource for wants to make a comment :)
 * There's some guidance in the Outreach Dashboard about running editathons @Xeno, in case that's useful, but please also feel free to drop me a line (email on my userpage) if you'd like a chat, always happy to help. Sara Thomas (WMUK) (talk) 12:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Placeholderer (16:20, 14 November 2023)
Hello Nick! I tried to add a missing comma to the article "Water supply and sanitation in the United States", but it seems that whenever I do something else is getting edited and I'm not sure why. From my understanding the edit should say +1 bytes, but it's saying -2 instead. The place I'm adding a comma is right after a hyperlink, and the extra changes didn't show up when I previewed my edits. Any advice? Thanks! --Placeholderer (talk) 16:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Placeholderer I can't actually see where you've added a comma in this edit (maybe it's my eyes!), but you've moved elements of the citation around, so it's really hard to see what you've added. One extra byte is nothing to worry about, and is probably the result of you leaving in a space character which isn't visible, but which nevertheless adds to the total count.
 * It can often be a good idea to experiment with different copies of a text block in your own sandbox if you want to delve into what's going on. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:06, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Anyalizbeth on Draft:Tina Alster (16:08, 15 November 2023)
How do I upload a photo to wikipedia? The photos are of Tina Alster and she owns them, and she gave me permission to upload them, but they keep getting deleted for copyright violations --Anyalizbeth (talk) 16:08, 15 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Anyalizbeth The issue is that nobody knows whether you're telling the truth about being given that permission. That's not to suggest you're lying - just that we cannot take your word for it. We need an acceptable form of proof.
 * So, the best way is to get the copyright owner of the photograph to send an email from an account that is clearly identifiable to them, containing the text of one of our formal image release templates. The copyright owner will be the person who was in control of the camera - not the person being photographed. So images taken for PR purposes won't necessarily belong to the subject of the photo. You can find guidance and template text here.
 * I see that you have already had final warnings on Commons (see here) for uploading images that can't be proven to be copyright free. You really could have engaged with @Didym who left you the warnings there, but hopefully you can get at least one image owned by Tina Aster approved and released for use.
 * If you know Tina Aster, then you should declare your CONFLICT OF INTEREST on your userpage. See instructions at WP:COI. If you are actually employed by them, or are being paid to create this article, you are obliged by our policies to declare that you are in receipt of payment, per instructions at WP:PAID.
 * Personally, I would wait until your article has been approved as meeting our Notability Guidelines before worrying about images. Whether an article contains a photo of the subject is irrelevant to its notability. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:56, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your help! I will submit the article for review first before I try to add pictures Anyalizbeth (talk) 14:54, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Placeholderer (16:30, 16 November 2023)
Hello again! I was browsing articles and I came across the "Dutch East Indies" article, where I noticed one user (Errenneff) made many edits critical of the Dutch, adding few (if any) citations. Though they created their account several months before the edits, this is the only article other than talk/user pages they edited. Would it be advisable to revert unreferenced edits they made for WP:NPOV or WP:Advocacy? I'm also less sure what to do because these edits were a few months ago, and they do include reasonable changes. Thanks again for your time! --Placeholderer (talk) 16:30, 16 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Placeholderer Interesting question. The sum total of their additions and deletions can be seen here and here.
 * The first set of edits appears to have added a fairly reasonable perspective to colonial rule (but I'm no history buff). Yet it wasn't supported by citations. Rather than deleting their edits 9which have clearly remained for some months) you could work through and judiciously add templates where you think some supporting reference might be helpful.
 * If it appears some of their edits have been inserted in such a way as to appear to be supported by an existing citation, then it is helpful to check that source. If it can't be substantiated, one can either insert the cn template, or add a template.
 * The second edit was the removal of a quote and supporting citation, which appears to have been discussed on the talk page, per Errenef's edit summary. I suggest reading discussion, then the entire section of the article, both with and without the deleted text, and determine her, in your mind, its deletion was reasonable. If you don't think it was, then reinstate it with a brief but clear edit summary to explain why.
 * If you follow this advice, you could even think about posting a note on the talk page to explain what you have done, and why. That highlights your own activities on the article and helps others determine whether you did the right thing. I'm afraid I don't have time to read the entire article and set of edits in detail to be able to give you more detailed advice, but I think a common sense approach of adding cn templates where necessary could be useful. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Maryrose finuliar on Questionnaire (12:21, 18 November 2023)
Questionnaire --Maryrose finuliar (talk) 12:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Maryrose finuliar Hello. Do you have a question about how to edit Wikipedia? If so, I can probably help. But my mind-reading skills are not what they used to be; so please be clear what assistance it is that you seek. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:02, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from ZakayoBrighton (18:59, 18 November 2023)
I want to add a politian to Wikipedia and his information such as birth date, school attended and his personal info such as wife and children so that it may be available on google search .please help me publish his information and help me with the steps --ZakayoBrighton (talk) 18:59, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello there, ZakayoBrighton. Every subject that is accepted into our encyclopaedia has to meet our Notability Criteria. Certain types of senior politicians may be accepted if they meet a subset of these criteria, found at WP:NPOLITICIAN. But, please be aware that just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline, of course.
 * You can only add details of the type you mentioned if these have already been published elsewhere, because Wikipedia is only really just a collation of existing information already in the public domain.
 * I should also advise you that trying to create a brand new article without prior experience of editing Wikipedia is a really, really challenging exercise. We advise gaining experience first, and then submitting a draft for review and getting helpful feedback from experienced editors. You can do this by reading the advice and using our 'Article Wizard' at this page. Hope this helps. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:33, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Nordbjerg (16:09, 19 November 2023)
Hi Nick, how do you provide citations for common practices? For example, on the Ethereum page:

> Source code and compiler information are usually published along with the launch of the contract so that users can see the code and verify that it compiles to the bytecode that is on-chain.[citation needed]

This is common practice as can be evidenced by various block explorers where this information is available; it is highly encouraged to do so as it builds trust (as publishing this information allows you to verify). But there is no article that would tell you this is common practice, except for maybe tutorials encouraging you to do so.

Your help is much appreciated! --Nordbjerg (talk) 16:09, 19 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello Nordbjerg. I'm struggling to understand exactly what you mean by "common practices". Is this a technical term linked to cryptocurrencies? Or does it just mean: "normally, x and y are published at the same time".
 * I'm afraid the paragraph you're referring me to is too technical for me to suggest how to address the 'citation needed' template.
 * May I suggest you raise this question on the article's talk page in the hope that interested/knowledgeable editors may be able to arrive at a consensus on whether or not a citation is needed, and how to proceed? I certainly think that such a large paragraph is either sufficiently factual that it needs a citation to something to support it, or is it perhaps so blindingly obvious that it isn't actually needed at all.
 * I'm really hating the fact that I can't advise you more effectively with this one. But for basic guidance on how to add an inline citation, please see WP:REFBEGIN. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Nick, thanks for the reply! I think perhaps a better phrasing would be "best practice". I'm not entirely sure how to phrase it, forgive me -- essentially, the above paragraph I quoted is self-evident if you are in the space; there isn't really a singular document or book or study I could reference to back it up. People usually just publish those pieces of information.
 * I could ask on the talk page in hopes there is someone who is both a skilled Wiki editor *and* knowledgeable in the area if I'm still not making sense. In any case, thank you for your time, I appreciate it! Nordbjerg (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Sagpok57 (05:57, 20 November 2023)
hello,

I am not able to publish my sandbox for public. Please guide. --Sagpok57 (talk) 05:57, 20 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Sagpok57. Your sandbox draft article is not ready for publishing right now. You need to work on it a lot more.
 * First of all, is this person NOTABLE by Wikipedia's standards? See either WP:NBIO or WP:NMUSICIAN to see our criteria for acceptance. Basically, this person needs to have either won prestigious awards, had song at the top of the music charts, or been written about in detail and in depth by independent news outlets. If they have, then you need to add an WP:INLINE CITATION to each factual statement to allow anyone on the other side of the world to find those sources and verify it for themselves. See WP:REFBEGIN for how to add references. Each award or achievement needs a supporting citation. (By the way, you don't need to wikilink to the word 'award' or 'achievements' as we all know what they mean without having to look them up!
 * I don't understand the odd numbering you've used, such as "Kalika music award 2066 (best song of the year)" If this is the Nepali calendar, I think you should add Gregorian calendar dates in brackets.
 * Once you have found and added references to support our Notability criteria, and tidied up the article, then you could submit it to our Articles for Creation review process. You will receive feedback if it's still not ready, or it will be moved into the main encyclopaedia space if it does. Just add the following text to the top of the article (but leave out any 'nowiki' tags and their accompanying chevron brackets. Click 'publish' - which simply means 'save' in this context, and you will see a 'Submit' button which you should hit only once it's genuinely ready for the encyclopaedia.
 * Finally, you are writing about yourself or about someone you know personally? If so, then you would have a 'conflict of interest' and must declare this on your userpage. Find out how to do this at THIS PAGE, or read WP:PAID if you are being paid to create an article about this person.
 * Hope this helps you. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Assessment
Last summer, you assessed The House Across the Lake (novel) on my request. Soon afterward, I expanded another article on a different Sager book, The Last Time I Lied which still hasn't been reassessed. Perhaps you could give it a look. I've also done some work on Tom Ripley and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and made requests for both of those. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 21:43, 24 November 2023 (UTC)


 * @Just Another Cringy Username That's now done for you. Nice work.
 * Just one thing: I did find this statement in the Sleepy Hollow article: "...but Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from the area, leaving Katrina to marry Brom Bones." to be rather a non sequitur. I wonder whether you could find a more flowing way of explaining these two events? Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:34, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, much of the story deals with the rivalry of these two men for Katrina's affection, so wouldn't it follow that the vanishing of one would result in a clear path for the other?
 * Thanks for your assessments! Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 23:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Just Another Cringy Username No problem. I can appreciate the rivalry; it's just the wording. It seemed to suggest that the second event was dependant upon the first, and that marriage happened immediately. Maybe saying something like ", "...from the area, thus leaving Katrina free to marry Brom Bones."  I'm simply trying to tease in a little bit of time between the two events, if you follow my drift. The marriage didn't happen that afternoon, did it? Nick Moyes (talk) 23:51, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The marriage occurred "shortly after" (Irving's words), so it's as much up to the reader's interpretation as the rest of the ending. I don't like the phrase "free to marry Brom," since it implies there was something standing in the way other than her own flirtatiousness. I'll mull it over for a bit and see what I can come up with. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 00:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No worries - I was just trying to offer some thoughts. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:55, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Aizazkhan5656 (04:49, 26 November 2023)
Hello! I hope you are doing well. I joined Wikipedia with the aim of improving rare/unpopular pages like the region that I come from. My question is is it right for me to add an article for my hometown? It has a population of 18000~ people and there is no mention of it on Wikipedia. I did look at the guidelines and everything, I just want to know it from a real person who has hands-on experience. Hence, I am asking you.

Thanks, Izaz --Aizazkhan5656 (talk) 04:49, 26 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, Aizazkhan5656. A town with that size of population is almost certainly going to be marked on a map, so the answer is "Yes". See WP:NPLACE, which shows that all such places are regarded at NOTABLE.
 * However (and it's a big however!) you cannot just write about your hometown based upon your personal knowledge or experience. Everything - and I mean everything - you add to Wikipedia must be based on properly published information, such as books, guidebooks, maps, official regional websites. We remove content that is not supported by a citation to a reliable source, and I see you've already experienced that issue. This is so that anyone, anywhere in the world can VERIFY that what you say is correct. It's also important to write in a neutral, encyclopaedic tone. We are not a tourism website, so avoid hyperbole and exaggerated claims.
 * Because creating a new article is one of the hardest tasks to perform here, we always recommend spending some time editing existing articles to get to understand the way this encyclopaedia operates. But see this page for more advice on creating your first article. It is worth starting any new article as a 'Draft', and you can create a draft to work on by using the 'Article Wizard' at that page. Good luck Nick Moyes (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nick for sharing your valuable knowledge with me. I will definitely spend some time editing and then think about creating an article. I will also be careful and add neutral and verifiable information to the article. Aizazkhan5656 (talk) 05:10, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from MancDav (20:58, 29 November 2023)
Hi Nick, I would like to ask you a question about creating a Wikipedia page about a small local football club nearby to me. Can you give me any tips on where to start? --MancDav (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi MancDav. Because you say "small, local football club" I'm not hopeful that it would meet our essential 'Notability criteria'. There would need to be significant coverage of this club in non-local media to achieve that bar. Have there been books written about it (not vanity publications)?; coverage in national media, perhaps? If you can link me to three or four such high quality sources, i might be able to offer you a better answer. I suspect this subdivision of our notability criteria would be most relevant to you. Without such sources, it would be a pointless exercise trying.
 * But do look at this guidance page about creating a new draft article which could be reviewed and feedback given to you. But be aware that Wikipedia is not here to help organisations and clubs promte themselves. I hope this helps, but I would also add that unless someone has spent time learning the basics of editing, then starting their frist article with no experience can often end in a lot of wasted effort. If I can help you further, I'm happy to do so. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Editor experience invitation
Hey Nick. :) I've been up to something pretty cool lately (and I sing your praises). If you want to check it out and contribute, it's over here. Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Question from Newton Flotman Pairsh Council (11:38, 30 November 2023)
Hello Nick. I have made changes to the Newton Flotman page on Wikipedia this morning. I need some help on how to cite my sources as I have added in new information and want to cite the sources for them. I also deleted and then reinstated a citation which is messed up on the page.

I look forward to hearing from you --Newton Flotman Pairsh Council (talk) 11:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Growth team newsletter #29
Welcome to the twenty-ninth newsletter from the Growth team! Help with translations

Community Conversations
The Growth team will host its first community conversation Monday, 4 December (19:00 - 20:30 UTC). The topic for this meeting will be Mentorship.

This first meeting language will be English, but we plan to host conversations in other languages, and about other topics. Please visit the conversation page on-wiki for the details on how to join. You can also watch the page, or suggest ideas for upcoming conversations there.

Impact Module
At the beginning of November 2023, the Growth team deployed the New Impact Module to all Wikipedias. We recently released a follow up improvement to how edit data was displayed based on editor feedback. 

Add a Link
We released “add a link” to 35 more Wikipedias. 

We have a few Wikipedias remaining:
 * German and English Wikipedia will be contacted at the beginning of January 2024.
 * There are a few small wikis that will not receive the task until they have enough articles for the algorithm to work properly.

Community Configuration

 * We shared Community Configuration 2.0 plans with technical stakeholders. 🖂
 * Initial Community Configuration design ideas have been shared and discussed with community members.
 * A basic Community Configuration 2.0 demo is released on ToolForge.
 * Developers can find some initial proof of concept code shared on gitlab.

