User talk:Wugapodes/Archive 36

Question from TPChicago (15:36, 13 August 2023)
Thanks for being here. Very early (think biblical time frame!), I tried to do a couple of edits, but I'm more humble now and less likely. Still, the spirit may nudge me and I appreciate your availability. I think Wiki was and is a great resource. I trust it -- warnings included! -- more than any other single source on the internet. --TPChicago (talk) 15:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * @TPChicago I'm glad you find the encyclopedia to be a good resource! Even small edits can be helpful, like adding links, fixing typos, or using inline cleanup tags, so don't be afraid to help out where you can or ask for advice. Either way, welcome back! — Wug·a·po·des 21:17, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-33
 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
 * The Content translation system is no longer using Youdao's machine translation service. The service was in place for several years, but due to no usage, and availability of alternatives, it was deprecated to reduce maintenance overheads. Other services which cover the same languages are still available.

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).
 * Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" . This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally.

Future changes
 * A few gadgets/user scripts which add icons to the Minerva skin need to have their CSS updated. There are more details available including a search for all existing instances and how to update them.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 05:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 August 2023
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“Stable guideline”
I am posting anonymously because I have been attacked quite badly in the past about one of the participants in the SMALLCAT case.

however, do you know what BHG meant by a “stable guideline”? It doesn’t seem terribly stable, and if it is as cut and dried as she says, shouldn’t this be a policy? If it was a policy, then it would be more clear what actions editors should be taking, but as WP:SMALLCAT is a guideline only, then it sounds like a fair amount of leeway is given and that consensus towards a different set of actions may reasonably taken from time to time.

Is this a reasonable query for me to make? And as I’m anonymous (and will choose to remain that way) I won’t be able to post it on RFAR’s PD talk page. - 49.195.66.156 (talk) 04:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Per WP:PROJSOCK you should not be contributing to project-space discussions from an undisclosed alternate account (including as an IP). The proper way to anonymously raise issues with the committee is via email, though our standard procedure is to direct editors to public fora unless the virtue of confidentiality outweighs the vice of preventing cross-examination (e.g. non-public personally identifiable information, substantiated fear of off-wiki reprisal, etc) As a general rule I avoid engaging with WP:PROJSOCKs, so I pass on your specific questions. — Wug·a·po·des 05:34, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No probs, if I feel the need I will do so. I hope you understand that I do not want to be a target for being attacked, as has happened to a number of editors here. - 49.195.66.156 (talk) 05:56, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-34
 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
 * The GDrive to Commons Uploader tool is now available. It enables securely selecting and uploading files from your Google Drive directly to Wikimedia Commons.
 * From now on, we will announce new Wikimedia wikis in Tech News, so you can update any tools or pages.
 * Since the last edition, two new wikis have been created:
 * a Wiktionary in Pa'O
 * a Wikisource in Sundanese
 * To catch up, the next most recent six wikis are:
 * Wikifunctions
 * a Wiktionary in Mandailing
 * a Wikipedia in Ghanaian Pidgin
 * a Wikinews in Gungbe
 * a Wiktionary in Kabardian
 * a Wikipedia in Fante

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 There is an existing stable interface policy for MediaWiki backend code. There is a proposed stable interface policy for frontend code. This is relevant for anyone who works on gadgets or Wikimedia frontend code. You can read it, discuss it, and let the proposer know if there are any problems.

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

15:23, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Question from Paratroopingfan (02:53, 23 August 2023)
Hi! I have uploaded a page I'm working on - a biography of a public personality. How long will it take to get edited / approved? --Paratroopingfan (talk) 02:53, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Question from Paratroopingfan (02:54, 23 August 2023)
Here is the link to the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Pradeep_Shoury_Arya --Paratroopingfan (talk) 02:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: All RFCs request for comment
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Question from Navya Shibu (12:17, 23 August 2023)
Hello... I've created profile on wikipedia to edit some of the errors I found in different articles. How can I suggest edit in those? --Navya Shibu (talk) 12:17, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! In general, you don't suggest edits to Wikipedia articles, you make edits and they go live immediately. We trust that you will be helpful and careful, so we just let you make changes. there are some articles where we have had problems with bad edits, and you might not be able to edit them yet. If you run into any of those, let me know and I can explain more. For help on making edits, this tutorial will walk you through how to open the editor and start making changes. Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to your edits! — Wug·a·po·des 22:02, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Question from Chhabboo (03:05, 23 August 2023)
Thanks, I have no question right now. I wish to edit because I find info not correct at times. --Chhabboo (talk) 03:05, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Chhabboo, and nice to meet you. Let me know if you do have questions in the future, and until then, I look forward to your edits! — Wug·a·po·des 22:03, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

