User talk:Rschen7754/Archive 42

Tech News: 2019-40
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be 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).

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

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team is working on a watchlist expiry feature. This means you can put things on your watchlist for a period of time instead of forever. They are looking for feedback on the questions they have.
 * Special:Contributions will get the standard OOUI look. This makes it easier to use on mobile and makes it look like other  pages. There is a script you can use to make the form smaller if you want to.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:50, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

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

Global watchlist - Update 1
 Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:


 * General announcements
 * Management has migrated to phabricator; to report a bug or request a feature, please create a new task with the script's tag
 * Message translation has been reduced; for common messages that are already translated in mediawiki core, the system translations are used, in order to reduce duplication of efforts


 * Recent additions
 * New pages are shown at the start of a site's feed
 * Log entries are shown at the end of a site's feed
 * Basic validation has been added to user settings, applied before saving
 * Site validation has also been added; a site (excluding unique projects like wikidata, meta, commons, etc.) is considered to be valid if it is the form of "language.project", where both the language code and project name are valid. It does not, however, check that the actual site is valid; only that it could be. In other words, even though  refers to a site that doesn't exist, it is considered valid, because   is a valid language code (  is a working site) and   is a valid project.


 * Announcements
 * BREAKING CHANGE: Backwards compatibility supporting the use of sites as  (like 'en.wikipedia.org' or 'meta.wikimedia.org'), deprecated in version 1.7.5, will be removed soon; all sites should now be saved as   (like 'de.wikinews' or 'fr.wikisource')
 * BREAKING CHANGE: Storing user sites as, deprecated in version version 1.11.11, will be removed soon; all settings should be stored in the   object
 * Both of these breaking changes will be implemented alongside version 4.0; until then, any use of the config page (m:Special:BlankPage/GlobalWatchlistConfig) will result in saving settings in the newest format

Version 4.0 should be released in around a week. It will include the new features mentioned above, as well as removal of backwards compatibility for settings and sites.
 * Next release

I've sent this first message to users that participated in the discussion at m:Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Watchlists/Revive Crosswatch tool or otherwise shown interest in the script. To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About &bull;&#32; Updates &bull;&#32; Code

Conflict in regards to US 95 in Arizona
I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm having a bit of a conflict with another editor in regards to U.S. Route 95 in Arizona. Greggens and I apparently have very different views on how the major intersections table should look as well as a different understanding of US 95's general routing through San Luis, Arizona. Greggens is insisting that US 95 still follows Main Street from the border gate to Juan Sanchez Boulevard, while street-view images on Google Maps and ADOT GIS shapefiles show US 95 being routed as a one-way pair down two parallel streets to Main Street, similar to the routing of NM 478 through downtown Las Cruces. That and he has removed the intersection with Imperial Dam Road and the Gila River bridge crossing from the major intersection table. Imperial Dam Road is the Arizona continuation of California County Route S24 and the main access road to the Yuma Proving Ground. The Gila River is also a major tributary within the state of Arizona and should be noted in major intersection tables. How do I handle a situation like this within our Wikiproject and is there anyone I can turn to for help to resolve said conflict? I'm very new at all the formalities and processes within WP:USRD and do not want to take the wrong steps. On a related note, is it wrong if the mileage numbers on the major intersection tables reflect the posted mileposts along said highway? I had them set up on the US 95 in Arizona article to reflect the mileposts of US 95, I-10 BL (Quartzsite) and I-10, which are the mileposts that are shown the Highway Log and displayed on US 95 in the field. Greggens changed the mileage to reflect only US 95 between San Luis and Ehrenberg, and I wanted to know if his rendition or mine was the correct way to go about it. Sorry if this is a bit of a bother and thanks for taking the time to read this. I wanted to find another way of dealing with this situation other than changing the major intersections table again to avoid creating an edit war. &mdash; MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 04:59, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Generally it is best to start a discussion at WT:USRD to get more editors to review the situation. I agree that we should follow whatever the GIS sources say unless there is a very good reason not to. As far as the major intersections, I could go either way, but then most of the Southern California road articles have seen enough editors edit warring over what is ultimately an insignificant part of the article - that I've become numb to that sort of thing. --Rschen7754 06:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reply. If I can't resolve this dispute with said user one on one, I'll create a discussion over at WT:USRD. &mdash; MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 06:10, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:36, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Highways
I saw your name on WT:USRD so I thought I'd ask since no one ever seems to respond to my posts:

The article List of temporary Interstate Highways has been unsourced since creation in 2005 and hasn't gotten an iota of TLC. Some of these are so short-lived that they probably didn't even appear on any maps. What should be done with this list? Does anyone want to clean it up? Should it be deleted? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * If it were up to me I would say delete but maybe there's something I'm missing. --Rschen7754 21:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can now use more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version.

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

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

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

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

Tech News: 2019-43
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

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

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

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

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  14:39, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Taconic State Parkway
Thank You Thank you very much for protecting the Taconic State Parkway article. It's a very important part of transportation history and I'm glad that it's now easier to preserve its history. -Anonymous user 68 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.217.229 (talk) 02:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem is that both of you are edit warring, and I will have to block you. --Rschen7754 03:36, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Persistent incivility
Hi Rschen7754, I'm addressing you as the person who resolved this ANI case last month. After that block ended, the same user has been brought back to AN, in a case that's dragging along slowly in the same way. A little while ago the user left this message on my talk page. (There is no recent context for it beyond the current AN thread.) I do not think it would be productive for me to comment on the message or its appropriateness, but I was hoping that someone else (e.g., perhaps, you) might be able to offer then some advice they would listen to. Thanks for your time. (Also pinging, who wrote the closing statement.) --JBL (talk) 12:06, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for taking a look. --JBL (talk) 12:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:17, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2019
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg MSGJ

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Ivanvector
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg DeltaQuad

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.
 * The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).
 * A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration
 * Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-45
 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 Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites.

Changes later this week
 * can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use  to set a different default block length for IP editors.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist - Update 2
 Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:


 * General notes
 * To report a bug or request a feature, please create a new task on Phabricator with the script's tag


 * Recent additions
 * Site validation has been tightened. Previously, only the language code and project name had to be valid - now, they must be a valid combination (i.e.  exists, and so is valid, but   is not valid, because no such wiki exists).
 * When the global watchlist feed is loading, an OOUI widget will be shown, rather than an animated gif.
 * An option has been added to no longer group edits to the same page. For now, this isn't very useful, since metadata for the edits (editor, summary, tags, etc.) are not yet shown, but they will be soon. Until then, ungrouped edits are treated the same as pages with only 1 edit - the minor and bot flags are displayed if applicable. If edits are grouped, the minor and bot flags are only shown if they apply to all of the edits.


 * Upcoming changes
 * Starting with version 5.0, there will be an option at the settings page to switch to and from a "stable" version of the script. When activated, the script import in your global.js should be replaced, and then the page refreshed with the new script loaded. The stable script will live at m:User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/stable.js, and will be updated with each full release. Otherwise, it shouldn't be edited, providing a version that is less prone to bugs as the script is developed.


 * Announcements
 * WARNING: Starting with version 5.1, the option to mark the pages of a site as seen be implemented using the  API option, rather than manually listing the titles. This is being done to simplify the implementation code. This will result in the same functionality as marking all pages as seen via Special:Watchlist (i.e. even if the page isn't visible due to your filter choices, it will still be marked as seen). If you would like to keep using the current method for a while, please switch to the stable branch.

Version 5.0 has just gone live. It includes the new features mentioned above.
 * Next release

To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About &bull;&#32; Updates &bull;&#32; Code

Tech News: 2019-46
 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
 * MediaWiki2LaTeX can put different pages from a Wikimedia wiki into a PDF. It can now make a PDF with around 5000 pages. Previously this was 800 pages.