Mentorship
When a mentor marked themselves as "Away", they were not getting their name assigned to new accounts when they returned. This has been fixed. 

We improved the message received by newcomers when their mentor quits, to reduce confusion. 

We worked on ensuring that all mentees are assigned to an active mentor. This required reassigning mentees with no mentors to a new mentor. We paused this as the clean-up script confused some editors. We will resume it when the identified blockers are resolved. 

It is now possible to create an Abuse Filter to prevent one user from signing up as a mentor. 

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 18:04, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from CarmelToby (18:10, 10 December 2023)
I'd like to create a new page about myself please --CarmelToby (talk) 18:10, 10 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello, CarmelToby. Thanks for your question. We would never advise anyone to attempt to create a Wikipedia encyclopaedia article about themselves. It stands to reason that anyone who wants to write about themselves is never independent of the subject and, despite knowing an awful lot about themselves, they are inevitably extremely biased! (See WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY.) We strongly urge people not to try.
 * If you do meet our Notability Criteria for Living People, someone will eventually want to take well-written properly published newspapers, journals or books that talk about you and your life and use them to create a page about you. If you can show that you have been "worthy of notice" by the world at large (and not just by you, your friends and your family), then you may well merit a Wikipedia entry here. Feel free to give me links or references to three such "Reliable Sources" and I will give you a quick opinion on whether you would merit such an article. Please don't supply links to your own social media pages, personal blogs, LinkedIn page or your own website - just offer those which you are completely unconnected to who have felt it worthwhile to write about you and your life. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays text.png Hello Nick Moyes: 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, Patient Zerotalk 23:17, 10 December 2023 (UTC) Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Question from Bogeydog (13:56, 12 December 2023)
Good Morning, I don't have a question now but I will soon have some, Glad to know that you will be there to answer. Thank You. Bogeydog --Bogeydog (talk) 13:56, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * @Bogeydog No worries. I'm here if I can help you. But if I don't reply in good time, do feel free to ask anything at our help forum for new editors. It's called the Teahouse, and you can find it HERE.
 * I'll leave you some helpful links on your talk page, too. Good luck getting started. This encyclopaedia needs all the helpful input and good sources it can get. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:26, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Question from Ericudd (23:30, 18 December 2023)
Hi Nick

I am thinking of perhaps making a series of edits with respect to people and the history of fiber optic sensors. Not sure how I would start going about generating new entries and probably will not begin for some months as I get organized.

Probably should start by reading all the articles on the Home page and go from there.

Best Wishes,

Eric --Ericudd (talk) 23:30, 18 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello Ericudd. Thanks for your question. It's a very sensible thing to start slowly on Wikipedia - often by making small edits at first to familiarise yourself with the process. Have you seen your 'Homepage' Tab, which offers you a range of easy editing suggestions to get you started?
 * The most important thing to say is that everything you add to Wikipedia must be derived from properly published sources (books, journals, mainstream newspapers etc), and nothing should come from your own personal knowledge. By all means use that knowledge to unearth good, reliable sources, and add them as an 'inline citation' at the end of each factual addition you want to make.
 * After a while, you may feel more confident at starting a new page about a person. But, once again, make sure you base everything off good sources. This lets anyone in the world with access to a library VERIFY what it is that you've added. I'd encourage you to work on any female physicists, as there is a bias towards male biographies here. We even have a project to encourage more pages about women - see Women in Red Project).
 * I will leave a welcome message on your Talk Page with a few useful links to get you started. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 10:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!


Colman2000 (talk) is wishing you Happy Holidays! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user Happy Holidays, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Happy holidays}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Colman2000 (talk) 07:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

New pages patrol January 2024 Backlog drive
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

A solstice greeting
 ❄️Happy holidays!❄️

Hi Nick! I'd like to wish you a splendid solstice season as we wrap up the year. Here is an artwork, made individually for you, to celebrate. Your work welcoming newcomers at the Teahouse is always invaluable. Take care, and thanks for all you do to make Wikipedia better!Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb }&#125;  talk

&#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 06:51, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
 ~ ~ ~ Merry Christmas! ~ ~ ~

'' Hello Nick Moyes: 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, -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 12:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC) ''

Women in Red January 2024
--Lajmmoore (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Question from JoIrMu (17:22, 30 December 2023)
Hi Nick

I just published a page for my nephew Joakim Oldorff, a professional badminton player. I am not very familiar with the system, so what happens next? Will the page be checked first by someone and I will get feedback? I have photographers "waiting in line" to add some pictures of Joakim, once the page has been approved.

All the best

Johanna --JoIrMu (talk) 17:22, 30 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi there, @JoIrMu. That's certainly a pretty good first effort -well done. But I should point out a few things that will need addressing.
 * First off, I know little about sports, but your nephew will need to meet our Notability Criteria for living people, or notability criteria for this particular sport (see WP:NBADMINTON). In other words, he either must evidently meet the sports notability criteria, OR he must have had a number of in depth and detailed articles in newspapers, magazines etc that have independently written about him and his life and achievements. I might have expected to see a page on Finnish Wikipedia, but I see there is not one as yet.
 * The lead paragraph should clearly state why he is notable. i.e. not just that he is a professional badminton player, but what his biggest achievement is. That way he can quickly be assessed for 'notability' against the sports notability criteria.
 * All your sources seem to be just short results pages. We would prefer to see factual statements about him and his life/achievements cited to longer newspaper articles, etc. I see you've linked to some as External Links", but these are best used as proper sources and citations. Every factual statement should be supported by a reference - it doesn't matter if you use the same source more than once, or if it is not in English. I see you've used Visual Editor, so please follow the guidance pages that you can find at Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/1.
 * Also on citations: don't use other Wikipedia pages as a source for facts. Simply LINK to another Wikipedia page, and add a citation at the end of the sentence that allows anyone to verify the statement you have added. If it can't be verified - don't add it!
 * As you are closely connected to him as a relative, you should add a Conflict of Interest notice to your userpage. See the instructions on that link on how to do it.
 * Finally - and most importantly - at the moment, your article is just a draft in your sandbox. There it will remain, unseen and unassessed unless you submit it for review for inclusion in the main body of our encyclopaedia.
 * I will shortly move the page into a 'Draft' and will add a big blue 'submit' button which you can hit when you've addressed the points I've raised above. Our review process at THIS PAGEoffers helpful feedback if a draft isn't yet suitable so that you can understand what further work or fixing might be needed. Unfortunately, there is a huge backlog (many thousands) so it may take up to a three months for a volunteer to review if. Should that not happen, it will then automatically be moved and indexed by Google. The latter doesn't happen until the review process has completed.

 Done See Draft:Joakim Oldorff
 * I hope this helps. Feel free to ask further questions, or ask at The Teahouse if you need a quicker response to any query. Nick Moyes (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, Nick! All very good points and instructions. I will work on them the best I can in the coming days and submit the page for review. JoIrMu (talk) 19:27, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Nick, it took a bit longer but now I have tried to address all the points you raised, and in the meantime, the page on the Finnish Wikipedia has been published. However, I am having problems with submitting the draft. When I start to edit the drat that you kindly created for me, the submit button disappears. I tried clicking on "Publish the changes", but I am not sure if the draft is now waiting to to be reviewed or not. Can you please help me again? JoIrMu (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @JoIrMu The Submit for Review button works, but is only visible and works only when you’re NOT editing the page!
 * Before submitting, please follow WP:COI to declare your conflict of interest. Good luck. Nick Moyes (talk) 19:59, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi again, I am sorry for being so helpless with this, but I do not understand how I can not be editing...? I mean when I go to the draft you created, I need to click on edit, so that I can actually import the corrections and amendments you pointed out, right? When I have put the right code in the edit space, the submit button is not there. If I go back to the read space after adding the new code, it does not show the new version but the old version of the article. I apologise, but I still need more instructions on how to edit the draft you created and still get to click on the submit button. It was more straightforward on the Finnish Wikipedia, so I am really struggling with this technically. JoIrMu (talk) 09:40, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @JoIrMu Yes, you will need to edit the draft article at Draft:Joakim Oldorff, and then you will need to save those edits into the draft (by hitting the blue Publish changes button. But that merely publishes those edits to the online Draft. It is not yet a published article (which would be found eventually at Joakim Oldorff.
 * Once you have completed all your edits, and saved them (i.e. publish changes), then you will still see the blue "Submit the draft for review" button again. Only when you click that will your submission be made.
 * As an aside: we were forced by legal requirements from the Wikimedia Foundation about 2 years ago to accept a name change from 'Save changes' to 'Publish changes' and it has not helped new users. But there is literally nothing we can do about the confusion this occasionally causes. The reality is that every single thing that anyone saves (even to their own user page) is literally 'published' online, and potentially viewable by anyone, anywhere. That applies whether it's edits to a draft, this talk page of mine, or edits to an already published article, such as The Moon. I hope this clears things up for you.
 * I'm away for a few days now, so if you still have problems, do ask at the Teahouse for a speedier reply. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2023).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Clovermoss
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Dennis Brown
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Julia W · Marasmusine · PBS



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Aoidh · HJ Mitchell · Sdrqaz · Spicy · ToBeFree · Vanamonde93 · Z1720
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Maxim
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Enterprisey · Izno · SilkTork

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Aoidh · Firefly · Sdrqaz · ToBeFree · Z1720
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Maxim
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Enterprisey · Izno · SilkTork

Arbitration
 * Following the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , , ,.
 * Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee rescinded the restrictions on the page name move discussions for the two Ireland pages that were enacted in June 2009.
 * The arbitration case Industrial agriculture has been closed.

Miscellaneous
 * The New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in January 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 13,000 unreviewed articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Your star adoptee is in this edition. :) Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 16:19, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Chokeboy (03:01, 2 January 2024)
Hey, when it comes to uploading celebrities photos, will I be able to do it under the fair use act once my account is 4 days old? Thanks! --Chokeboy (talk) 03:01, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Chokeboy. No, I'm afraid not. Not unless the celebrity is dead and there are no other freely licenced images available. You cannot simply take (=steal) a copyrighted image from the internet and add it to an article about a living person. We take copyright theft very seriously. I assume you didn't take the images yourself? If you had, then there would be no issue. Does that help? Nick Moyes (talk) 21:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * okay, thanks for clearing this up! my friend has a photo they personally took of a celebrity so we'll use that one instead. Chokeboy (talk) 21:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Chokeboy Fine. It's a small, but importna t matter, but they will need to create their own account and upload it themselves. Your account is not in a position to release an image of their photograph. So just get them to create an account for themselves - please don't share one account between two or more people. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * understood! Chokeboy (talk) 02:21, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Rakiyahinspaceteam (22:52, 2 January 2024)
Hello, how do I delete the wiki page I've created? --Rakiyahinspaceteam (talk) 22:52, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Rakiyahinspaceteam The history of that page shows that you did not create it. And, because many others have since edited it, it is now too late to request deletion of the page even if you had created it. If you believe the subject is not notable (see WP:NBIO or WP:NARTIST) than you could start a deletion discussion at at the Articles for Deletion page.
 * If you plan to continue editing her page, you should declare your connection to Rakiyah by following instructions at WP:COI., as you evidently have a conflict of interest. In future, please do not add 'facts' that the subject of an article has told you are true. This is not how we work. You must provide citations to independently published Reliable Sources that allow anyone in the world to verify whatever factual statement you have added. It's no reflection on any individual, but we never trust stuff that someone happens to know - even if they are the subject of an article themselves. Hope this helps. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from ImaginalNomad (23:42, 3 January 2024)
Hello,

