User talk:TheSandDoctor/Archives/2022/May

Tech News: 2022-18
 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 all remaining wikis (group 2), the software to play videos and audio files on pages has now changed. The old player has been removed. Some audio players will become wider after this change. The new player has been a beta feature for over four years.

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

Future changes
 * The developers are working on talk pages in the Wikipedia app for iOS. You can give feedback. You can take the survey in English, German, Hebrew or Chinese.
 * Most wikis will receive an improved template dialog in VisualEditor and New Wikitext mode.
 * If you use syntax highlighting while editing wikitext, you can soon activate a colorblind-friendly color scheme.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Several CSS IDs related to MediaWiki interface messages will be removed. Technical editors should please review the list of IDs and links to their existing uses. These include,   and 3 others.

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

19:32, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-19
 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 see categories in the Wikipedia app for Android.

Problems
 * Last week, there was a problem with Wikidata's search autocomplete. This has now been fixed.
 * Last week, all wikis had slow access or no access for 20 minutes, for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a problem with a database change.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.
 * Incompatibility issues with Kartographer and the FlaggedRevs extension will be fixed: Deployment is planned for May 10 on all wikis. Kartographer will then be enabled on the five wikis which have not yet enabled the extension on May 24.
 * The Vector (2022) skin will be set as the default on several more wikis, including Arabic and Catalan Wikipedias. Logged-in users will be able to switch back to the old Vector (2010). See the latest update about Vector (2022).

Future meetings
 * The next open meeting with the Web team about Vector (2022) will take place on 17 May. The following meetings are currently planned for: 7 June, 21 June, 5 July, 19 July.

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

15:21, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Linda Aylesworth


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

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. 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! 19:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Sympathy
Hello, TheSandDoctor,

I just saw the notice on your User page and I'm sorry for your loss. Grieving is difficult at all times but especially so in recent years. I don't know your circumstances but I lost an aunt & uncle to COVID-19 and we still haven't been able to arrange a service for them.

I hope the love that you felt and feel for your family surrounds you with comfort during this difficult time. Liz Read! Talk! 19:38, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for your lovely message. It is definitely tricky these days, but I am doing better than I was...I think. I am so sorry to hear of their passing to that horrid disease. I also hope that you find peace and comfort. Sending my condolences and love to you and your family in this difficult time as well. -- The SandDoctor  Talk 05:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2022
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2022).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Colin M
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg David.Monniaux • Fribbler • Grue • Kpjas • West.andrew.g



CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Ks0stm

Oversighter changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Ks0stm

Guideline and policy news
 * Following an RfC, a change has been made to the administrators inactivity policy. Under the new policy, if an administrator has not made at least 100 edits over a period of 5 years they may be desysopped for inactivity.
 * Following a discussion on the bureaucrat's noticeboard, a change has been made to the bureaucrats inactivity policy.

Technical news
 * The ability to undelete the associated talk page when undeleting a page has been added. This was the 11th wish of the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey.
 * A public status system for WMF wikis has been created. It is located at https://www.wikimediastatus.net/ and is hosted separately to WMF wikis so in the case of an outage it will remain viewable.

Arbitration
 * Remedy 2 of the St Christopher case has been rescinded following a motion. The remedy previously authorised administrators to place a ban on single-purpose accounts who were disruptively editing on the article St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine or related pages from those pages.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:35, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-20
 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
 * Some wikis can soon use the add a link feature. This will start on Wednesday. The wikis are . This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally.
 * The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 will take place online on May 20–22. It will be in English. There are also local hackathon meetups in Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Nigeria and the United States. Technically interested Wikimedians can work on software projects and learn new skills. You can also host a session or post a project you want to work on.
 * 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 soon edit translatable pages in the visual editor. Translatable pages exist on for examples Meta and Commons.

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

18:57, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Bots/Requests for approval/Dušan Kreheľ (bot) Ⅲ.
Concerning that, AWB combines refs if there's already combined refs on the article. If no combined refs exist, then it doesn't combine them. That's the logic it uses. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:19, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Is this an objection to the close stating that more discussion was needed at that time? I am a bit confused by this. cc -- The SandDoctor  Talk 04:06, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Mostly an FYI on the current state of things. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * IMO the close was ok, since it included the clear offer to reopen if the discussion actually happened (which it eventually did but was rejected). Anomie⚔ 11:12, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Devon Card for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Devon Card, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Articles for deletion/Devon Card until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter May 2022
Hello ,

At the time of the last newsletter (No.26, September 2021), the backlog was 'only' just over 6,000 articles. In the past six months, the backlog has reached nearly 16,000, a staggering level not seen in several years. A very small number of users had been doing the vast majority of the reviews. Due to "burn-out", we have recently lost most of this effort. Furthermore, several reviewers have been stripped of the user right for abuse of privilege and the articles they patrolled were put back in the queue.