WugBot vs Cluebot
Hi there, WugBot is having a bit of an edit war with Cluebot here:. Not to the point I thought to disable it, but all the same, it keeps putting back an old note about a DYK nomination, which really should be allowed to go into the archive. Maybe you could do the necessary to let that section go? Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads up. As it seems you discovered, the nomination was still technically open. I went to the nomination and gave my review, recommending rejection on the basis of presentability. Hopefully one of the promoters comes around soon and closes the nomination so you all can move on with improving the article. — Wug·a·po·des 21:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Great, yes, and thanks for this. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:18, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Keyboards
Re your comment about keyboards in the SMALLCAT arb case PD, as the owner of a laptop without a functioning "Y" key I would absolutely support your proposal for an equipment repair fund. If you or any talkpage stalkers find themselves in a similar position, I will share that my workaround is to have a text file on my desktop from which I can quickly copy and paste Y and y characters when required. It's far less convenient and I do sometimes spend time rephrasing comments to avoid words with that letter in, but it's cheaper than a new laptop! Thryduulf (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)


 * A laptop replacement keyboard might cost $16 - $25, and takes about 5 minutes to install. There are many helpful videos that walk through the process step-by-step for each laptop model. Jehochman Talk 04:38, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it doesn't even need to be for a whole new machine. It's probably a little much to expect everyone to do their own tear-downs, but parts and labor is pretty reasonable for this kind of service, I'd ballpark it at $100. Well below the $600 IRS threshold for income reporting and if you put a reasonable time frame between requests (one service request per year?) you reduce the chance of fraud without needing to impose annoying reporting requirements. — Wug·a·po·des 22:32, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The perpetual notepad was also the route I usually took. I also had a desktop where I'd do my heavy work, and an external keyboard at the office. It's one of those little nuisances that is easy enough to work around, so it's not clear whether the cost and disruption of getting it fixed is worth it. Having some kind of "equipment service fund" removes at least one of those hurdles (especially for lower income contributors) making contributing more efficient. — Wug·a·po·des 22:32, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Ease_of_Access - Due to issues with keyboards over the years, I've just gotten used to activating this icon onto the taskbar whenever setting up any new computer, either for myself, or friends/family. It's just one of those things that when you want it, it's nice that it's there. And it's somewhat customisable, which is nice too. I also like having Character Map (Windows) (and Windows Notepad for "clean" copy/pasting) readily available in my start menu.

That said, I also have family members who use an external keyboard - one uses an expanded numeric keypad (with a few customiseable keys) instead.

I guess it just comes down to what works for each person : ) - jc37 05:19, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd actually never thought of an on-screen keyboard. I run some weird linux configurations that include i3wm as my window manager. It works a lot like vim so discourages using the mouse at all. The onscreen keyboard idea is probably a good workaround for people whose hobbies don't include bricking their machines for fun (i.e., normal people). I've come to think of scoping it as an "equipment service fund" that could be used for things like keyboard repair, but also general maintenance like fan cleaning or battery replacements. It also would open up a use case for the growing number of mobile-only contributors who need service but probably not keyboard service. — Wug·a·po·des 22:32, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: All RFCs request for comment
Your feedback is requested &#32;at Talk:Rebel Moon&#32; on a "All RFCs" request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name. Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) &#124; Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. &#124; Sent at 08:30, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-35
 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-gift.svg As part of the changes for the better diff handling of paragraph splits, improved detection of splits is being rolled out. Over the last two weeks, we deployed this support to group0 and group1 wikis. This week it will be deployed to group2 wikis.
 * Octicons-gift.svg All pages now show the user's local edit count and the account's creation date.
 * Wikisource users can now use the  label to denote Bengali currency characters as page numbers inside the  tag.
 * Two preferences have been relocated. The preference "" is now shown on the "" tab at all wikis. Previously it was shown on the "" tab at some wikis. The preference "" is now also shown on the "" tab at all wikis, instead of the "" tab.