I tried to update an authorised image for a page but got a global block instead. What is wrong? --ImaginalNomad (talk) 23:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @ImaginalNomad Which account were you using? I can't help you without knowing more. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I received the below message when trying to update the Wikipedia page image for Dione Joseph. I am using this account. It is my own account.
 * Msg:
 * Something went wrong	The page title "File:IMG-20240104-WA0001.jpg" is restricted from editing or creation because it matches the following entry on the local or global blacklist: File:IMG-\d{8}-WA\d{4}.jpg # WhatsApp, e.g. File:IMG-20230409-WA0001.jpg, intended to prevent vandalism. Instructions:
 * If you receive this message when you try to edit, create, or move an existing page:
 * Any administrator can create or move this page for you. If the page you tried to edit or create is not a talk page, suggest your changes at its talk page and add request COI. This will categorize the page into Category:Commons protected edit requests, which administrators regularly check. If this does not work, please post a request at the Administrators' noticeboard. You may also contact any administrator on their talk page or by email. Be sure to specify the exact title of the page you are trying to create or edit, and if it might be misunderstood (for example a page with an unusual name), consider explaining briefly what you want to do. If you wrote any text, save it temporarily on your computer until you can edit it. If you think it is an error that you cannot edit, move or create this page, please report the page title (and the entry on the title blacklist) to the Administrators' noticeboard. Thank you. ImaginalNomad (talk) 07:39, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @ImaginalNomad OK, it looks like you were editing the Dione Joseph page as User:BlackCreativesAotearoa, which was 'soft-blocked' as a promotional and corporate username, which could theoretically be used by any member of staff. Both are against our rules. So you then, as is permitted, created your new account that you're now using. Is that correct?.
 * Before commenting on the image issue, I must point out that, if correct, you still have an obvious, undeclared CONFLICT OF INTEREST and should not be editing her article without declaring your connection to her.  See WP:COI on how to do this. And, if you're being paid to do this, you have an obligation to declare who is paying you, so please see instructions at WP:PAID, as undeclared paid editing is not permitted here.
 * Even then, you cannot just add stuff that you happen to know - everything must be verifiable by anyone in the world. So you must cite reliably-published, independent sources - at least one per paragraph - that anyone with access to a library, bookshop or internet could check. See this. And, see WP:REFBEGIN on how to add citations. So please address this, or remove the unverifiable information added by your earlier, blocked account.
 * Now, you've given me the image filename you tried to upload. I'm no expert on Wikimedia Commons messaging, but it looks like you failed to give the image an informative title, and simply uploaded one with an automatically-generated year and image number. Firstly, that's not always possible because another image with the same title may well exist. That's why it's sensible to upload well-named images. Secondly, it looks like that title is a default numbering taken from Whatsapp. So an automatic filter will have stopped the upload to prevent the likelihood of images taken directly from social media (without the photographer's permission) being uploaded to Wikipedia or to Wikimedia Commons. If you are the copyright owner, then I suggest you retitle the image and try again. If you were not the original photographer, then you have no legal right to release it for free commercial use on Wikipedia, and should revert to the original photo in the article.
 * Does this make sense, or have I missed anything? Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 11:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * @Clovermoss Thank you. Your news caught me unawares -I've been extremely busy IRL recently, and hadn't even seen your RFA (though I did have words about recommending you quite some while ago). I am so, so pleased to see you've 'got the mop'. You've been amazing to watch over the years, and I know you're going to put that mop to good use. I still feel I've an awful lot to learn about being an admin, and find it much harder now to ask simple questions (as I feel I should somehow already know the answers). I hope you feel really proud - you certainly should be! Happy New Year! Nick Moyes (talk) 01:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Mynameisrainzrosli on Kim Pan-gon (13:01, 4 January 2024)
How I want to change the pictures which is already outdated? --Mynameisrainzrosli (talk) 13:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Mynameisrainzrosli Do you have a photo that you own the copyright of? If so, do you need help in uploading it?
 * If you don't own the image, you cannot simply take other people's pictures and upload them as if they were yours. Unless the person is deceased, all images must on Wikipedia must have either been released into the public domain, or be licenced with a Creative Commons Commercial Re-use (CC-BY-SA). Do you need any further help? Nick Moyes (talk) 00:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Amelianine (09:05, 5 January 2024)
I have queries if any topic that don't have article on topic in which I will write about it can  promote my article link. --Amelianine (talk) 09:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, Amelianine. Not any topic, no. We can only have topics in this encyclopaedia which are NOTABLE (as defined by Wikipedia). We have various Notability Criteria for different topics, such as WP:NBIO for living people, WP:NSPORTS for different types of sportspeople, or WP:NARTIST for creatives and musicians.
 * So, what you want to write about must meet at least on of those criteria. It can't be WP:PROMOTION or WP:ADVERTISING, or be about yourself (unless you're notable, of course!)
 * Everything needs to be based upon Reliable Sources that are independent of the subject you're writing about. Thus, we do not accept sources such as personal blogs, social media accounts, personal websites etc. I hope this helps. I'll leave a welcome message with a couple of useful links on your talk page. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 15:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Wikieditor09871234 (02:40, 6 January 2024)
Hi there, I am an artist and my music and art is all over the world. I just decided to update wiki and add my page and info. Is there something I can read to help me understand how to do it? --Wikieditor09871234 (talk) 02:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, @Wikieditor09871234. Thanks for asking. It's important to point out that we do not permit editors to alter their own Wikipedia articles, unless it relates to removing uncited/unsubstantiated statements which might be false or libellous. Only content sourced from independent publications should ever be added (e.g. books, magazines, newspapers and news websites etc) User-generated content such as IMDb, personal blogs or websites, social media, interviews with the subject, etc are not accepted.
 * So, to get corrections or additions made to an article about you, you will need to first find RELIABLE< INDEPENDENT SOURCES which can be used to VERIFY what you want to say.
 * Then follow the instructions to make an 'edit request' on the article's talk page (WP:EDITREQUEST). Your request should be clear and explicit. i.e. change sentence xxxxxx to new sentence yyyyyy based on the source zzzzz that you must also supply with your edit request. This will draw the attention of an editor who will assesss and make/reject the edit request, as necessary. Unsusbtantiated statements will not be added, unless they're very minor ones.
 * If you need further help, let me know the article and the type of info and sources that you'd like to use. I'm no expert on music articles, but I can give you a good steer as to what's the best approach to take with the edits you'd like to see made. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 11:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, and you maye find WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY and useful page, especially this section of it. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from KAMCDERMOTT (23:08, 9 January 2024)
hello I have seen an article for Rancho Tehama Reserve that has old outdated information on it. How can I change that? --KAMCDERMOTT (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @KAMCDERMOTT Great question! I can only find an article on Rancho Tehama, California - is this the one you mean? You can edit an article yourself, though not simply from things you personally happen to know about it. You must first find reliable, published sources (not personal blogs, personal websites opr social media). So, books, old newspapers, jopurnals or online news outlets are required. Make the improvements in your own words, then add an inline citation at the end of the factual statement (sentence or paragraph). Simply adding things you know is not the way we work, as we need anyone with access to a library or bookshop to be able to Verify what is stated is actually correct, according to the cited source.
 * I have left a welcome message for you on your talk page, with a link to getting started. It can be quite a learning curve to begin with, so make small changes and then save (=publish) them before making further changes.
 * Let me know how you get on, and I can check and give you feedback, if you'd like. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from SoloPlanet010 (00:57, 11 January 2024)
If you found a link error on wikipedia(the wikipedia page doesn't exist), what do you do? --SoloPlanet010 (talk) 00:57, 11 January 2024 (UTC)


 * HI, @SoloPlanet010 Good question! Had you asked about a dead link in a citation to an external site, I would have advised against removing it. That's because, usually, it's a case that the url has been modified by the target website, and it can easily be re-found with a bit of searching.
 * It's less of a concern if a link to another Wikipedia page has changed. But, once again, there are many, many cases here (we call them REDLINKS where someone intentionally makes a wikilink to a page title that has never existed. The rationale is that they believe the topic is sufficiently notable to deserve a page here, even though nobody has yet to create it. These redlinks are useful in guiding other editors to consider whether to create that page. But overuse of redlinks is frowned upon.
 * So, my answer is to use one of careful judgement. Is the link to the non-existent page likely to be notable? Can you find online sources that mention it? If so, leave it in place. If you genuinely think it's a pointless redlink, then remove the link and add an explanatory EDITSUMMARY to justify your change. The clue is often that there are lots of redlinks in one article to people who played a very minor role in something, and the article creators is trying to push their importance more than is justified. (HERE is an example of a section I wrote some while ago. It contains many redlinks to plant names, every one of which deserves an article here, but as yet they don't exist. Meanwhile, many do exist in other language versions of this encyclopaedia!)
 * But, when in doubt, just leave it as it is and let someone else ponder over it!
 * If you'd care to link to the page you're talking about, I can give you a more considered opinion. It's good to ask questions like this when starting out - that way you get to know how the process of improving Wikipedia pages works. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:42, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Placeholderer (17:00, 16 January 2024)
Hello! I've been working on the Dutch East Indies article with the goal of making it a Good Article. At what point do you think it would be advisable to submit an article for GA review, and how does one submit an article for GA review? This one was quick failed twice in 2011, but I think those problems no longer apply. I could also ask the Teahouse if that would be more appropriate— I'm not sure! Thanks for your time either way! --Placeholderer (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi . If you had asked at the Teahouse, I'd probably be just as likely to have answered you there! It looks a meaty article, and you should be aware that these things take a lot of preparation, time and commitment. I do have experience of spending 6 months or more getting one shortish list article up to a full-blown GA article (see Mont Blanc massif). It was hard work, but very satisfying. I've just checked, and it took over 300 edits to get it there. That involves very careful understanding of all the essential criteria of a WP:GA, so do read WP:Good article criteria and WP:Good article nominations/Instructions.


 * I like your commitment and note you've made 29 edits to the article, thus far, and 92 edits here in total. That's not to denigrate your efforts, but I wonder how familiar you are as yet with all our key policies. It looks like you do know what you're doing. But my advice is not to rush at it, but to take it slowly and carefully. Print out a copy of the article. Read it line by line (out loud). Does the English flow? Is every factual statement cited to a reliable source? Have you been able to find some of the key books on the subject from your local library and to use them to guide you? Match every GA criterion to every single sentence and reference.


 * I suggest you post your aspiration on the article's Talk page and invite comments or suggestions for anything you feel still needs work. You could ping any past users who are still active -especially those who worked on past GA nominations. User: Merbaru is certainly still around, and was editing earlier today. I'm sure they'd appreciate knowing what you're doing. You could add a link to the talk page discussion by posting a further request for input at WikiProject Indonesia
 * Because of the two previous, failed nominations, I'd suggest you get the article to a point when you're really happy with, and have exhausted all improvements you think you can make, and and seek input from editors at WP:PEERREVIEW, explaining your aspiration for a GA nomination. That could give you some quick pointers of any major, but overlooked issues to address, including WP:MOS formatting that I don't have time to look at for you right now. Then, when you've addressed everything flagged up, consider the GA nomination, but not before. You'd be advised to time any nomination for a point in your life when you're sufficiently free to commit to addressing any GA issues raised over a period of a couple of weeks.


 * I support what you're wanting to do, and I hope my suggestions don't in any way put you off. You might want to consider saying a little bit about your editing interests or background by creating your userpage. I always tend to take those editors more seriously who have taken the time to explain why they're here. Best wishes and good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 22:44, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I hadn't even considered that as a reason to make a user page! I'll get on it, and do as you suggest. Thanks again! Placeholderer (talk) 23:58, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

"Alps (Topic overview)" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alps_(Topic_overview)&redirect=no Alps (Topic overview)] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 18:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from CforCharles (18:02, 21 January 2024)
Hi Nick. Nice to virtually meet you.

I'm trying to get a feel for how rigid or flexible the community applies the guidelines.

The first few suggestions in my feed ended up being articles flagged for sounding like an advert. One example, if you want to take a look, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxon_Group.

Maybe I'm overthinking things because it's my first edit but my interpretation of the guidelines would be that the majority, if not all, of the article should be cut. The text does reference a patent and they supplied parts for the Mars rover, "Perseverance", but I don't think this alone meets the criteria for company notability. Many companies hold patents and sell things to space agencies.

Is thinking the article should be deleted a little too strict and it should just be trimmed down? What would you recommend?

I appreciate your feedback. In the meantime I'll go get my first edit made on something less open for interpretation.

Cheers Charles --CforCharles (talk) 18:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there, CforCharles. If you're a brand new Wikipedia editor, that's a pretty good spot! I took a look and it's mostly unsourced promotional content about a company's products, without any evidence that other, independent sources have taken note of the company and have written about it. I did a quick Google search and couldn't find much to support our Notability for Business criteria.
 * So, yes, I think it merits a severe trim or, more probably, a deletion discussion at WP:AFD which is our community's way of deciding if an article should stay or go.
 * I agree with you that notability is WP:NOTINHERITED, and that just because its products are in planetary rovers it doesn't mean that every manufacturer thaqt NASA uses should have an article about it.
 * Generally, I'm reluctant to immediately push articles towards a deletion discussion. Before rushing to suggest deletion, we have a process called WP:BEFORE which expects the editor proposing deletion to have tried to find sources that can be used to improve an article. There's little on a general or 'news' search on Google, but Google Books came up with this, and other pages within the same book talk about Maxon, too. Then there's this which may also count somewhat towards notability. But, yes, a severe trim down and introduction of good sources would help a lot. If you want to give it a go and let me know when you're done, I'll happily take another look. Meanwhile, I've left a welcome message and some useful links for you on your talk page. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:39, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kimboy Di Gun Talk (06:24, 25 January 2024)
My real name is Ainomugisha Ackim and am a musician from Uganda, I do dancehall, Ragga, and pop music. I would like to know on how to add my biography on Wikipedia --Kimboy Di Gun Talk (talk) 06:24, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, Kimboy Di Gun Talk. Thanks for your question. Because Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of NOTABLE THINGS, it cannot be used for promoting personal biographies. I'm afarid you may have a misconception about how things work here. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media platforms are available for that.
 * Every single topic that is on Wikipedia must meet our Notability Criteria There are millions of musicians in the worlds, and only those who meet our notabilty criteria for musicians would be able to have an article (unless they happened to already meet our general notability criteria for living people, SEE HERE). So, do please look at those two pages and assess whether or not you feel your musical fame has reached the point where you merit an article about you here. If you think you do, please point me to the sources that talk about you, your life and your achievements. Bear in mind that personal websites, social media pages, IMdB and other user-generated content is not accepted as a RELIABLE SOURCE. National newspapers, magazines and book and TV broadcasts with editorial oversight are needed.
 * But even then, it would not be for you to write about yourself! We expect unconnected people to find detailed independent sources that talk about you to create those pages. Someone writing about themselves is never going to be neutral on the topic, and therefore has a huge CONFLICT OF INTEREST. See also WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Kind regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:48, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks very much for your help, I will comply to what you have told and am glad that the earth still has such good people as you are. 102.222.234.128 (talk) 11:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You're most welcome! Nick Moyes (talk) 11:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Brian Merrick - Malibu on Conflict of interest (19:32, 25 January 2024)
Hi Nick! Can you help me set up a wikipedia page?