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

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Wikimedia will take part in Google Code-in. This is for young students who want to help with open source software. You can read more. Experienced technical Wikimedians can mentor students.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W46"/> 22:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47
<section begin="technews-2019-W47"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * You will be able to read but not to edit some wikis for up to 30 minutes on 26 November at 06:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. It will probably last much shorter than 30 minutes. This will also affect the  database. This could for example affect changing passwords, logging in to new wikis, changing emails or global renames.

Changes later this week
 * You can soon vote on proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W47"/> 20:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

problems with CU discretion
, pure whataboutism, is beneath your station. Allowing this shifting baseline will only discredit CUs and the larger management clique. I support getting rid of all badly-behaved CUs. My private data is not for misuse, regardless how prevalent. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 22:00, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what you are trying to say. --Rschen7754 01:26, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 36
<div style = "color: #936c29; font-size: 4em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif"> The Wikipedia Library <span style="font-size: 2em; font-family: Copperplate, 'Copperplate Gothic Light', serif">Books & Bytes

Issue 36, September – October 2019 <div style = "margin-top: 1.5em; border: 3px solid #ae8c55; border-radius: .5em; padding: 1em 1.5em; font-size: 1.2em">
 * #1Lib1Ref January 2020
 * #1Lib1Ref 2019 stories and learnings

Read the full newsletter Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist - Update 3
<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:#606060; background-color:#f8f8f8; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:7px;" class="plainlinks"> Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:


 * Survey
 * I am investigating adding more context to each entry that is shown (such as the edit summaries, tags, patrol marks, the user who made the edit, etc.). Is there any desire for such additions? If so, what should be added first, and what is a low priority? Please leave feedback on the relevant phabricator task, T238300.


 * Recent additions
 * Site validation has been overhauled. Rather than hard-coding a list of valid sites, users will be able to watch any site where they have an attached local user account. If a site is rejected as invalid, please ensure that there is indeed a local account attached to your global account.
 * Users will now be alerted regarding the results of attempting to update their settings.
 * Live updates have been added - when activated, the script will refresh in the background, and then load the new feed, every 7.5 seconds. In the future, this frequency may be configurable.
 * OOUI icons have been added to most buttons.
 * There is now an option to eliminate the confirmation dialog when marking all sites as seen.


 * Announcements
 * WARNING: Starting with version 6.1, site aliases currently used when saving settings will be removed, and only sites in the form of `lang.project` will be accepted.
 * As noted in the last update, marking a site as seen now uses, which means that any changes to watched pages between when the watchlist was loaded and when the site was "marked as seen" may be ignored.

Version 6.0 was just finalized for the development and stable branches of the script.
 * Next release

To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 21:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About &bull;&#32; Updates &bull;&#32; Code

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!
Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-48
<section begin="technews-2019-W48"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * The mobile beta mode will be disabled to have less maintenance. The developers will focus on the desktop improvements project. You can turn on advanced mobile contributions mode if you want to see the categories. You could also jump back to the top. This can instead be done with a gadget or user script.
 * Parsoid is software we use for the visual editor, content translation, Flow and the Android app. This has been rewritten. It will come to the wikis gradually over the next two weeks. It has been tested, but there could be some diffs or previews that don't look right. If you see any you can report them.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 November. It will be on the other wikis next week (calendar). This is because of holidays.

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You will switch between the article and the talk page in a new way in the mobile view in the future. It will use tabs. This is more like in the desktop view.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W48"/> 16:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2019
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2019
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2019). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg EvergreenFir • ToBeFree
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Akhilleus • Athaenara • John Vandenberg • Melchoir • MichaelQSchmidt • NeilN • Youngamerican • 😂

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Beeblebrox
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Deskana

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Evad37

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC on the administrator resysop criteria was closed. 18 proposals have been summarised with a variety of supported and opposed statements. The inactivity grace period within which a new request for adminship is not required has been reduced from three years to two. Additionally, Bureaucrats are permitted to use their discretion when returning administrator rights.
 * Following a proposal, the edit filter mailing list has been opened up to users with the Edit Filter Helper right.

