User talk:Spurb/Archive 2

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sir Sputnik
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Keilana

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
 * A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news
 * Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
 * A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
 * The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration
 * Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
 * The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-45
 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
 * You can now use TemplateWizard to edit templates. This works only with the 2010 wikitext editor and not in the visual editor or the 2017 wikitext editor. If you click on OOjs UI icon puzzle-ltr.svg you can enter the information in a pop-up. You can turn on TemplateWizard in your beta feature preferences.

Changes later this week
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. The interface for the two-column edit conflict will change. You can read more.
 * When you edit with the visual editor you can use the "Automatic" citation tab. This helps you generate citations. You will now be able to write plain text citations or the title of a journal article or a book in this tab. This will search the Crossref and WorldCat databases and add the top result.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 November. It will be on all wikis from 8 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 7 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.  17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This Month in Education: November 2018
This Month in Education  Volume 4 | Issue 10 | October 2018

This monthly newsletter showcases the Wikipedia Education Program. It focuses on sharing: your ideas, stories, success and challenges. You can see past editions here. You can also volunteer to help publish the newsletter. Join the team! Finally, don't forget to subscribe!

In This Issue

About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: Romaine 05:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-46
 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
 * Some old mobile browsers can use the watchlist again. This has not worked for a while. These browsers are called grade C browsers. This helps for example Windows Phone 8.1 with Internet Explorer and Lumia 535 with Windows 10.

Problems
 * You can choose to see edit conflicts in a two-column view. This is a beta feature. You can find it in your preferences. Users who use this view saw the edit conflict resolution page when they wanted to see a preview. This has been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 November. It will be on all wikis from 15 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 14 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * You can use the content translation tool to translate articles. The developers are working on a new version. One of the changes will be a maintenance category. Articles where users add a lot of text from machine translation without changing it will be in that category. This is so the community can review it. The users will also have been warned before they publish the article that it has a lot of unchanged text from machine translations.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  19:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-47
 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 vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote until 30 November.
 * Octicons-tools.svg There is an A/B test for  data. This is to make it easier to find the right information with a search engine. This changes the metadata for a wiki page. It doesn't change how the page looks.

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 21 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia wikis use templates to show readers there are problems with the content on some pages. For example if there are no sources or the page needs to be rewritten. The mobile website will soon show more information when you use these templates. Some templates may need to be updated.
 * The Education Program extension was removed from all Wikimedia projects. The database tables used by the extension will be archived. This will happen in a month. If you want the information on your wiki you should move it to a normal wiki page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  23:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-48
 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 wikis with translatable pages you could create a mess when you moved a page that had translatable subpages. A subpage is when you use  to create a new page:  . The subpages would be moved but not the translations. The subpages are no longer automatically be moved. This is to make it safer to move pages.

Changes later this week
 * The advanced search interface will be available by default on all Wikimedia wikis. It makes it easier to use some of the special search functions that most editors don't know exist. It's already active on German, Farsi, Arabic and Hungarian Wikipedia.
 * Special:UnusedCategories show empty categories with no files or other categories. You can soon choose to not show soft redirect categories or some maintenance categories there. You can do this with the magic word.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 November. It will be on all wikis from 29 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 28 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  function was deprecated in 2012. It will be removed next week. Look for the warning   in the JavaScript console to know if you use an affected script or gadget. If you are a gadget maintainer you should check if your JavaScript code contains  . There is a migration guide. It explains how to use   instead.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  22:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

This Month in Education: November 2018
About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: Romaine 18:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 December 2018
 * Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svgk Chan

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
 * A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
 * A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news
 * Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
 * To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
 * Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous
 * In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
 * Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries
 * (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

Discuss this newsletter

Subscribe

Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-49
 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
 * Admins will not be able to unblock themselves if they are blocked by someone other than themselves. This is because it can cause damage if someone else takes over an admin account and other admins can't block them. If this is a problem for your community you can report it on Phabricator. You can also ask questions on Meta. There is a discussion on Phabricator about how to solve this if two admins fight with each other on a small wiki.
 * Small SVG images are now bigger when you see them in MediaViewer.
 * You can go to a section from the edit summary by clicking on the section name. Before this you had to click on the arrow.
 * When you jumped to a footnote that was referenced several times in an article it could be difficult to see where you were in the text. Now there are jump marks and highlights to help you find your way back.

Changes later this week Meetings
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
 * 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 5 December at 16:00 (UTC) and at 23:00 (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-2018-W49"/> 16:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)