I think I did something wrong with the conflict of interest page. --Brian Merrick - Malibu (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there, Brian Merrick - Malibu. Is the page you want to create this one: Draft:Judge John J. Merrick? If so, do you have published sources that demonstrate he meets our Notability for people criteria? Anything you write must be based of properly published sources, not personal knowledge, private websites etc. So newspapers, books, magazines, TV documentaries are OK.
 * If you're related, add a note on your userpage to declare that connection. Instructions are to be found at WP:COI. Just let me know if you need anything more specific.
 * I should say that for a complete beginner to create a brand new page is very difficult - a bit like driving up the motorway at full speed the very first time you get behind the wheel of a car. It's easy to crash!
 * See THIS PAGE about creating your first article. I'll also leave a welcome message on your talk page with links you should work through to learn how the editing process works. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Nick,
 * Thank you we were able to submit the Judge John J Merrick page for review, however we were wondering if we could:
 * continue adding to the existing page while it is being reviewed because we have many other sources & articles
 * what is the best way to do that?
 * --Brian Merrick - Malibu (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Hi again, Brian Merrick - Malibu. Not only can you simply carry on editing that page; you absolutely should if it is to stand more than an ice cube's chance in hell of being accepted!
 * May I be blunt? It is totally unacceptable as it stands! You've not created an encyclopaedia entry about John Merrick, based on RELIABLE SOURCES. It looks more like a footnote on page 16 of a local history newsletter. It doesn't even start (as all encyclopaedia entries should) by saying John Merrick was a ...., and then continuing to tell us about why he meets our NOTABILITY CRITERIA...
 * ...Grrr: and now I've just followed the sole link and discovered you've abused one of our golden rules by stealing copyrighted text and pasting it on Wikipedia and releasing it as if the words were your own. I have no idea why you thought the text on its own would make an encylopaedia entry, but now I am going to have to delete it for copyright violation and warn you not to do that again, please!
 * If you think this person is notable, tell me what sources you would base it upon that demonstrate he meets WP:NBIO or WP:NJUDGE. I earnestly recommend you spend some time learning how to make minor edits and improvements to Wikipedia before ever attempting anything like creating a new article.I'm afraid you've really exceeded my driving metaphor by both crashing and burning! Kind regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Nick I'm so sorry, my assistants were helping me and they were rushing and wanted to get the process started and were going to edit and revise once the page got approved. We know now that we can not copy content from articles. We will write all original work.
 * Thank you so much for you help. We will re-do the page now.
 * Thank you! Brian Merrick - Malibu (talk) 22:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Brian Merrick - Malibu OK, but you've broken another of our golden rules! We hold a strict one person per account rule. See WP:NOSHARING. You may not share or give access to your account to other people. Each person who edits Wikipedia MUST have their own account. If you cannot assure me that you will immediately change your password to this account and not share it, and that from this point forward only you will use this account, as an administrator here, I will have to remove your account's editing privileges and force each person to make their own account. We don't object to collaboration - just not account sharing. If you're all connected, each person also needs to declare their WP:COI as you, yourself, need to do.
 * I feel I need to ask: who is we? Who are these assistants who are trying to get this article created, and why the unseemly rush? Please reinsert the COI notice that you put on your account's userpage and subsequently removed.
 * The process for creating and developing any article about a notable person (as Wikipedia defines it) doesn't need to be rushed, and just results in rejection. Please read and follow the learning guide I left on your talk page and see THIS PAGE on how to start and grow a draft article to submit for review only when it's suitable for this encyclopaedia (and not before). Thanks, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies, the rule breaking was not intentional, there was just a lot of info at once. Can you please send step by step instructions on what I should do next to start the Judge John J. Merrick page to honor the first Judge of Malibu. I really appreciate the help! Brian Merrick - Malibu (talk) 22:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Brian Merrick - Malibu The first step is to find properly published sources that you can cite that demonstrate that this person is notable. Archives and personal papers are not suitable- they need to be in a form that anyone with access to the internet, a lending library or a bookshop on the other side of the world can VERIFY the things you write about them.
 * If you can’t show that he’s Notable, then you’d simply be wasting your time trying further.
 * There is no shortcut to creating a new article. You must be willing to follow and spend time to read the links I’ve provided in my answers above. But you could look at existing articles about other notable judges to appreciate what a biographical article should look like.
 * Can you confirm you have changed your password and will not share it, please? Nick Moyes (talk) 23:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok no problem, I will take the time to do it properly. I just changed the password in settings although I'm not sure if it went through, but I will make sure not to share it.
 * Thank you! Brian Merrick - Malibu (talk) 00:15, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Dinky13 on Draft:Qurio (05:55, 26 January 2024)
Hi Nick, how do I save a page in draft without publishing it? It only gives me the publish page option --Dinky13 (talk) 05:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Dinky13. Don’t worry - you were on the right track. Just use the big blue ‘publish’ button to save your edits in Draft (or anywhere else for that matter)
 * For annoying legal reasons, what used to be labelled “Save” was renamed “Publish” because you are still putting your draft edits online. But that’s not the same as “publishing an article on Wikipedia” - you can still work on your draft and save edits to it until you reach the point where you think it’s ready to be reviewed and put into the main part of this encyclopaedia.
 * I hope this makes sense. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:40, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, Nick. Appreciated. Dinky13 (talk) 09:56, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

delete as read

Women in Red February 2024
--Lajmmoore (talk 20:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Question from AirStream Pictures (22:58, 28 January 2024)
I was not able to use my own name when I created an editing account, so I've used my (wholly owned) company name. I wanted to edit a link that linked my name in the credits for the TV series "Gardening Naturally" to a murder in the UK. I was not allowed to link to my name to my Web site, as that was considered promotional (fair) but I'd like to create a brief bio page to link to. That can be within Wikipedia, but I don't know how to do that. Is that possible? --AirStream Pictures (talk) 22:58, 28 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @AirStream Pictures unfortunately the account name you’ve chosen is not ok as it can imply more than one person has access to it. See WP:USERNAME. You will need to request a name change - instructions at WP:RENAME. I will leave a corresponding notice for you on your talk page.
 * After that, you may add a very brief mention of you and your interests in editing Wikipedia by creating you Userpage. But don’t mention or link to your business website as this would be deemed promotional, and render it liable to deletion. We do not allow LinkedIn-style ‘Profiles’.
 * I can see why you wanted to remove the wikilink that implied you were a convicted necrophile! That’s fine. We expect factual statements to be properly cited to reliable sources (see WP:REFBEGIN), but not simply as a hyperlink.
 * I have to say that I don’t feel that article on Gardening Naturally needs every episode listing. Just stating there were 47 episodes and giving a link or citation to where those titles can be found is the right approach. The article also needs better citation to RELIABLE SOURCES to demonstrate that it actually meets Wikipedia’s Notability Guidelines (See WP:N). I would expect there to be mainstream media reporting of the series, in the form of reviews, behind the scenes stories, magazine articles about it, etc. Be aware that IMdB consists of user-generated content and is not regarded as especially reliable - certainly not as the main source. BTW: Ref [2] seems especially irrelevant.
 * Finally, if you propose to make further edits to that article, we do require you to declare you connection with it in you userpage. (See WP:COI for how to do this.) I’m sorry if all this sounds rather negative and I hope you are able to act on these concerns. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 02:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from Prabir Saha1 (14:30, 30 January 2024)
Hello How do i create a citation? --Prabir Saha1 (talk) 14:30, 30 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there, Prabir Saha1. Depending on whether you've using our 'Visual Editor' our our Source Editor, you will find guidance on adding citations (=references) at the following pages:
 * Visual Editor: SEE HERE
 * Source Editor: SEE HERE
 * Let me know if you have any specific problems after trying one of those two routes. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Question from MichaelJackson2008 (02:01, 1 February 2024)
Where is the edit button? --MichaelJackson2008 (talk) 02:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @MichaelJackson2008 If you’re viewing Wikipedia in ‘Mobile view’, just look for the dark sloping pencil icon to start editing either a whole page or a section within it. (You can tell if you’re in mobile view if the url contains .m. -as in en.m.wikipedia.org.
 * If you’re viewing Wikipedia in ‘Desktop’ mode, look either for the ‘Edit’ tab towards the top of each page, or beside each section heading.
 * We offer a choice of two editing tools. Depending which one you used last, it’ll either say “Edit source” or, simply, “Edit”.
 * You can switch back and forth between the two editors.
 * Hope this helps. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:05, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2024).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Red-tailed hawk · Robertsky
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Ameliorate! · Ancheta Wis · Anthony Bradbury (deceased) · Cobi · Ev · Moondyne · Worm That Turned

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Worm That Turned



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Wugapodes

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Enterprisey · Izno

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.

Technical news
 * Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size.

Arbitration
 * Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
 * Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.

Miscellaneous
 * Voting in the 2024 Steward elections will begin on 06 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 27 February 2024, 14:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
 * A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
 * Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
 * The Unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in February 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with Unreferenced. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bosren (05:12, 2 February 2024)
How many articles will I edit before I can post? --Bosren (talk) 05:12, 2 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Bosren You can post an edit to an article immediately. However you need to have made ten edits and have an account at least 4 days old before you are AUTOCONFIRMED (See that link to see what it permits you to do). This includes creating new articles, but it is very strongly advised that you prepare a Draft article and work on it until it is in good shape before submitting it. It's not an easy task for a new editor to get everything right, and creating a new article from scratch is the hardest task anyone can do here. See this guidance page and then see this page for a Wizard tool that helps you prepare a draft article for review. If you put a poor article directly into the encyclopaedia, it stands a very good chance of being immediately deleted if it doesn't meet our basic article requirements of NOTABILITY. I hope this helps. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 11:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from The PPCo (14:42, 4 February 2024)
Hi Nick. I added some interesting info to the Wiki page and also linked back but it was removed for some reason. How do I get it to stay with a citation? Thanks --The PPCo (talk) 14:42, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @The PPCo No - you actually added a promotional external link to you business, which was reverted for good reason! Do not do that again, please. You may use articles in reliable media to support a factual statement, but you will be blocked from editing if you try to abuse Wikipedia be linking to commercial websites within articles. Nick Moyes (talk) 09:09, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update Nick. The PPCo (talk) 09:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * HI Nick. Ive now re-added the information but removed the external link. I hope that is OK The PPCo (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Got it... I will get started with other pages. Thanks, I wasn't sure how that worked. SchaefferBrian (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from SchaefferBrian (18:46, 4 February 2024)
I am just retiring and have more time to spend working on things like Wiki. I created a page for myself, but wasn't able to save /post it. I'm not really sure to get started. Can you help? --SchaefferBrian (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @SchaefferBrian I’ve left you a welcome message on your talk page, with a link to our Getting Started tutorial. Don’t be too ambitious to start with; just find articles (maybe about your home area) and look for typos, poor English etc that you can improve.
 * On your Userpage, you are permitted to say a few words about yourself and your interest in editing Wikipedia. But we don’t allow people to promote themselves by creating detailed profiles.
 * In desktop mode, your Homepage tab offers you easy edits to improve articles. You may find this helpful, too. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 09:00, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Dave.W.Simmons (17:54, 5 February 2024)
how do I create an article? --Dave.W.Simmons (talk) 17:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Dave.W.Simmons Articles have to both be based on Reliable Sources ‘’and’’ meet our Notability criteria.
 * It is advisable for all newcomers to spend time learning the basics of editing before rushing in to try to create a new article. It’s the hardest task anyone can perform here, and few new editors are successful first time. But please see YFA and AFC. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:12, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Shema12345 on Talk:Honda Stepwgn (18:35, 7 February 2024)
Hi are you a Honda manufacturer --Shema12345 (talk) 18:35, 7 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Shema12345 That’s a weird question to ask. No! Nick Moyes (talk) 03:22, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Kohan-bot (17:06, 9 February 2024)
Hello mentor, I always been curious about the points I get from editing Wikipedia articles, I just want to know what these points mean to me! Does it a kind of appreciation? If so, than why don't show total points? --Kohan-bot (talk) 17:06, 9 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi, Kohan-bot. I'm not quite sure what "points" you're referring to. Do you mean the numbers in red and green that you see when looking at your list of past edits? If so, these are just the number of bytes your saved edit either added (green text) or removed (red text) from the article.
 * Errm, I need to point out a problem with your username. Unfortunately, we prohibit anyone using a name that could suggest it is an automated bot account (unless it is actually a functioning bot - orf which there are many doing useful service on Wikipedia). Please consider requesting a name change (see WP:RENAME) before an admin like me comes along and 'soft-blocks your account, which will simply force your hand. If that happens, please don't take it personally, but it is a policy that we need to avoid confusing usernames. see WP:MISLEADNAME for an explanation. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 17:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oops, too late! i see has just this second 'soft-blocked' you. Don't panic - just follow the instructions on your talk page. Nick Moyes (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

How do I start a page about someone
cant seem to find how to start a page about someone Nick pashley 1 (talk) 10:55, 11 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Nick pashley 1. Creating a new page is an extremely hard task - especially for a brand new editor like yourself. It's always best to learn a biut more about Wikipedia by making small improvements to existing articles first. Maybe fix grammar and spelling, add the odd citation or wikilink.
 * Any new article must be about a topic that meets our Notability Criteria. For people, see WP:NBIO for how these criteria must be met and WP:BLP for the important way of handling factual statements about living or recently deceased people. If you can't find independent sources that talk about this person in some detail, then you are stuck, and there can't be an article about them.
 * What you would do is create a Draft article, work on it until it's of encyclopaedic quality, and you're confident you've demonstrated 'Notability'. Then you'd submit it for review and get useful feedback from a reviewer. There's a huge backlog at present, so it could take up anything up to a couple of months for a volunteer to do the review.
 * You can find a 'wizard' tool to help you create a draft article at our Articles for Creation page.
 * You should read and work through any links to other pages at Your First Article.
 * Should you know or are being paid by this person to create an article, then you would need to declare your Conflict of Interest - so please see that link for details how to do this. We don't mind anyone having a COI, but we do need openness so that we are aware of it. Undeclared paid editing is not allowed, so see WP:PAID if you are being remunerated to do this.
 * To learn how to edit, follow the link in the blue button in the welcome message I see has been left on your userpage. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 13:35, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Provident Estate Dubai (07:35, 12 February 2024)
i want to write an article --Provident Estate Dubai (talk) 07:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Tennesi14 on Manual of Style/Images (18:22, 12 February 2024)
Hello, how do you create a citation? --Tennesi14 (talk) 18:22, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there, @Tennesi14. A citation is another word for a reference that supports a factual statement. So, I’m unclear why you linked to the images page of our Manual of Style.
 * Anyway, I will give you two links on how to do this, depending on which of our two editing tools you’ve opted to use. (But you can easily switch back and forth between them by clicking the dark, slanted pencil icon)
 * For adding citations with our powerful Source Editor, please see WP:REFBEGIN.
 * For our simpler, more ‘WISYWYG’ Visual Editor, please follow guidance via this shortcut: WP:REFBEGINVE.
 * I‘ll also leave a welcome message on your own talk page with some very useful links about learning to edit. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-07
 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 WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service.

Problems
 * There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.