Technical news
 * Wikimedia projects can set a default block length for users via MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry. A new page, MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip, allows the setting of a different default block length for IP editors. Neither is currently used. (T219126)

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 2 December 2018 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous
 * The global consultation on partial and temporary office actions that ended in October received a closing statement from staff concluding, among other things, that the WMF will no longer use partial or temporary Office Action bans... until and unless community consensus that they are of value or Board directive.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:48, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-49
<section begin="technews-2019-W49"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Mix'n'match is a tool to connect Wikidata items to information in other databases. It can be used to find subjects that are missing in a Wikipedia. It now has more than 3000 datasets. Before it was closer to 2000.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 December. It will be on all wikis from 5 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg There will be a new schema for XML dumps. Scripts and apps that use them will need to be updated. If they are not updated they will no longer work.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  magic word will no longer work in the content namespaces. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it returns   (empty string). When you read a page it returns   (dash). In the future this will also affect other namespaces. The next ones are file and category namespaces.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W49"/> 16:59, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Need help, pls advice
Hi Rschen, I noticed that you, as a former steward, are very experienced in WP matters, thus I'm asking you for advice. Point is, I notice several anonymous, unsigned (!) "notes" added to postings by participants in Articles_for_deletion/Media_bias_against_Bernie_Sanders, which tried to raise unsourced suspiciouns about their votes. One of those notes links to Sockpuppet_investigations/Rvoskoboynikov. I went there, but there's no case there, no discussion, no defence, no archive link, only a posting by User:ST47. As someone who once had been vicim of a wrongheaded and harassing sockpuppet accusation, I'm concerned about that. Could you pls look into this and check if everything's ok, please? And advice where I shall raise my concern about the unsigned "notes? Gray62 (talk) 11:56, 3 December 2019 (UTC) — Berean Hunter   (talk)  23:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It just became more annoying: Now admin User:Berean_Hunter is threatening me, for daring to protest the inofficial (!) habit of adding unsigned notes that raise suspicions about users. ->Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Media_bias_against_Bernie_Sanders Should this become worse, where's the proper place to raise a complaint? Arbcom? Gray62 (talk) 14:26, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * ST47 is a CheckUser and apparently ran a check to determine if the IPs of those users were the same. It seems that you have prejudged this matter to determine that those users are not the same - but what if they are?
 * While his comments may be a bit harshly worded I would largely have to endorse what Berean says. It appears that canvassing has taken place on external sites to affect the outcome of this discussion - which is against our policies. --Rschen7754 19:53, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The bad thing here is that there was an admission to the socking the day before Gray62 decided to complain about the handling of the case. He didn't do his due diligence and has still not relented after being shown the admission today. He responded at 13:53, December 3 following a post where I showed him the admission. He still continues to accuse ST47 of wrongdoing, nonetheless as may be seen here just a little bit ago. His timing is very off as my response shows. His failure to concede and continue with accusations is digging him a bigger hole.

Tech News: 2019-50
<section begin="technews-2019-W50"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Wikimedia projects use Translatewiki to translate the wiki interface. You can now use WatchTranslations to watch projects there. You would get an email if there are missing translations to your language.
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is a new dataset you can use. It shows the number of editors per country per month for a number of countries. You can read the documentation and download the dataset.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 December. It will be on all wikis from 12 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 11 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You can test a new reference tool. It makes it possible to reference different parts of a source without repeating all information. You can test it on the beta cluster. You can see an example article.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W50"/> 16:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist - Update 4
<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:#606060; background-color:#f8f8f8; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:7px;" class="plainlinks"> Updates associated with DannyS712's Global watchlist script:


 * Recent additions
 * A new "fast" mode has been introduced. When used, the watchlist serves as just a list of pages that have been modified, and no longer includes context about the edits themselves.
 * More information has been added to entries. When edits are not grouped by page, or when there is only 1 edit to a page, minor and bot flags are shown, as well as the user who made the edit, the summary used, and any tags that were applied. When multiple entries are grouped, bot and minor flags are only shown if all of the grouped edits were made by bots or where marked as minor. If only 1 user edited the page, that user's name is still shown, but no summaries or tags are included.
 * All watchlists are now fetched in parallel, rather than in series, greatly reducing load time.


