User talk:TheSandDoctor/Archives/2020/December

Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020

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

Guideline and policy news
 * There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.

Technical news
 * Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for working through the uw-softerblock backlog
My watchlist is lighting up with blocks for username-policy-violating users that I tagged weeks ago. Thanks for working through that backlog. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  00:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * you're welcome! I do go through it whenever I have a spare moment. I am probably the most active administrator to do so, having processed over a thousand this year alone. -- The SandDoctor Talk 01:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-50
 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 put pages on your watchlist for a limited period of time. Some wikis already had this function.

Changes later this week
 * Information from Wikidata that is used on a wiki page can be shown in recent changes and watchlists on a Wikimedia wiki. To see this you need to turn on showing Wikidata edits in your watchlist in the preferences. Changes to the Wikidata description in the language of a Wikimedia wiki will then be shown in recent changes and watchlists. This will not show edits to languages that are not relevant to your wiki.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).

Future changes
 * You can vote on proposals in the Community Wishlist Survey between 8 December and 21 December. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:8-Bit Bastard


Hello, TheSandDoctor. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "8-Bit Bastard".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz Read! Talk! 02:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Nominations for the 2020 Military history WikiProject Newcomer and Historian of the Year awards now open
G'day all, the nominations for the 2020 Military history WikiProject newcomer and Historian of the Year are open, all editors are encouraged to nominate candidates for the awards before until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2020, after which voting will occur for 14 days. There is not much time left to nominate worthy recipients, so get to it! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

1989
Hey, just to let you know that 1989 has been promoted to FA! That couldn't have happened without your help. Thank you so much HĐ (talk) 02:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yay!!!!! That's some awesome news to come back to haha. Thanks for sharing, ! I am happy to help any time . -- The SandDoctor Talk 03:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * When I saw this, I thought to myself, "Self, how can a list article about a year become a featured article? Shouldn't it be a featured list?"   Then I looked at 1989 expecting to see a star, but no, no star to be found.  The next step was to check out your contributions looking for "1989."  Then I found it.
 * In any case, congrats. Just don't ask me to do a cover, trust me, you wouldn't want that, not unless you want audio torture.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  13:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Haha, yeah, we were a little vague. Thank you for the kind words. This is the first FA I have worked on that has passed...far cry from the 2 (technically 3) attempts for The Rolling Stones that have failed haha. As for a cover: I totally respect your opinion on that too! Have you worked on FAs in the past? Do you want to team up on trying one or two perhaps? -- The SandDoctor  Talk 14:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've been here well over a decade and I don't recall making any significant contribution to getting anything up to a featured- status, at least not from a content perspective. I don't remember for sure but I might have one or two good articles under my belt but that was years ago.  I think I better start slow, maybe a GA or two, first.
 * While I have done some original content, I tend to focus in other areas, such as screening new content at WP:AFC, welcoming new users - usually through AFC or through people mistakenly putting things in maintenance categories, and the "it's a dirty job but someone has to do it" job of spotting and reporting obvious WP:NOTHERE new editors and, along with that, obvious block-evaders as I run across them. I also focus on improving templates and keeping articles out of the "break the wiki" maintenance categories like Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded and a few other Special:TrackingCategories.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  15:03, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There are also tons of GAs that need doing ;) -- The SandDoctor Talk 04:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've got a wiki-todo list for some upcoming "stay at home because it's #2020" vacation time. Trying my hand at GAs is on the list. It's a "reach" list with more things on it that I have time for though.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  15:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

New Page Patrol December Newsletter
Hello ,



It has been a productive year for New Page Patrol as we've roughly cut the size of the New Page Patrol queue in half this year. We have been fortunate to have a lot of great work done by who was the reviewer of the most pages and redirects this past year. Thanks and credit go to and  who join Rosguill in repeating in the top 10 from last year. Thanks to, , and who all got the NPR permission this year and joined the top 10. Also new to the top ten is DannyS712 bot III, programmed by which has helped to dramatically reduce the number of redirects that have needed human patrolling by patrolling certain types of redirects (e.g. for differences in accents) and by also patrolling editors who are on on the redirect whitelist.
 * Year in review

has been named reviewer of the year for 2020. John has held the permission for just over 6 months and in that time has helped cut into the queue by reviewing more than 18,000 articles. His talk page shows his efforts to communicate with users, upholding NPP's goal of nurturing new users and quality over quantity.
 * Reviewer of the Year

As a special recognition and thank you has been awarded the first NPP Technical Achievement Award. His work programming the bot has helped us patrol redirects tremendously - more than 60,000 redirects this past year. This has been a large contribution to New Page Patrol and definitely is worthy of recognition.
 * NPP Technical Achievement Award

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 2262 Low – 2232 High – 10271

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here 18:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-51
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * There is a Wikipedia app for KaiOS phones. It was released in India in September. It can now be downloaded in other countries too.