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 As work continues on the grid engine deprecation, tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Minor but annoying mystery
I'd appreciate the help of a wise and crafty Wikipedian at WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Help_desk. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bosren (02:11, 15 February 2024)
Hi, May I ask what are the rules and regulation when posting an article? --Bosren (talk) 02:11, 15 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi again, Bosren.
 * If you're thinking of creating a brand new article (a very hard task - especially for a brand new editor), there's good advice at THIS PAGE.
 * Just always remember that this is an encyclopaedia, not an advertising site, and as such all articles should:
 * about Notable subjects (as defined by Wikipedia). They MUST meet our notability criteria, or they will be liable for deletion. (see WP:GNG, and WP:NBIO for people and WP:NCORP for companies. There are other notability criteria for various other topics, of course, such as this and this)
 * be based up reliable, published sources not connected to the subject (see WP:RS)
 * be written in a neutral tone of voice, and written in your own words (see WP:NPOV)
 * have factual statements with citations that can be verified by anyone, anywhere in the world with access to good library (see WP:V
 * be edited by users not connected to the subject. If they are connected, this fact must be made clear (see WP:COI and WP:PAID and this policy on undeclared paid editing).
 * Finally, I'd say it is advisable to prepare a 'draft' article before putting it into the encyclopaedia. That way, you can work on it and improve it until it meets our notability criteria and other requirements for formatting, sourcing etc. It is best to use the article creation process, available HERE.
 * Please let me know if you find this reply helpful. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:16, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Madiraju kanakadurga (03:57, 16 February 2024)
hello, how do I create my Wikipedia page and write an article in Telugu? how can I know that the same article was uploaded on the Wikipedia page? --Madiraju kanakadurga (talk) 03:57, 16 February 2024 (UTC)


 * You can create a short userpage which explains your interests in editing Wikipedia, and a little bit about you, by clicking the "Create" tab, typing your text, then clicking 'publish'. But don't create a CV or Profile page about yourself as you might do on LinkedIn, or it will be disallowed. Every single edit we make here is viewable online, so that's why it's called 'Publish, but that's not the same as actually publishing an encyclopaedia article into the main part of Wikipedia. See THIS GUIDANCE for creating an article in English, here. But, be aware: it's a very difficult task for any newcomer to successfully create an article from scratch without first learning the basics of editing and improving existing articles. You wouldn't get into a car for the very first time and set off up a motorway at top speed. So please don't do the equivalent on Wikipedia without first learning the controls and the rules of the road!
 * Because this is English Wikipedia, you cannot create articles or communicate in any other language than English. But your account will also work when you go to Telugu Wikipedia. See HERE
 * I hope this helps. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:28, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from MykoChan123 (14:50, 19 February 2024)
how do i start ? --MykoChan123 (talk) 14:50, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @MykoChan123 Welcome to Wikipedia! I have left a welcome message for you on your talk page. It contains a link to getting started with editing. It’s a huge learning curve at the start - so take it slowly to begin with and practice making small edits to gain a better understanding of how things work here.
 * Was there something in particular that you wanted to work on? Regards from the UK. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:19, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-08
 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
 * If you have the "" option enabled, edits by bot accounts no longer trigger notification emails. Previously, only minor edits would not trigger the notification emails.
 * There are changes to how user and site scripts load for Vector 2022 on specific wikis. The changes impacted the following Wikis: all projects with Vector legacy as the default skin, Wikivoyage, and Wikibooks. Other wikis will be affected over the course of the next three months. Gadgets are not impacted. If you have been affected or want to minimize the impact on your project, see  this ticket. Please coordinate and take action proactively.
 * Newly auto-created accounts (the accounts you get when you visit a new wiki) now have the same local notification preferences as users who freshly register on that wiki. It is effected in four notification types listed in the task's description.
 * The maximum file size when using Upload Wizard is now 5 GiB.

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 Selected tools on the grid engine have been stopped as we prepare to shut down the grid on March 14th, 2024. The tool's code and data have not been deleted. If you are a maintainer and you want your tool re-enabled reach out to the team. Only tools that have asked for extension are still running on the grid.
 * The CSS  property can now be used in HTML  attributes in wikitext.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 15:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Allimardan (07:42, 21 February 2024)
Hi, I'd like to have a new article written up on the founding story of an E-commerce Platform in the Capital City of Zambia Lusaka called Nilandi.com --Allimardan (talk) 07:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Allimardan Does this business meet our Notability Criteria for companies? It would need to have been written about in detail and in depth by at least three independent sources, such as books, magazines our mainstream newspapers. See WP:NCORP for our criteria.
 * bear in mind that Wikipedia is not here to help you promote your business. If the world at large hasn’t taken notice of this business then, along with millions of others, it will not deserve its own article. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bosren (02:10, 23 February 2024)
Hi, May I ask if publishing article for an agency or company is possible here? --Bosren (talk) 02:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello Bosren. The answer is "it depends"! So please read on. ..
 * Firstly, If you are being paid to create an article (i.e. you're an employee or a freelancer) you are obliged to declare who is paying you, and what they're wanting you to write about. Instructions for making that declaration are found at WP:PAID. Paid editors are not permitted to take payment without making such a statement, or their editing rights will be withdrawn. Even if not paid, you may still have a CONFLICT OF INTEREST that you may need to declare if you know the owners, once worked for them, or are a client etc etc). See WP:COI for how to declare such a conflict.
 * Secondly, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of notable things, not a place to promote one's favourite local business (of which there are millions around the planet, very few of which are 'notable'). See WP:PROMOTION.
 * Wikipedia uses a very specific definition of NOTABILITY, and for businesses you can read what this is at WP:NCORP. If you cannot demonstrate that three or more independent sources have written about a business in detail and in depth, then there cannot be an article about that business, and you would be wasting your time trying. Press releases, company websites and insider business newsletters are not counted, whereas mainstream national media and properly published books are acceptable sources.
 * I hope this gives some clarity on what's allowed here, and what is not. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Teahouse answer on alderflies
Greetings! I'd like to thank you for your reply to |my question on the Teahouse a week back. I have considered re-writing the bulleted list using the clade template but since I lack the proper experience and the article isn't —in my view— consulted enough, I think it best to leave the Classification subsection as is for the time being. Bronzeman2342 (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Bronzeman2342 I can’t disagree with that! Nick Moyes (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from James Boswell 2nd on Teahouse (00:12, 26 February 2024)
Hello Nick Moyes. I want to try to improve the article "Dale C. Allison, Jr." I am completely new to Wiki and am having difficulty getting started. --James Boswell 2nd (talk) 00:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @James Boswell 2nd I have left a Welcome message on your talk page, containing a valuable link to getting started with editing.
 * I noticed on the page you mentioned a whole section of unsourced biographical information about his early life. Finding published evidence to support these statements would be very helpful. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 07:03, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Question from Pinkklemonade (05:26, 26 February 2024)
hi! i was wondering, do i have to make a wikipedia page off of someone whos well known? i think it would be fun to make an article of myself, especially because im an aspiring artist, but im not sure if im allowed to. --Pinkklemonade (talk) 05:26, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Pinkklemonade No, absolutely not - sorry. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of Notable things. It’s not like LinkedIn, which lets anyone create a profile page about themselves. In essence, we need evidence that the world at large has taken notice of you. Our Notability Criteria have to be met before a page about someone is accepted. See WP:NBIO and WP:NARTIST.
 * New users are far better off learning how Wikipedia operates by editing existing pages. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 06:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * kys you hurt my feelings Pinkklemonade (talk) 03:06, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @Pinkklemonade Tough - that's simply how Wikipedia works.
 * . . . and if you ever use offensive words, slang or acronyms against other editors again, you could find yourself being blocked from editing! You have been warned! Nick Moyes (talk) 08:09, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sdkb · The Night Watch
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg East718 · Isabelle Belato · Mzajac · Staecker · Stan Shebs · Sugarfish · Tamzin



Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg SilkTork

Guideline and policy news
 * Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
 * Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news
 * The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages.

Miscellaneous
 * The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
 * Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Ineffablericeman on User:Completelyineffablebengali (17:08, 3 March 2024)
I want to update my school on it's academisation but I don't really know how to edit it without getting banned --Ineffablericeman (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Ineffablericeman Before answering you, could you explain why you're linking in a second account to this question? You are not permitted to operate two accounts at once, except under special circumstances.
 * The term " academisation" suggest a process your school has gone through to convert it from one operating sytem to another. Is that right? Well, the answer is that you can add a statement to a Wikipedia article, providing you can support it with a citation (inline reference) to a published source. As this sounds like a relatively minor fact, we would normally accept a reference to the school's own website or other publications where it is clear that "academisation" has taken place, and when. If you can't find a source, then do not add stuff that you "happen to know", as we need all articles to be verifiable by other people with access to those publications or websites.
 * Nobody is going to 'block' you from editing for making an edit in all good faith, even if it ends up being reverted. We only block editors who are either acting as a vandal by intentionally disrupting articles, or who refuse to listen to the advice or follow policies they have had pointed out to them.
 * Does this help? Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 17:26, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-10
<section begin="technews-2024-W10"/> 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 <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> page (as well as the associated "Create a book" functionality) provided by the old Collection extension has been removed from all Wikisource wikis, as it was broken. This does not affect the ability to download normal books, which is provided by the Wikisource extension.
 * Wikitech now uses the next-generation Parsoid wikitext parser by default to generate all pages in the Talk namespace. Report any problems on the Known Issues discussion page. You can use the ParserMigration extension to control the use of Parsoid; see the ParserMigration help documentation for more details.
 * Maintenance on etherpad is completed. If you encounter any issues, please indicate in this ticket.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets allow interface admins to create custom features with CSS and JavaScript. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> namespaces and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> user right were reserved for an experiment in 2015, but were never used. These were visible on Special:Search and Special:ListGroupRights. The unused namespaces and user rights are now removed. No pages are moved, and no changes need to be made.
 * A usability improvement to the "Add a citation" in Wikipedia workflow has been made, the insert button was moved to the popup header.

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
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
 * The HTML markup of headings and section edit links will be changed later this year to improve accessibility. See Heading HTML changes for details. The new markup will be the same as in the new Parsoid wikitext parser. You can test your gadget or stylesheet with the new markup if you add <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> to your URL (more info) or turn on Parsoid read views in your user options (more info).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W10"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 19:45, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Robiinsingh (14:14, 6 March 2024)
Hello Nick, I want to create a page for a Brand which is dominating in Offline market of Government Competitive Exams preparation in India and it is also growing in online market also. The name of the brand is Agrawal Examcart. Can you help me or mentor me to create the same. --Robiinsingh (talk) 14:14, 6 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi @Robiinsingh. Sorry for the delay in replying. Welcome to Wikipedia.
 * Firstly, because this is an encyclopaedia of NOTABLE THINGS, it’s only possible to create an article if you can base it on the content of independent, published sources. That means books, magazine articles, newspapers or quality news websites. Can you find these? Anything else would be purely WP:PROMOTION, which we do not permit. It absolutely must meet our Notability criteria for businesses.
 * Draft articles can be started at ARTICLES FOR CREATION, then submitted for review and feedback.
 * See further guidance at YOUR FIRST ARTICLE.
 * It is extremely hard for a total newcomer to successfully create a new article, so please spend a few weeks learning how to edit, how to add citations, and how Wikipedia works in general before you dive into article creation. I will leave a link on your talk page to our pages teaching you the basics of editing.
 * Finally, if you are connected in any way with this topic, you must declare your Conflict of interest on your userpage. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank You @Nick Moyes Robiinsingh (talk) 00:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bosren (04:44, 7 March 2024)
How to be able to edit Medium Editing? --Bosren (talk) 04:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Bosren Sorry, but I do not understand your question. What is "Medium Editing". I am not familiar with that word as either a term or as an article page.
 * I do need to ask: are you being paid to create Wikipedia articles? Your deleted contributions suggests to me that you are, and yet you have not declared any connection to these companies you are trying to promote here. Our policy is that undeclared paid editing is not permitted, and editing rights may be withdrawn until clarity is provided. You MUST respond to the post on your user talk page asking you to declare one way or the other, please, before you make any further edits to draft articles. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:01, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Nice!
Looks lovely! Well done. Cheers, DBaK (talk) 00:43, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bosren (11:09, 11 March 2024)
May I ask? What if, I don't have resources in the article that I am planning to publish? --Bosren (talk) 11:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi @Bosren. If by that you mean "what if I don't have any references to cite as sources for what I want to publish?", then the answer is your draft article will not be published. It's as simple as that. Everything you add to Wikipedia must be based upon what published sources say, albeit written in your own words. You cannot simply add content based upon either your personal knowledge or your imagination, nor what the topic says about itself. See THIS PAGE to understand what Reliable Sources mean. Those sources must be sufficient to demonstrate that the topic is NOTABLE.
 * As you seem to be writing a string of rapidly-deleted articles about businesses, I must ask you once again to state categorically whether or not you are being paid to create them? If so, please see WP:PAID to understand your obligations to declare that you are receiving money or have some other Conflict of Interest.
 * I am at the point of removing your editing rights if you fail to answer this question, either here on my talk page, or on your own.
 * We require clarity, one way or another, and you should stop editing until you have answered this question. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Can’t get back into a TH thread you and I were in
Nick, you made a reply to a TH message of mine (" Quick question…") and I was responding to it on my phone when something happened — not sure what— and now I can't get back into it to finish the reply, or start again on it.

I see a downward-facing arrow on the message title (in the list of titles) that won't turn upward no matter what I do.

Interestingly, I can read other messages … but as I recall, I can't reply to them, either.

I seem to be running into some weird Wiki situations recently!

Augnablik (talk) 18:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Augnablik I've also lost phone edits when my phone has been inactive for a while and has shut down. It doesn't seem to cache content like a desktop does.
 * The downwards/upwards-pointing arrows are "expand this thread" or "collapse this thread" button. I'm not sure why you're unable to activate them. As suggested before, switch to "Desktop mode" and life on a mobile gets easier. (Tiny link at the very, very bottom of each page). Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I will switch from now on, but meanwhile what do I do to get out of this frozen situation? Augnablik (talk) 02:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Augnablik All I can suggest is turning your device off and starting from a fresh reboot. Sorry. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:43, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from UV Rose (20:40, 11 March 2024)
Hello, can you help with editing this Wikipedia page by adding sources ? --UV Rose (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @UV Rose Can you link to both the article and the source you'd like to add? I might then be able to guide you better.
 * We have guidance on adding citations at WP:REFBEGIN if you're using our 'Source Editor' and at WP:REFBEGINVE if you're using Visual Editor. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-11
<section begin="technews-2024-W11"/> 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).
 * After consulting with various communities, the line height of the text on the Minerva skin will be increased to its previous value of 1.65. Different options for typography can also be set using the options in the menu, as needed.
 * The active link color in Minerva will be changed to provide more consistency with our other platforms and best practices.
 * Structured data on Commons will no longer ask whether you want to leave the page without saving. This will prevent the “information you’ve entered may not be saved” popups from appearing when no information have been entered. It will also make file pages on Commons load faster in certain cases. However, the popups will be hidden even if information has indeed been entered. If you accidentally close the page before saving the structured data you entered, that data will be lost.

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and 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="technews-2024-W11"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Pottervilles (15:01, 12 March 2024)
Hi, how do I create an article on a biography including a template. --Pottervilles (talk) 15:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Pottervilles. Welcome to Wikipedia. Firstly, the person must be notable, as defined by Wikipedia. i.e. the world at large has taken notice of them. Our criteria for notable people can be read at WP:NBIO. Without independent published sources that talk about that person, there can be no article about them. Templates are not essential items, but would provide a suitable summary template.
 * Everything must be written in your own words (not copy pasted), and must be neutral in tone. This is an encyclopedia, after all, not a promotional website for people's CVs.
 * If you know the person in some way, you must declare any CONFLICT OF INTEREST on your userpage. You are also advised to learn the basics of editing existing articles before rushing in with the incredibly difficult task of creating a brand new article as a complete newcomer.
 * Then, once you're ready, and know how to add citations to the sources you base your article on, you can read more at YOUR FIRST ARTICLE. It's best to start a draft at ARTICLES FOR CREATION and submit the draft for review and feedback. See WP:REFBEGIN or WP:REFBEGINVE for guidance on how to use either of out two  editing tools to add references to support any article text.
 * Let me know how you get on. (I've left a welcome message with some useful links on your user talk page). Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Bala Mohammed Idris (09:27, 18 March 2024)
Hello, how do I create a citation? --Bala Mohammed Idris (talk) 09:27, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Bala Mohammed Idris You can choose either of our two editing tools to add citations. Each works slightly differently. So here are two shortcut links to instructions for adding references:
 * Visual Editing: WP:REFBEGINVE
 * Source Editing: WP:REFBEGIN
 * Hope this helps. Regards Nick Moyes (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-12
<section begin="technews-2024-W12"/> 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 notice "Language links are at the top of the page" that appears in the Vector 2022 skin main menu has been removed now that users have learned the new location of the Language switcher.
 * Octicons-tools.svg IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes.
 * Communities can now customize the default reasons for undeleting a page by creating MediaWiki:Undelete-comment-dropdown.