 * Technical notes
 * Most of the source code is now annotated with jsdoc notes, allowing others to more clearly understand and review the code.
 * I will be looking into creating guidelines to let others contribute to the script; see T238298.


 * Translations
 * There is now proper qqq documentation for translations. Translation takes place at m:User:DannyS712/Global watchlist/Translate, and help is appreciated.
 * Newly translated messages are added to the script when I notice them; if you have translated messages that aren't showing up, please let me know at m:User talk:DannyS712.

Version 7.0 was just finalized for the development and stable branches of the script.
 * Next release

To subscribe or unsubscribe from future updates, see the distribution list.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 04:37, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Global watchlist user script: About &bull;&#32; Updates &bull;&#32; Code

Happy Adminship Anniversary!
<div class="boilerplate metadata" style="background-color:#E6E6FA; border: 1px solid #7D00B3; margin: 0.5em auto; padding: 0.5em; width:90%; text-align: center"> Happy Adminship Anniversary! Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!

Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 05:29, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-51
<section begin="technews-2019-W51"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * The Linter extension helps you find technical errors in articles. It did not show new changes last week. This was because of an API problem. It is now working again.
 * Special:Watchlist can show the wrong information again. It does not always show which edits are read and which are unread. This is because of a database problem. The developers are working on solving the problem.

Changes later this week
 * You can get email notifications. You can get them immediately, a summary every day or a summary once every week. If you choose a summary you can soon choose not to get notifications you have already marked as read on the wiki.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 December. It will be on all wikis from 19 December (calendar).

Meetings
 * Octicons-sync.svg Octicons-tools.svg You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 18 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The partial blocks feature is now stable. It will come to most wikis on 6 January. Your wiki can ask to wait. Contact NKohli (WMF) if you don't want it now.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W51"/> 00:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-52
<section begin="technews-2019-W52"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Tech News
 * Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 6 January 2020.

Recent changes
 * All mobile site users now have new features. Features include: tabs for page/discussion; an expanded user-menu; direct access to history pages. These features were initially part of the "advanced mode".

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

Future changes
 * You can use  in the URL to change the user interface language. This will no longer happen automatically. When you open the link you will be asked to confirm the language change. This will not happen if Javascript is not working in your browser.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2019-W52"/> 20:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 December 2019
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Deor • Spartaz • Xeno
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Wikipedia. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
 * A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
 * Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration
 * The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
 * Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , , , , , ,.

Miscellaneous
 * This issue marks three full years of the Admin newsletter. Thanks for reading!

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-02
<section begin="technews-2020-W02"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 January. It will be on all wikis from 9 January (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2020-W02"/> 21:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-03
<section begin="technews-2020-W03"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * You can no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser use very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It can lead to downgrade attacks. Since 9 December you just see a warning. Soon the browser will not connect to the wikis at all. Most are users on Android systems older than 4.4. You can read the browser recommendations.
 * Special:LinkSearch has been moved from the "" section on Special:SpecialPages to the "" section.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikis can protect pages so that only some users can edit them. The standard protection levels are and . If your wiki use more protection levels the technical name might be renamed for standardisation. This doesn't affect what users see.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 January. It will be on all wikis from 16 January (calendar).

Future changes
 * Deepcat and Catgraph will stop working. This will happen at the end of January. This is because you can now use the normal search function instead.
 * You can use  to merge footnotes that follow each other. It is meant to be used for digitised books on Wikisource. If the order of the footnotes is wrong no error was shown but the bad was shown outside the  tag if you need to continue running Python 2 scripts. The Pywikibot team strongly recommends to migrate to Python 3. You can get help to do so.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The weekly MediaWiki branch cut will soon become automated. The timing for this cut may change. You can discuss in Phabricator if this affects you.
 * Octicons-tools.svg You can read about coming technical events and mentoring interns.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2020-W04"/> 19:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 January 2020
<div class="hlist" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)