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:33, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Article deletions
Can you please not alert me of a PROD or article deletion again, I barely visit this site nowadays let alone have time to waste on trying to save articles that deletionists have made up their mind aren't notable anyway. Thankyou.† Encyclopædius  17:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, I am admittedly slightly confused by this message as I have only edited your talk page 4 times (Special:Diff/983078363, Special:Diff/983229866, Special:Diff/984620780, Special:Diff/984620746) with 2 notices that I can find and all of those in early October; 3 of the edits were tied to Articles for deletion/Aan tafel (1 being a non-templated courtesy message that the title was free and the other a ce of that), which you agreed wasn't notable and suggested repurposing. The 4th was a prod of Sultaan, where the article was subsequently improved and the tag removed. Based on this and looking at your talk page edit history's last 1000 edit summaries, I believe that you might be confusing me with others who have been more active on your talk page recently with nominations? In these cases as well, Twinkle automatically leaves messages and editors generally don't check who created the page as that is generally not relevant to the nomination. With that said, I do believe that a template should be created and incorporated somehow to make it so that editors can opt out of those twinkle messages. -- The SandDoctor Talk 18:49, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

In appreciation

 * Thank you, ! I am honoured. That was my first FA that I've helped with hehe . I see that you have...several. What was your first? -- The SandDoctor Talk 17:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the award is a special one, just for first-time FACers. My first was Battle of Neville's Cross back in December 2018. I remember feeling as pleased as punch. Hopefully there will be plenty more to come from you too. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:00, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-52
 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 11 January 2021.

Recent changes
 * The  template shows when a statement in a Wikipedia article needs a source. If you click on it when you edit with the visual editor there is a popup that explains this. Now it can also show the reason and when it was added.

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

Future changes
 * You can propose and discuss what technical improvements should be done for geographic information. This could be coordinates, maps or other related things.
 * Some wikis use LanguageConverter to switch between writing systems or variants of a language. This can only be done for the entire page. There will be a  tag that can convert a piece of text on a page.
 * Oversighters and stewards can hide entries in Special:AbuseLog. They can soon hide multiple entries at once using checkboxes. This works like hiding normal edits. It will happen in early January.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  20:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

 * Thank you, Davey! From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!! -- The SandDoctor Talk 16:41, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho


Donner60 (talk) is wishing a foaming mug of Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding to your friends' talk pages.


 * Thank you, ! Merry Christmas, from my family to yours! -- The SandDoctor  Talk 16:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Red
Happy holidays! Just to let you know, I just started a sandbox for Red here, hope you could contribute. While waiting to get 1989 articles promoted to FA, I think I might as well bring Red to at least GA status too. Stay safe, and happy holidays! HĐ (talk) 13:36, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you and likewise!! I have watchlisted the sandbox and will be more than happy to assist! Please do let me know when you plan to nominate Shake It Off as I would like to co-nom, if that's okay with you. Happy holidays!! -- The SandDoctor  Talk 16:44, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
 We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas, And a Happy New Year! May your holidays be filled with peace and joy. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 03:45, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

''Adapted from Xmas6. Spread the cheer by adding to their talk page.''
 * Thank you!! -- The SandDoctor  Talk 05:46, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
Same to you! GiantSnowman 08:27, 26 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you!! -- The SandDoctor  Talk 09:06, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Voting for "Military Historian of the Year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" closing
G'day all, voting for the WikiProject Military history "Military Historian of the Year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" is about to close, so if you haven't already, click on the links and have your say before 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:35, 28 December 2020 (UTC) for the coord team

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you and likewise!! You've actually given me my first ever admin barnstar, so thank you doubly! -- The SandDoctor Talk 06:12, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Your welcome Wiki2009DD (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

 * Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Happy New Year elves}} to send this message


 * Hehehe thanks for the laugh, ! Happy new year to you as well! -- The SandDoctor Talk 23:03, 30 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Happy New Year elves}} to send this message