Problems
 * RevisionSlider is an interface to interactively browse a page's history. Users in right-to-left languages reported RevisionSlider reacting wrong to mouse clicks. This should be fixed now.

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).
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W12"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 17:37, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello
Greetings! So I was confused about there situation, and I edited the page a bit, but I removed my edits so as not to seem as causing an edit war or a disruptive edit. However, another user suggested that I could make a common names sections for the names that aren’t on the header. Would that be alright?

The only issue is significant backlash and hostility from one user. Anyway, please let me know what options I can take, I feel that I should have a voice in this case at the very least. Firekong1 (talk) 19:09, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I just want to check with you because another wikipedian suggested that I could name a common name section in the article, if you get this please let me know. Firekong1 (talk) 15:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Firekong1 Sorry - I overlooked replying to this post from you. In general, and providing you can demonstrate that a 'common English name' is genuinely in common use by being able to show a number of high quality sources that haven't simply misinterpreted a name, then I don't have a problem with that. In the end, it's down to any consensus being determined on an article's talk page. I wouldn't want to see such a section added just to get around a consensus view that one extra, obscure name isn't needed. Such a section might look at etymology - and Grigson's 'Dictionary of English plant Names' - would be a brilliant source for a section on non-scientific names. Maybe there's something equivalent in the animal world, I don't know?
 * However, Wikipedia, because of its popularity, does have the ability to promulgate false information if what's added is taken from poor sources. So, it's a case of being sensible, and not trying to disrupt a page to make a point because one happens to have found an unusual name used in a single publication if it's not actually used anywhere else. (I think, from memory, the example of "Eurasian marten" might be one such) Equally, we don't want unnecessary sections listing non-English names, either. Hope this helps a bit. Nick Moyes (talk) 21:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * No worries, I just wanted to make sure you got the message.
 * I will keep that in mind. But I was told by Chidgk1 that I could make a binomial name section as an alternative. Firekong1 (talk) 22:18, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Firekong1 What do you mean a "binomial name section"? Are you referring to synonyms of scientific names? If so, these are best included in the species infobox. Any reason why they shouldn't be? Nick Moyes (talk) 22:30, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I meant to say vernacular name. I believe that both scientific names and common names should be mentioned in the articles since some names (Iranian leopard, Turkish leopard) are occasionally used by some sources (such sources are even listed in the article).
 * Also, I used the name "European marten", not "Eurasian marten". But I understand that the European pine marten page will not have its common name changed for now. Firekong1 (talk) 01:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Chrisdlink85 (18:10, 20 March 2024)
Hi Nick, I'm pretty new to Wikipedia. I want to create a page for our company, which has been in business for 8 years now. It gets over 6M visitors each year asking about plants and to purchase plants. Our site is called plantaddicts.com and we've been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart, Parada, HGTV, & Bob Vila. We're one of the largest plant websites in the United States now. In the past I know Wikipedia didn't want to create pages just for any website out there. But I think our website has grown large enough to warrant it's own page on Wikipedia now.

I was wondering what your thoughts are on this? And if you could provide any guidance on what I should do?

Thanks so much!

Chris --Chrisdlink85 (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Chrisdlink85 I'm just about to head out to listen to a talk about using insects to determine the time of death of murder suspects (!). I'll probably have to answer you tomorrow, now. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 18:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Chrisdlink85 As you are intimately connected with the company, you have what we call a CONFLICT OF INTEREST, so should not really be the person trying to create this article. If you were to try, you would need to make an obligatory declaration on your userpage. Instructions at WP:PAID.
 * But, most important, is the need for every topic to meet Wikipedia's NOTABILITY critieria. In this instance, it would be WP:NCORP that you should read. There would need to be detailed, in-depth, and independent coverage of the business/website - not advertising copy. Perhaps you could supply me with links to the best three sources that you would consider using. I can give you feedback on them if they're online.
 * Any attempt to make an article must be encyclopedic in nature, and not done for PROMOTION (we block editors who abuse Wikipedia for their own interests!), and should be prepared as a DRAFT, and submitted for review and feedback when it's ready. You can find details of how a draft is started at WP:AFC, but you should read THIS first. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:18, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Question from Cyambao (20:56, 28 March 2024)
hi how do i create a citetation --Cyambao (talk) 20:56, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, Cyambao. It's important to support any factual statement with a citation to a Reliable Source. You can choose either of our two editing tools to add citations. Each works slightly differently, and you can easily switch back and forth between them. So here are two shortcut links to instructions for adding references:
 * Visual Editor: WP:REFBEGINVE
 * Source Editor: WP:REFBEGIN
 * I hope this helps. Do let me know if you need any further support! I will also leave a welcome message on your talk page with a useful link to follow to getting started with editing. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ok thank you Cyambao (talk) 17:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).



Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Kbdank71 · Kosack · NrDg · TLSuda

Guideline and policy news Technical news Arbitration Miscellaneous
 * An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.
 * The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes.
 * An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
 * Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-14
<section begin="technews-2024-W14"/> 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
 * Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed.

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 Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment 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-2024-W14"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 03:34, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

New Pages Patrol newsletter April 2024
Hello ,

Backlog update: The October drive reduced the article backlog from 11,626 to 7,609 and the redirect backlog from 16,985 to 6,431! Congratulations to, who led with over 2,300 points.

Following that, New Page Patrol organized another backlog drive for articles in January 2024. The January drive started with 13,650 articles and reduced the backlog to 7,430 articles. Congratulations to, who achieved first place with 1,340 points in this drive.

Looking at the graph, it seems like backlog drives are one of the only things keeping the backlog under control. Another backlog drive is being planned for May. Feel free to participate in the May backlog drive planning discussion.

It's worth noting that both queues are gradually increasing again and are nearing 14,034 articles and 22,540 redirects. We encourage you to keep contributing, even if it's just a single patrol per day. Your support is greatly appreciated!

2023 Awards won the 2023 cup with 17,761 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 50/day. There was one Platinum Award (10,000+ reviews), 2 Gold Awards (5000+ reviews), 6 Silver (2000+), 8 Bronze (1000+), 30 Iron (360+) and 70 more for the 100+ barnstar. led on redirect reviews by clearing 36,175 of them. For the full details, see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone for their efforts in reviewing!

WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers deployed the rewritten NewPagesFeed in October, and then gave the NewPagesFeed a slight visual facelift in November. This concludes most major work to Special:NewPagesFeed, and most major work by the WMF Moderator Tools team, who wrapped up their major work on PageTriage in October. The WMF Moderator Tools team and volunteer software developers will continue small work on PageTriage as time permits.

Recruitment: A couple of the coordinators have been inviting editors to become reviewers, via mass-messages to their talk pages. If you know someone who you'd think would make a good reviewer, then a personal invitation to them would be great. Additionally, if there are Wikiprojects that you are active on, then you can add a post there asking participants to join NPP. Please be careful not to double invite folks that have already been invited.

Reviewing tip: Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages within their most familiar subjects can use the regularly updated NPP Browser tool.

Reminders:
 * You can access live chat with patrollers on the New Pages Patrol Discord.
 * Consider adding the project discussion page to your watchlist.
 * To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Trulyvedic (17:59, 3 April 2024)
Hello How to I edit the information box on wikipedia page which has summary of details. I am able to edit current categories but not able to add a new detail. --Trulyvedic (talk) 17:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Trulyvedic Providing you base added content on RELIABLE SOURCES and add them as a CITATION, you may find it easiest to use our Source Editor, rather than Visual Editor. You can switch between them using the sloping grey pencil icon - usually on the upper right of the editing screen. Hope this helps. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:28, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello from Colman2000
Hi Nick. Just wanted to check up on one of my favorite editors on Wikipedia. How have things been going for you? I have been creating a lot of new articles on Wikipedia, expanding existing articles, and correcting grammar and spelling errors that I see on articles. Hope to hear from you soon! Kind regards from Aloha, Oregon, United States, Colman2000 (talk) 18:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-15
<section begin="technews-2024-W15"/> 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
 * Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
 * Octicons-gift.svg A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
 * Initial results of Edit check experiments have been published. Edit Check is now deployed as a default feature at the wikis that tested it. Let us know if you want your wiki to be part of the next deployment of Edit check.
 * Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings.

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).
 * New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W15"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Crosenow (15:50, 12 April 2024)
Hello, I wrote an article about a Neurologist Hans O. Lüders. Could you review the page so that it can be published? Thank you, Caroline --Crosenow (talk) 15:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Crosenow Thank you for your question. I see your draft is currently in the review process for a second time, so there is nothing I need to do in that regard other than let our volunteers do their work in reviewing articles. This can take 2 or 3 months.
 * The content appears to be factually correct, though written as if it were more of a CV or LinkedIn profile, than a biographical encyclopaedia article based on sources unrelated to the subject. I sense you may well have a connection to the subject. This is not an issue in itself, unless you fail to disclose it on your userpage. If you do know, or are related to this person, please read how to make clear your connection by reading guidance at WP:DISCLOSE.
 * Our notability criteria for academics can be found at WP:NPROF. Clearly, he is an eminent physician, but there may be some uncertainty about whether he meets Wikipedia's notability. I would advise (after declaring any WP:COI you may have) that you focus on showing, in simple terms, the contribution he has made to medical science. Maybe as author of key textbooks used in teaching; media coverage of his medical achievements; biographies written by other people in prestigious magazines etc; winner of notable awards (i.e. those which already have coverage here on Wikipedia.)
 * If you read WP:LEAD, you will see that it should simply summarise the reasons for notability without getting too technical. If you could simplify the lead, whilst emphasising reasons for notability, I think you may stand a chance of seeing this through into the main encyclopaedia. I hope this helps. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your advice! I will make the proper changes and disclosures.
 * Regards from Germany, Crosenow Crosenow (talk) 16:03, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

On Removing Block Notices
Hello! I saw on User Talk:Harishsk2022, you instructed them not to remove the block notice. I was under the impression that, per WP:NOTWALLOFSHAME, removing the block notice is allowed, just not declined unblock requests (for active blocks). In this particular case, the user removed both, and doesn't seem inclined to listen, so I doubt it makes a difference, but for my use in the future, is removing the notice also prohibited? I don't want to give out bad advice to other users, after all! Thanks in advance for your time. EducatedRedneck (talk) 16:16, 14 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @EducatedRedneck You are right. But the user appears to have a very rudimentary command of English. It should really only be the Review Decline notice that needs to be left in place for the duration of the block. But I wanted to keep it extremely simple for them to understand, as they ignored 331dot's more detailed - and correct - advice. The link you provided above is certainly correct, and a useful reminder for me, too. I appreciate you taking the time and trouble to question my notice. Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 16:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay, whew, thank you! I was worried I'd gotten mixed up. Agreed that keeping it simple in that case is better, and thank you for helping me check my assumptions; I really appreciate it! EducatedRedneck (talk) 17:10, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Editor Concern
Hello!

I've come across the editor Repertoire18, and am concerned their edits seem to me to consistently promote an anti-West, pro-China POV. I was wondering if you had any advice for determining when editors are acting in good faith or not with regards to POV— I hope to follow WP:AGF, and acknowledge that biased editors can improve the balance of articles. Would it be proper for me to politely ask them about it on their talk page, or to just not worry about it except on pages I follow? I also acknowledge that I first came across this editor on a subject that I feel strongly about, which may color my judgement. Thanks for your help! Placeholderer (talk) 16:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Placeholderer Interesting question! People always bring their own biases and interests when editing. That's why it's important that a balance of good, reliable sources is found on which to base content on.
 * I see the user has deleted previous warnings about adding commentary or non-neutral content. That makes no difference, so any future warning can be given at the next level up, even though they've curiously just left one low-level warning notice on their page. Crafty! I always look through a user's talk page for blanking, and take a look at any past warnings. Although that's permitted, it does indicate to me the level of problems they might be causing, and my response to them. I use WP:Twinkle to automate the templating of other users.
 * Asking a user politely on their talk page is a good, non-inflammatory way of engaging with concerns. Asking them to leave better edit summaries may also be worthwhile, as this helps others to understand the reasoning behind a content change.
 * It's your choice whether you concern yourself only with articles you're directly interested in, or whether you worry more about ensuring an editor follow Wikipedia's norms across all their editing. I tend to find poor editing comes to my attention in one place that I especially care about, but that I when I investigate their other edits I often then find a pattern of edits that are (shall we say...) not as good as they ought to be!
 * It's acceptable to have your attention drawn to an editor's activities by one problem and for you to then look into other edits. But be aware of not WP:HOUNDING them by checking and criticising every they then make for no good reason.
 * Always try to base any discussion over your concerns by including a link on their talk page to a WP:DIFF or two, as this helps you and them understand what you're concerned about, and why. Add their userpage to your Watchlist for a month or two and keep half an eye open for other warnings they may have been left. You can simply revert uncited additions if they're contentious (and say 'citations are needed'); revert and warn them about leaving commentaries in articles; warn and report for vandalism, or collate evidence of bad edits and eventually you could report them to WP:ANI for others to look into their editing. But engaging in a friendly way first is always a very mature approach. I hope this waffly answer is of some use. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-17
<section begin="technews-2024-W17"/> 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
 * Starting this week, newcomers editing Wikipedia will be encouraged to try structured tasks. Structured tasks have been shown to improve newcomer activation and retention.
 * You can nominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.