Several discussions on the state of the process have taken place on the talk page, but there has been no action to make any changes. The project also lacks coordination since the "position" is vacant.

In the last 30 days, only 100 reviewers have made more than 8 patrols and only 50 have averaged one review a day. There are currently Special:ListUsers/patroller New Page Reviewers, but about a third have not had any activity in the past month. All administrators have this permission, but only about a dozen significantly contribute to NPP.

This means we have an active pool of about 450 to address the backlog. We cannot rely on a few to do most of the work as that inevitably leads to burnout. A fairly experienced reviewer can usually do a review in a few minutes. If every active reviewer would patrol just one article per day, the backlog would very quickly disappear.

If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, do suggest they help the effort by placing on their talk page.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent 05:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-21
 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
 * Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages.
 * The www.wiktionary.org portal page now uses an automated update system. Other project portals will be updated over the next few months.

Problems
 * The Growth team maintains a mentorship program for newcomers. Previously, newcomers weren't able to opt out from the program. Starting May 19, 2022, newcomers are able to fully opt out from Growth mentorship, in case they do not wish to have any mentor at all.
 * Some editors cannot access the content translation tool if they load it by clicking from the contributions menu. This problem is being worked on. It should still work properly if accessed directly via Special:ContentTranslation.

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

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadget and user scripts developers are invited to give feedback on a proposed technical policy aiming to improve support from MediaWiki developers.

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

00:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Player-created video game challenges


Hello, TheSandDoctor. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Player-created video game challenges".

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. 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! 18:33, 20 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello, TheSandDoctor,
 * Always feels a little strange leaving these Twinkle messages on the talk pages for admins or longtime editors but I think it's important to leave notifications of page deletions. Of course, you can restore this page should you wish to continue to work on it. Hope you are well these days. Take care, Liz Read! Talk! 18:36, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Liz. I appreciate these notices so that I know when they are deleted, so no worries there. Thank you for checking in as well; I am doing much better than I was. -- The SandDoctor  Talk 13:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

TweetCiteBot and non-breaking spaces
Hey. A few of the recent edits by the bot has been adding non-breaking spaces into reference titles. This is a no-go, per Category:CS1 errors: invisible characters. Do you think you could possibly add a check that would replace these non-breaking spaces with regular spaces? AFAIK, it should be completely safe to do so. Don't worry, theres been minimal cases of this (only about 3 of the 20 pages in the category are there due to the bot) and no major rush, but I think its better to address this earlier than later. Thanks! Aidan9382 (talk) 05:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the heads up on this. I wasn't aware of the issue until now and shall investigate a fix. Too bad Twitter allows them as input, apparently. -- The SandDoctor Talk 13:41, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * No problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly which contributions from the bot were an issue, and the bot hasnt made any changes since the category was last cleared, so I've got no example test cases for you. Good luck! Aidan9382 (talk) 13:49, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Question from BadBoyEdits (06:35, 30 May 2022)
How do I edit or create a Wikipedia page? --BadBoyEdits (talk) 06:35, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I would recommend taking a look at this interactive tutorial. It should answer your question and help get you started. Please let me know if you have any other questions! -- The SandDoctor Talk 13:40, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-22
 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 In the AbuseFilter extension, an   function has been introduced to check if an IP is in any of the ranges. Wikis are advised to combine multiple   expressions joined by   into a single expression for better performance. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage.
 * The IP Info feature which helps abuse fighters access information about IPs, has been deployed to all wikis as a beta feature. This comes after weeks of beta testing on test.wikipedia.org.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-sync.svg Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
 * The New Topic Tool will be deployed for all editors at most wikis soon. You will be able to opt out from within the tool and in Preferences.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The list=usercontribs API will support fetching contributions from an IP range soon. API users can set the   parameter to get contributions from any IP range within the limit.
 * A new parser function will be introduced:  . It will replace existing templates named "=". It will insert an equal sign. This can be used to escape the equal sign in the parameter values of templates.

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

20:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Editing newsletter 2022 – #1
Read this in another language • Subscription list for the multilingual newsletter • Local subscription list



The New topic tool helps editors create new ==Sections== on discussion pages. New editors are more successful with this new tool. You can read the report. Soon, the Editing team will offer this to all editors at most WMF-hosted wikis. You can join the discussion about this tool for the English Wikipedia is at Village pump (proposals). You will be able to turn it off in the tool or at Special:Preferences.

The Editing team plans to change the appearance of talk pages. These are separate from the changes made by the Desktop improvements project and will appear in both Vector 2010 and Vector 2022. The goal is to add some information and make discussions look visibly different from encyclopedia articles. You can see some ideas at Wikipedia talk:Talk pages project.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

23:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)