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-tools.svg New signups for a Wikimedia developer account will start being pushed towards idm.wikimedia.org, rather than going via Wikitech. Further information about the new system is available.
 * All right-to-left language wikis, plus Korean, Armenian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Bulgarian Wikipedias, will have a link in the sidebar that provides a short URL of that page, using the Wikimedia URL Shortener. This feature will come to more wikis in future weeks.

Future changes
 * The removal of the DoubleWiki extension is being discussed. This extension currently allows Wikisource users to view articles from multiple language versions side by side when the  symbol next to a specific language edition is selected. Comments on this are welcomed at the phabricator task.
 * A proposal has been made to merge the second hidden-categories list (which appears below the wikitext editing form) with the main list of categories (which is further down the page). More information is available on Phabricator; feedback is welcome!

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

MediaWiki message delivery 13:59, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Question from StellarScribe (14:41, 28 August 2023)
Hi,

I am looking for guidance on how to add new sections to pages that I feel are lacking up-to-date information, any tips? much appreciated! --StellarScribe (talk) 14:41, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

August music
My story today - a first - isn't about an article by me, but one I reviewed for DYK, see here. I like all: topic, "hook", connected article (a GA on its way towards FA), image and the music "in the background". I just returned from a weekend with two weddings, so also like the spirit ;) - Pics to come, I promise one cake, the other was too large! Good music, and better even in the concert ending the second day, - Goldberg Variations theme for an encore, after Dohnányi Serenade! - I played with the dedication for Goldberg Variations in my Siegfried entry 10 years ago ;) -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Again not by me: today's story - with the triumph of music over military - is uplifting! - No cake yet, but a butterfly and open-air opera. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Now: picture of heart-shaped cake(s) uploaded! - Today's story is about a tenor, - why his roles are not linked on the Main page remains a mystery to me. Today is also the birthday of the Bayreuth Festival. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:03, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for these, and sorry that I've been too tied up to respond promptly! I'm glad to see you finally got your cakes! — Wug·a·po·des 21:21, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd love to continue but a soprano died, and I tried to expand. She sang at the festival with the birthday yesterday, the "child" of Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * One more day uploaded, with another wedding cake - I couldn't resist. Today's story is about the Inkpot Madonna who returned to "her place" 9 years ago, and also has aspects of early learning, see? - The soprano is on the Main page, - easy and fast, for a change. Did you look at Richard and Cosima Wagner? Do you see what I see? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:08, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Today is the anniversary of the premiere of Götterdämmerung. Berit Lindholm sang its final scene in concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, only four years after her stage debut in a Mozart opera in Stockholm. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Today, my focus is on Renata Scotto, after days of updating. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:36, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Today is Debussy's birthday. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Always fascinating! I saw on User:Gerda Arendt/Stories you had a story about Der Ring des Nibelungen and found that article incredibly interesting, especially given the scale of the work: performed over four nights! It's easy to forget that prior to movies, television, and radio, we still made grand, non-textual, serial works. It's no opera, but I've recently been watching a lot of movies as double features (which looking at the article seems to have its origin in opera anyway). I did Barbenheimer in late July and just last week did a double feature of The Haunted Mansion (2003 film) and Haunted Mansion (2023 film). Seeing them as double features made me appreciate the films in a different way, but I can only imagine 4 nights of opera! Thanks as always for sharing (and regarding the Wagners, I do spot an interesting difference)! — Wug·a·po·des 22:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, on many levels! I feel understood which is often not the case. My personal relation to the work live on stage is sporadic but always left lasting impressions. I saw Götterdämmerung in Bayreuth, which made me write Jahrhundertring, Walküre at the Oper Frankfurt which made me write the director's article that you refer to, and Der Ring in Minden, my one and only complete cycle, with my brother and his colleague playing the first notes, in the orchestra on stage. Now Berit Lindholm died (see above), reminding me of performances heard on radio (mentioned above), and I'm hoping to make her article GA until her funeral, as a little tribute. - Regarding the Wagners I thought that "interesting difference" was (now that we have community consensus for Mozart and her husband), but see what followed in the history of article and the reverter's talk (with the article talk in the background). Perhaps you can mediate? She reverted Yeats also. I would like to see these epic discussions end, - any ideas welcome. The music of the very end of Götterdämmerung (see above), sung by the woman who before could not believe what she had to see (pictured, and it was "my picture" pleading in Götterdämmerung 10 years ago, and Siegfried is the very same as for Lindholm in Düsseldorf, as I found only yesterday), is sooo peaceful. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:17, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I quoted this conversation on my talk, as "where I come from". - Thank you for your initiative regarding infoboxes. 28 August 2013 was the day an arb voted to ban my friend, giving this edit for an example. None of the colleagues commented. It told me that they all had not looked at what had been called "evidence". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:35, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
 * This too shall pass. - Ten years ago on 28 August, I heard a symphony, with a heavy heart because of the pending decision in WP:ARBINFOBOX, and not worried about my future here but Andy's. - It passed, and I could write the DYK about calling to dance, not battle, and Andy could write the DYK mentioning about peace and reconciliation, - look. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 August 2023
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Administrators' newsletter – September 2023
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2023).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Pppery · Theleekycauldron
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Dwheeler · G.A.S · Royalbroil · Ssd