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
 * This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents of /vector.js to /vector-2022.js. There are more technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W17"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 20:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Timparty12 on User:Timparty12/sandbox (04:11, 23 April 2024)
Hello there, On my sandbox article page, I've made this YouTube "girly" series about "The Great Eight Girls" and I know it's only on YouTube, but I was just wondering to leave this article here to make this go popular as possible? --Timparty12 (talk) 04:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Timparty12 Hi Tim, and thanks for your question. Unfortunately, that's not how Wikipedia operates. It isn't here to help things get well-known; it's only interested in covering subjects that are already well-known. This is called NOTABILITY, and means that we can only have articles on Wikiepdia about topics already described and written about in detail and in depth by RELIABLE SOURCES. Simply 'existing' isn't sufficient. Everything written here must be based upon properly published sources that are not user-generated. i.e. we don't accept IMDB, blogs, personal websites etc. Unless you can find this series has been covered in mainstream media, then I'm afraid you would be wasting your time trying to promote it here. Do please read this guidance about creating your first article. It is always best to spend time learning how Wikipedia works by making many smaller edits to existing articles than rushing in trying to create a new page straight away. I hope this helps. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:50, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I find everything to be struggling at this point, and if you wanna know this source, It's ONLY on YouTube. I know It may be some kind of un-scorce, but this little, big franchise could work someday. :) Timparty12 (talk) 09:00, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Timparty12 With a paltry 300 views per episode in a year, you're simply wasting your time here. Maybe it's TOOSOON.
 * Put simply: Wikipedia is not here for advertising or PROMOTION. There are plenty of places where that can happen, but not here. (Please read the links). Nick Moyes (talk) 09:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's okay at least I've tried having fun with the page I've used. :) but Thanks for telling me for some information. Timparty12 (talk) 09:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I also took pictures and video just in case it's removed, but please DON'T Remove the articles. Timparty12 (talk) 09:11, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Timparty12 As far as I'm concerned, you can keep what's in your sandbox as I would simply regard it as a place where you can learn and experiment with editing techniques. It's not an article, and is not indexed by Google. However, abandoned drafts are deleted after 6 months, and my firm advice is not to attempt to develop it as it would be liable for deletion per WP:NOTWEBHOST.
 * I assume you created these little videos yourself as a bit of fun? Be aware that whenever an editor tries to write about something they are connected with, they need to declare a 'conflict of interest' before proceeding. See WP:COI for more details. But, in this instance, simply do not attempt to develop this any further, as it will then be liable for deletion as we're not a free hosting service, and editors who try to use Wikipedia for their own purposes (rather than helping to build an encyclopaedia of notable things) tend to have their editing privileges revoked, per WP:NOTHERE. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 11:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from LeonaLeeSykes (16:47, 23 April 2024)
Hello. How do I create a citation? Thank you. --LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 16:47, 23 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, @LeonaLeeSykes. It's important to support any factual statement with a citation to a Reliable Source. You can choose either of our two editing tools to add citations. Each works slightly differently, and you can easily switch back and forth between them. So here are two shortcut links to instructions for adding references:
 * Visual Editor: WP:REFBEGINVE
 * Source Editor: WP:REFBEGIN
 * Whichever way you do it, the important thing to appreciate is that you add each citation within the article text (immediately after the statement you want to support), but a special template in the 'References' section then displays all the citations together within that section, and with just a number appearing inline within the article text. Both of our editing tools also let you reuse the same citation more than once within an article, yet the entry for that citation is only shown once in the Reference section. Clever stuff! See WP:REFNAME for naming and reusing a citation with Source Editor.
 * I hope this helps. Do let me know if you need any further support! Regards from the UK.
 * Nick Moyes (talk) 18:29, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nick. I would like to use the official Coroner's Report and one of the online newspapers which has a picture of most of the first page of the report so I should be able to use the citation on both.
 * Regards from Cape Town, South Africa. LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 01:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The Burj Khalifa page is semi-protected. Would I be able to make these additions? LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 01:57, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @LeonaLeeSykes You're nearly able to. Your account is old enough, but needs to have made 10 or more edits. You've made nine so far! (See HERE).


 * Do remember to preview any edits you make before you publish them, or maybe even try adding a citation on a less well-monitored page, or perhaps even in your sandbox. But it sounds like you may have a good source for whatever you want to add. Good luck. Nick Moyes (talk) 08:14, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for all your assistance Nick. It is much appreciated. LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ...and that's your tenth edit. You are now 'autoconfirmed'! Nick Moyes (talk) 13:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nick. You're a great mentor. LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 10:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi Nick. I'm battling to add the Coroner's Report and news article to the Burj Khalifa page but hopefully by the end of the day it will be done.
 * On another matter, on the WikiAlpha page there is something on my daughter's death, but the title is Laura Vanessa Sykes. How can I change it to her correct name which is Laura Vanessa Nunes? LeonaLeeSykes (talk) 14:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, April 2024


The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.

If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Community Configuration
Growth features are currently configurable at. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.

An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.

In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.

Experiment Results
Add a Image experiment analysis results

The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:


 * The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
 * The likelihood that they are retained as newcomers (+24.3% over baseline)
 * The number of edits they make during their first two weeks on the wiki (+21.8% over baseline)
 * A lower probability of the newcomers' edits will be reverted (-3.3% over baseline).

Personalized praise experiment results

This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)

English donors encouraged to try editing

As in previous years, donors were directed to a Thank you page after donation (example). However, this year we tested a new “Try editing Wikipedia,” call to action on the Thank You page. This call to action linked to a unique account creation page. From this account creation page we were able to track Registrations and Activation (editing for the first time). During the English banner campaign, the Donor Thank you page led to 4,398 new accounts, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours. (T352900)

Future work
Annual Plan

The Growth team and the Editing team will work on the WE1.2 Key Result in the coming fiscal year. We will start initial discussions with communities soon to help finalize our plans. (T361657)

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We plan to A/B test adding a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We are early in the planning phase of this project that will take place first at our pilot wikis and wikis volunteering. We welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from LizC1 (14:13, 26 April 2024)
I have collected a number of sources. Usually, Wikipedia puts these below the article and numbers them in the article with hyperlinks. How do you do that? Or does an editor look at it later and 'sort it out'? --LizC1 (talk) 14:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @LizC1 As you know, it's important to support any factual statement with a citation to a Reliable Source. Now that you’ve found some, you can choose to use either of our two editing tools to add citations. Each works slightly differently, butvyou can easily switch back and forth between them. So here are two shortcut links to instructions for adding references:
 * Visual Editor: WP:REFBEGINVE
 * Source Editor: WP:REFBEGIN
 * Whichever way you do it, the important thing to appreciate is that you add each citation ‘’within’’ the article text (immediately after the statement you want to support), but a special template in the 'References' section then displays all the citations together within that section, and with just a number appearing inline within the article text.
 * Both of our editing tools also let you reuse the same citation more than once within an article, yet the entry for that citation is only shown once in the Reference section. Clever stuff! See WP:REFNAME for naming and reusing a citation with Source Editor.
 * I hope this helps. Do let me know if you need any further support! Regards from the UK.
 * Nick Moyes (talk) 17:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Question from Hukam Gora on User:Hukam Gora (02:37, 28 April 2024)
How i can add photo on new page/ information about hukam gora --Hukam Gora (talk) 02:37, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, @Hukam Gora. Welcome to Wikipedia. It's not appropriate to add a photo of yourself to Wikipedia. As a new user, please focus instead on improving this encyclopaedia of notable subjects, rather than trying to create a 'profile page' about yourself. It would probably be deleted if you were to try, as your userpage is there just for you to say a little about yourself, your experience and interests in editing Wikipedia. Anything else is not appropriate. You may use LinkedIn to promote yourself, but not Wikipedia. More information can be found at WP:USERPAGE.
 * I have left you a welcome message on your talk page with useful links to help you learn the basics of editing. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:44, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Nyttend
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg JohnOwens · Killiondude · MelanieN · Nihonjoe

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Nihonjoe



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Joe Roe

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news
 * Phase I of the 2024 requests for adminship review has concluded. Several proposals have passed outright and will proceed to implementation, including creating a discussion-only period (3b) and administrator elections (13) on a trial basis. Other successful proposals, such as creating a reminder of civility norms (2), will undergo further refinement in Phase II. Proposals passed on a trial basis will be discussed in Phase II, after their trials conclude. Further details on specific proposals can be found in the full report.

Technical news
 * Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531

Arbitration
 * The arbitration case Conflict of interest management has been closed.

Miscellaneous
 * This may be a good time to reach out to potential nominees to ask if they would consider an RfA.
 * A New Pages Patrol backlog drive is happening in May 2024 to reduce the number of unreviewed articles in the new pages feed. Currently, there is a backlog of over 15,000 articles awaiting review. Sign up here to participate!
 * Voting for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) election is open until 9 May 2024. Read the voting page on Meta-Wiki and cast your vote here!

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

How Far to Assume Good Faith
Hello! I've been trying to engage an editor about problems with an article they mostly wrote themselves that seems explicitly POV and reliant on sources affiliated with the subject. The user has shown a complete lack of interest in responding to concerns from myself and another editor, in particular having nominated and accepted their own article for a GA review. Despite the communicated concerns about the article, they took it upon themself to remove a CN flag. I can't help but suspect the user has a COI— their user page reads like a promotion of their services. Is this an appropriate situation to report someone to WP:ANI? Thanks! Placeholderer (talk) 14:04, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I recognize that the last several questions I've asked you are variants of the same thing— I just don't feel experienced enough to escalate an issue without checking with someone else first Placeholderer (talk) 15:07, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Placeholderer I’m really sorry, I’m away on holiday all week and am unable to look at this in enough detail to be helpful. You could either seek input at the Teahouse, or ask at WP:COIN. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:31, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-19
<section begin="technews-2024-W19"/> 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 appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences (""). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the . More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services.

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).
 * When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs".

Future changes
 * A new service will be built to replace Extension:Graph. Details can be found in the latest update regarding this extension.
 * Starting May 21, English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia will get the possibility to activate "Add a link". This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to all Wikipedias. These communities can activate and configure the feature locally.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W19"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 16:42, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-20
<section begin="technews-2024-W20"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list.
 * If you use the user-preference "", then the template-page feature "" will now also work without reloading the page.
 * Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> attribute. This is identical in usage to the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive.
 * The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people.

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 results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure.

Future changes
 * In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Two columns of the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> database table (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> table instead (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ). In your existing SQL queries:
 * Replace <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> with <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> with <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> in the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> statement
 * Below that add <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">
 * See T222224 for technical reasoning.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W20"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:56, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from ElizbethAftonFnafEdits (17:05, 14 May 2024)
Hello Mentor my names elizabeth but u can call me eli need help how do i create a artical --ElizbethAftonFnafEdits (talk) 17:05, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello Eli. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia of 'Notable Topics'. Not everything in this world is regarded by Wikipedia as WP:NOTABLE (that's why there isn't a page here about me. LOL!)
 * If people unconnected with the topic have not written about it in detail and in depth, then there can never be an article about it here. So, your creation of Draft:Elizabeth Afton (Fnaf) falls way outside what's acceptable for an encyclopaedia, so please don't try that again as that's not what Wikipedia is for. I think someone has already explained that article talk pages are about discussing ways of improving an article, not just random observations or unrelated posts.
 * Everything added here must be based on published books, magazines, newspapers, scientific journals or reliably published online websites or mainstream news outlets. There is no place for content based on personal blogs, private websites, self-published vanity books or social media, nor are we interested in what any subject says about themselves. People should look to other social media platforms if they simply want to write about themselves.
 * So, having said that, could I ask you what sort of article you might hope to publish in this Encyclopaedia? And can you link to any RELIABLE SOURCES that talk about it? You might wish to read this page for guidance on creating your first article. Come back if you need further help. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 10:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from DocLara (20:22, 14 May 2024)
Hi Nick, I made a change on the french wikipedia page about “mathématicien” (removed a paragraph that is factually false and whose grammar is wrong too) but the paragraph was put back (and I got kind of accused of degrading wikipedia). What should I do (apart from sticking to the English side which seems much better)? --DocLara (talk) 20:22, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @DocLara Whilst I don't frequent fr.wiki, nor understand its processes, I would tend to agree with you that your edit did attempt to resolve poor grammar and possibly an incorrect statement. But my French (and use of Google Translate) may not give me the best view of the subject, and I did think the message left for you sounded rather harsh. (We get similar complaints about our templated messages here too, of course!)
 * It is, however, very common for new editors to have the 'good faith' edits reverted if they didn't go about things as well as they might - especially when made to very popular pages with high visitor numbers. But don't be dismayed. What I would advise here on en.wiki (and also for you on fr.wiki) is to raise your concerns on the article's Talk Page. Here you can expand your concerns about the statement, suggest better wording, and suggest alternative or additional citations especially if they provide a counter view of the statement.
 * We see a lot of removal of cited paragrpahs when someone believes it is incorreect. That can esaily be interpreted as WP:VANDALISM even when it's not. A far better way is to attempt to reword and improve upon the cited statement, plus offering a counter interpretation if there is one. Bear in mind that, whilst we really welcome experts in their field, Wikipedias of all language don't want edits based on what individuals know, but instead want to see edits based on reliably published sources. See WP:RS here on en.wiki for what that means to us.
 * My concerns over the original statement you removed would have been that there was statement taken as a direct quote from the source, and little understanding imparted by the numbers at the end of the sentence. There were how many qualified mathematicians when exactly? Without knowing that, the sentence is quite meaningless. So it's ripe for improvement.
 * Now, when I see any sentence that begins "According to person X...", I would expect to see an exact quote from person X and a citation to let me verify that statement. It needs to be letter perfect, including any typos in the original source. Of course, it might not be a mainstream view (which is why it's OK to say "according to". But that would enable you to then add, "However, other academics believe that xxxx is the case", and to offer appropriate citations (one citation if one person published their disagreement, or multiple citations if you can show the original quoted source may well be viewed as incorrect by multiple experts. That then gives two different interpretations of which mathematicians were the last to have a full grasp of the entire branch of mathematics (which I assume was the intended meaning of the statement.
 * Now, you can go about addressing this on fr.wiki in one or more ways. Firstly, it's quite possible that the editor {{User:Ariel Provost]] leaving you the warning did not see your response as you did not directly 'ping' them. I assume French wiki has the equivalent of WP:PING which would send them an alert notification. However, they were not the reverting editor User:Kikuyu3 was. So you could, if you wished, go first to their talk page and apologise for causing apparent harm to the page, but then explain your intentions were well-meaning and expand upon your concerns and recommendations for improved wording and additions. Support everything with recommended wording and citations to support it, and ask them what they feel is best. If you feel the cited author is actually an unreliable and discredited source in that particular field, we would need to see links to good sources which demonstrate they've publish nonsense in a discredited work. You personal opinions of that author are not relevant of of interest to Wikipedia (good published sources are) even if you are the world's expert in that field. There is no rush on Wikipedia, so wait some while for a reply (days not hours!).
 * If you still believe this important article contains an error, I would advise posting your concerns on the article talk page and letting a discussion ensue. We work by reasoned arguments and consensus here, so I am confident you will be able to win over editors if you explain your concerns and offer well-written alternative text. Gaining consensus can take a few weeks. On en.wiki it might be OK if your concerns gained no response to then make the edit your proposed after about 10 days per WP:BEBOLD, ensuring your edit summary clearly referred to the talk page discussion you had earlier posted. Something like "Rewording paragraph per tlak page discussion which elicited no response (or per consensus)"
 * Please bear in mind that the approach outlined above is based on my experience as an administrator here on English Wikipedia. And the policies and pages I have linked to relate to en.wiki. Ways of doing things could be different on French Wikipedia - but somehow I doubt it. We all care about making improvements to articles - so go for it, and don't be down-heartened. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:46, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Bonjour bonjour Nick Moyes, user:DocLara and user:Ariel Provost. First, many thanks to you, Nick, for your ping, and very clear and wise comments. @DocLara, I assume you are complaining about my revert of your removal on the page fr:Mathématicien. So now, DocLara, you know which are the many appropriate places where to discuss this matter. In fact, this complain placed here seems to me very unusual. So I'd rather not comment any more. See you on french pages, with appropriate pings. Cordialement, et Hop ! Kikuyu3 (talk) 17:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Kikuyu3 Merci beaucoup! Nick Moyes (talk) 17:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, @Kikuyu3, I should add that the question came about as a result of our Mentorship program, in which every editor on en.wiki is assigned an experienced editor to whom they can directly ask questions and seek advice. That was the reason.
 * Oh, and @DocLara, please could I ask you to convert the text on your Userpage from French into English? Because this is English Wikipedia we do really expect all content to be in English. I assume it would be fine to have what your wrote about your first experience of an Editathon on your user page on French Wikipedia, too, though. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 18:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Mail
Clovermoss 🍀 (talk) 13:09, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Clovermoss. I'm very happy to hear from you, but it will be a while before I can reply. I have easily a week's worth of messages and commitments I need to catch up on right now. Please bear with me. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 08:46, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I can easily bear with the wait. :) Clovermoss 🍀  (talk) 12:59, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Nkambule3 (15:03, 19 May 2024)
How do I create a page --Nkambule3 (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @Nkambule3 Thank you for your question. Could you tell me what sort of page you want to create? This is an encyclopaedia of notable topics (see HERE). It is not a place for you to promote your views or campaign on issues dear to your heart (see WP:NOTSOAPBOX). For that reason, your second post to may talk page called "Why men abuse women" is way outside the realms of what we do here.
 * There will be many pages here already about abuse of women, such as Violence against women, and you are free to contribute to these. But you must NOT add your personal opinions to any article. That is not how we work. All factual statements liable to be challenged must be supported with citations to reliably published sources such as books, research journals and mainstream news websites. Blogs and privately published websites are not accepted here as sources.
 * Please read THIS GUIDANCE for creating your first article. Be aware that making a new page is extremely challenging - especially for a new editor with no experience. So my advice is to gain a fair bit of editing experience by working to improve existing articles first. I will leave you a welcome message with some useful links on your talk page to help you. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 08:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

