User talk:TheSandDoctor/Archives/2020/September

Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations open
Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:06, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2020). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Eddie891
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Angela • Jcw69 • Just Chilling • Philg88 • Viajero

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg SQL

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the minimum length for site ban discussions was increased to 72 hours, up from 24.
 * A request for comment is ongoing to determine whether paid editors must or should use the articles for creation process.
 * A request for comment is open to resolve inconsistencies between the draftification and alternative to deletion processes.

Arbitration
 * A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2020 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.
 * An open request for comment asks whether active Arbitrators may serve on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or Ombudsman commission.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:57, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-37
 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
 * Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg All MediaWiki API modules will now use  instead of  . This was inconsistent before.

Future changes
 * The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
 * OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change.
 * The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a  class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use   instead.   and   will also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Stale socks
Hi. Re your note. Do socks become stale after a bit because of IP address changes or is there some other technical reason? Just curious. Thanks. --RegentsPark (comment) 18:43, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , stale in the context of SPI means no edits in the last 90 days.  The wikimedia software only keeps CU logs for 90 days, and after that, the data is flushed.  So, "stale" means, "there's nothing in the logs to look at". -- RoySmith (talk) 19:07, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Got it. Thanks! --RegentsPark (comment) 19:14, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Bot removing Template:Unreferenced from draft space
What is the rationale for removing Template:Unreferenced from draft space? I understand removing stuff like Orphan, but with so many articles being moved to draft space because "undersourced, incubate in draft space" it doesn't make sense to remove the template that advises the editor what they need to do to have a viable article, and points them to Citing sources where they can get help. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * This was just brought up last month as well. I will point to 's answer in the archives. The templates also explicitly talk about "articles", which can cause misconceptions when placed on drafts for new/inexperienced editors. -- The SandDoctor Talk 03:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, sorry, but that's kind of a lame answer. Just modify the template to not populate the category, or better, populate a different category when in draft space, and adjust the message to one appropriate for display in draft space. Removing these is wasting the time of patrolling editors who don't know draftspace procedures but are in good faith helping by tagging with a template they do know.
 * Could you make it remove good article and featured article. You would be surprised at how often I run into that; I've been manually removing them (good) (featured) which is a pain. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
 * You might find it to be a lame answer, but the current practice is to remove maintenance tags in the Draft space because it is assumed that said draft will overcome those concerns before being moved back to the article space. As far as the GA and FA templates, that's reasonable (since it's pretty much guaranteed that a drafted page won't be a GA or FA when it's moved back to the article space); Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/TheSandBot 2 is the place to request amendments to the task. Primefac (talk) 16:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-38
 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 Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours.

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Milhist coordinator election voting has commenced
G'day everyone, voting for the 2020 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2020. Thanks from the outgoing coord team, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Bot did something strange
Hi - can you take a look at by TheSandBot - the edit summary says that the bot did various things, but in reality it didn't? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:06, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That is indeed strange. Codebase reworked. Hopefully that doesn't occur again. I will start spot checking again on next run. -- The SandDoctor Talk 13:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * After a re-write and some tweaking, it appears to be functional again. Fingers crossed. Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention! -- The SandDoctor Talk 05:35, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail!
You've got mail DannyS712 (talk) 01:22, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- The SandDoctor Talk 01:29, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-39
 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 new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page.

Changes later this week
 * The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them.
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Randall Lane (journalist)
— Maile (talk) 00:01, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Anurag Arora

 * Hello TheSandDoctor, I want to work on a previous page which was deleted by you. I have read all the comments on Articles for deletion/Anurag Arora. I request you to kindly provide me the draft of the article so that it can be improved with both content and sourcing. Thank you. -- Pratyush.shrivastava (talk) 06:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I have restored it to User:Pratyush.shrivastava/Anurag Arora. Please run it by me or submit through WP:AFC before moving to mainspace. -- The SandDoctor Talk 07:34, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you -- Pratyush.shrivastava (talk) 08:29, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I have worked on User:Pratyush.shrivastava/Anurag Arora. Please check this for me, I've also added a tag for notability and citation requirement (The article is stub). I think the page can now be moved to main space so that other editors can help establishing notability and improve article further. I know it needs more work no issues if you think article doesn't belong to Wikipedia yet, I'll continue working in draft. Thank you -- Pratyush.shrivastava (talk) 08:25, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
 * (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)" in the Business Standard source does not help towards notability and "Outlook India" has the same issue. It seems basically all sources are generated from "IANS" and that none of the sources satisfy the "significant coverage" requirement of WP:BASIC. Arora also appears to not satisfy WP:NACTOR. If you need to notability tag a draft, it probably isn't worth becoming an article. The tag also isn't suitable for drafts based on current practice. -- The SandDoctor Talk 13:05, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-40
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes Problems
 * Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete.
 * Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days.
 * Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. 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 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes
 * You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
 * The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
 * In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see  as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021.
 * You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
 * You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  21:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)