== Why men abuse woman ==

This thing is really painful seeing other men abusing other women.women are people who make the world a better place, as a woman writing this l say enough is enough we can't sit and do nothing while men's abuse woman, every woman who is in a abusive relationship l say you don't need a men to be happy what you need to do is to walk away and go to police station and report that men who is abusing you, No men has a right to lay hands on a woman

Enough is enough The struggle must end Women needs to live a happy life We can't stand and watch men killing our mothers and sisters. Police officers must do their work We're tired seeing woman die like fleas.

Enough is enough Made by Nkambule3. Nkambule3 (talk) 15:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-21
<section begin="technews-2024-W21"/> 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 Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title.
 * New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description.

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 HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W21"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:02, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Question from Editor2150 (21:00, 22 May 2024)
do you think it would be ok to put the overly technical template on this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_modem --Editor2150 (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @Editor2150 Good question. A quick skim made me feel you could be justified in doing that. I feel the lead is too short and could be written in plain English before getting technical later on. I suggest you also leave a note on the talk page explaining your reasons and making suitable suggestions for improvement that you, or other editors, can act upon. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 23:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Women in Red June 2024
--Lajmmoore (talk 07:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Tech News: 2024-22
<section begin="technews-2024-W22"/> 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
 * Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
 * Octicons-tools.svg In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.

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).
 * When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W22"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 00:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello
About the common names, do I have permission to add them later?

I do require some assistance though, as one user (Bhagya Mani) constantly undoes my edits, and the user was even called out by another user in a talk page. Firekong1 (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @Firekong1 Any answer must depend entirely upon the quality of your source(s). I’m away on holiday at the moment; did I not answer your question earlier at User talk:Nick Moyes?
 * Try and engage with other editors if they revert you and see if you can justify your proposed edit to them. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 20:16, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Of course, thank you. Firekong1 (talk) 20:59, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-23
<section begin="technews-2024-W23"/> 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
 * It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available.
 * The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> " to "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ".
 * One new wiki has been created: a in Kadazandusun

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
 * Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. 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-2024-W23"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 22:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Graham Beards
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Deskana · Mets501 · Staxringold

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Deskana · Warofdreams



Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news
 * Phase II of the 2024 RfA review has commenced to improve and refine the proposals passed in Phase I.

Technical news
 * The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration
 * The arbitration case Venezuelan politics has been closed.
 * The Committee is seeking volunteers for various roles, including access to the conflict of interest VRT queue.

Miscellaneous
 * WikiProject Reliability's unsourced statements drive is happening in June 2024 to replace citation needed tags with references! Sign up here to participate!

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-24
<section begin="technews-2024-W24"/> 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 software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> class, Parsoid now also adds the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available.

Problems
 * There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed.

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 new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available.
 * On multilingual wikis that use the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W24"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 20:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-25
<section begin="technews-2024-W25"/> 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
 * People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details.
 * The new Community Configuration extension is available on Test Wikipedia. This extension allows communities to customize specific features to meet their local needs. Currently only Growth features are configurable, but the extension will support other Community Configuration use cases in the future.
 * The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page.

Problems
 * Octicons-tools.svg Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center.
 * Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here.

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 June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable.
 * Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W25"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Question from OKOHS-1 (17:50, 24 June 2024)
Hi Nick, I was making edits to our office page today, and someone reverted everything back to extremely outdated and old information. How do I undo this? I was just about to start adding the sources to my edits when all this happened. --OKOHS-1 (talk) 17:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-26
<section begin="technews-2024-W26"/> 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
 * Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage.
 * The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode.

Problems
 * You can copy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp. This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug.

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 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W26"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 22:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Women in Red August 2024
--Lajmmoore (talk 14:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Tech News: 2024-27
<section begin="technews-2024-W27"/> 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
 * Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of the top-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information in the latest Web team update.
 * Logged-in users can now set global preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis.
 * If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use new CSS features and to send less code to all readers.
 * Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily using Community Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configure Growth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months.
 * Editors interested in language issues that are related to Unicode standards, can now discuss those topics at a new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now a member of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
 * One new wiki has been created: a in Mandailing

Problems
 * Editors can once again click on links within the visual editor's citation-preview, thanks to a bug fix by the Editing Team.

Future changes
 * Please help us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 2 weeks. The survey is covered by this privacy statement. Some translations are available.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W27"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello from Colman2000
Hi Nick. Just wanted to check up on one of my favorite editors on Wikipedia. How have things been going for you? I have been creating a lot of new articles on Wikipedia, expanding existing articles, and correcting grammar and spelling errors that I see on articles. Hope to hear from you soon! Kind regards from Aloha, Oregon, United States, Colman2000 (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC)


 * @Colman2000 Hello, my old friend. Good to hear from you. I've just checked your contributions and, boy, you have been busy! Likewise, I'm keeping good and active. Lots of mountain hiking and building work in the garden. One kid is about to head off to Japan for a year doing TEFL work; another is teaching in a junior school. Went on national TV news the other week, being interviewed about a peregrine falcon conservation and webcam project I've been involved with for the last 15 years. And recently ran an online Wikipedia training session of international astronomers involved in education, but haven't had much time for any other Wikipedia activities or admin work. So, keeping busy and trying to keep fit! There's never enough time in the day! Cheers, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:01, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from Obi K Chijioke (23:39, 4 July 2024)
Hi, I was assigned to you if I'm not mistaken and I wish to know more about Wikipedia writing --Obi K Chijioke (talk) 23:39, 4 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, Obi K Chijioke, and welcome to Wikipedia! The most important thing to un=derstand is that this is an encyclopaedia. The topics must meet our Notability Critieria, and everything said here must be based on already published, high quality sources. So no personal opinions, personal blogs or social media acocunts, or stuff that you simply happen to know. Everything here that could be challenged must be Verifiable, and you will learn how to add citations to support new content. Writing new articles is very very hard, especially for a new editor. So start slowly and learn the basics of editing and improving articles. You have a 'Homepage' tab which offers you an opportunity to make small improvements in one of several different areas to get you off to a good start.
 * We may point users to various guidance, help or policy pages, and we expect they will take the time to read and understand these. So, I'll leave leave you a welcome message on your talk page with a number of important links. But you may also like to visit this help page: Help:Getting started. Good luck! Nick Moyes (talk) 10:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from JLKazdan (21:16, 5 July 2024)
I found the Pythagorean Theorem "Proof using similar triangles" on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem needlessly complicated and suggest it be replaced by something like the version I have taught for years. It is accessible on my web page: https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~kazdan/Pythagoras/pyth-similar.pdf Before I submit this, it seems prudent to get your feedback. --JLKazdan (talk) 21:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, JLKazdan. Thanks for your question, and welcome to Wikipedia. Oh dear: I fear I'm the very worst mentor to ask on this topic, as I've not done that sort of maths for 50 years! I simply can't comment on what makes most sense.
 * Now, the article Pythagorean theorem is rated a GOOD ARTICLE, meaning it has been reviewed, refined and regarded as pretty high quality for our encyclopaedia. That doesn't mean we don't welcome ways to improve it further. But making suggestions for changes are best discussed first on the talk page of the article (i.e. at Talk:Pythagorean theorem). It looks like you're a maths lecturer, so I suggest you introduce yourself as that. (Indeed, I've just spotted that we even have an article about you at Jerry Kazdan.)
 * We would prefer not to use what appears as an online university course note as a source, preferring instead a WP:CITATION to a properly published book, if at all possible. But you might like to look at the 'Simple English' language version of this article (see https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem) and see how they compare.
 * The best approach to make any suggestion for change is to clearly identify the text and equally clearly offer an alternative wording. I appreciate that it's much harder to do that when equations are involved, as it takes some understanding of our wikimarkup for maths symbols (something I'm not familiar with myself, despite 13 years of editing experience here!).
 * So, I must apologise for not being able to give you a better answer, but do welcome your desire to see an improvement to an article. Let me know if I can be of further help. Oh, and I've left a welcome message on your user talk page with some helpful links about editing and getting started here. Regards from the UK, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your speedy reply.
 * This procedure is now way too cumbersome for me. If others want to follow-up with this suggestion however they wish, that's fine with me. They certainly do not need to mention my name.
 * I am bowing out.
 * -- Jerry JLKazdan (talk) 22:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @JLKazdan I'm sorry - I hope I haven't put you off. But, yes, I do appreciate that Wikipedia can take some getting used to. I mentored an Emeritus Professor in marine geophysics a couple of years ago, helping him understand the difference in approach between academic publishing and Wikipedia editing so that he could contribute effectively to a suite of article on oceanic and Antarctic topics. But it does take commitment, and I'm not the person ever to guide anyone on mathematics topics. Best wishes, Nick Moyes (talk) 22:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks Obi K Chijioke (talk) 10:30, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).



Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Elli · HouseBlaster · Pickersgill-Cunliffe
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Brianga · De728631 · Georgewilliamherbert · Hyacinth (deceased) · ProveIt · The Night Watch

Technical news
 * Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki.

Miscellaneous
 * The Community Wishlist is re-opening on 15 July 2024. Read more

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from Exuperantia (01:58, 8 July 2024)
When editing (a person) how do I compose the introduction or the beginning of the wiki? --Exuperantia (talk) 01:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi there, Exuperantia. Thanks for your question. I think you should find all the answers to your question in these three links:
 * 1) WP:Lead section TT first sentence content
 * 2) WP:Manual of Style/Lead section
 * 3) Lead dos and don'ts
 * I hope these help. Let mw know if you need anything further. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-28
<section begin="technews-2024-W28"/> 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
 * At the Wikimedia Foundation a new task force was formed to replace the disabled Graph with more secure, easy to use, and extensible Chart. You can subscribe to the newsletter to get notified about new project updates and other news about Chart.
 * The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on your wiki. This extension helps in managing and making events more visible, giving Event organizers the ability to use tools like the Event registration tool. To learn more about the deployment status and how to request this extension for your wiki, visit the CampaignEvents page on Meta-wiki.
 * Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
 * Thank you to all of the authors who have contributed to MediaWiki Core. As a result of these contributions, the percentage of authors contributing more than 5 patches has increased by 25% since last year, which helps ensure the sustainability of the platform for the Wikimedia projects.

Problems
 * A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin, has been fixed.

Future changes
 * The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introduce temporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team has created documentation explaining how to do the update. Learn more.

Tech News survey
 * Please help us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 1 more week. The survey is covered by this privacy statement. Some translations are available.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W28"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 21:29, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-29
<section begin="technews-2024-W29"/> 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 survey
 * Please help us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 3 more days. The survey is covered by this privacy statement. Some translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
 * The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
 * Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
 * Editors who have access to The Wikipedia Library can once again use non-open access content in SpringerLinks, after the Foundation contacted them to restore access. You can read more about this and 21 other community-submitted tasks that were completed last week.

Changes later this week
 * This week, dark mode will be available on a number of Wikipedias, both desktop and mobile, for logged-in and logged-out users. Interface admins and user script maintainers are encouraged to check gadgets and user scripts in the dark mode, to find any hard-coded colors and fix them. There are some recommendations for dark mode compatibility to help.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
 * Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:28, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Question from Premyadavresearch assistant on Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (16:44, 19 July 2024)
milkipur --Premyadavresearch assistant (talk) 16:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Teahouse
What a warm welcome, much appreciated, even if it's a template! I'm much more active on the Polish Wikipedia, but I edit here too sometimes ;) Hope it's not too much trouble posting on such an active talk page. R2D2Poland (talk) 20:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


 * @R2D2Poland No, not a problem. We aim to make the Teahouse a warm and welcoming place for everyone. Nick Moyes (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)