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

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

Guideline and policy news
 * Following an RfC, TFAs will be automatically semi-protected the day before it is on the main page and through the day after.
 * A discussion at WP:VPP about revision deletion and oversight for dead names found that [s]ysops can choose to use revdel if, in their view, it's the right tool for this situation, and they need not default to oversight. But oversight could well be right where there's a particularly high risk to the person. Use your judgment.

Technical news
 * Special:Contributions now shows the user's local edit count and the account's creation date.

Arbitration
 * The SmallCat dispute case has closed. As part of the final decision, editors participating in XfD have been reminded to be careful about forming local consensus which may or may not reflect the broader community consensus. Regular closers of XfD forums were also encouraged to note when broader community discussion, or changes to policies and guidelines, would be helpful.

Miscellaneous
 * Tech tip: The "Browse history interactively" banner shown at the top of Special:Diff can be used to easily look through a history, assemble composite diffs, or find out what archive something wound up in.

Discuss this newsletter

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-36
 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
 * EditInSequence, a feature that allows users to edit pages faster on Wikisource has been moved to a Beta Feature based on community feedback. To enable it, you can navigate to the beta features tab in Preferences.
 * Octicons-gift.svg As part of the changes for the Generate Audio for IPA and Audio links that play on click wishlist proposals, the inline audio player mode of Phonos has been deployed to all projects.
 * There is a new option for Administrators when they are changing the usergroups for a user, to add the user’s user page to their watchlist. This works both via and via the API.
 * One new wiki has been created:
 * a in Talysh
 * The LoginNotify extension was not sending notifications since January. It has now been fixed, so going forward, you may see notifications for failed login attempts, and successful login attempts from a new device.

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).
 * Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" . This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:32, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Sultanularefeen (14:24, 2 September 2023)
Hi,

Greetings!

I want to publish an article about a historical place in China. The draft of the article can be found at [external link removed]

Would you take a look at it and suggest me if I should publish it directly or go through AFC procedure?

I hope that I can publish the article successfully on Wikipedia with your guidelines.

Thanks. --Sultanularefeen (talk) 14:24, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your interest in writing an article for Wikipedia! For security reasons, I don't follow external links to documents and recommend others avoid them as well. If you would like feedback on your draft, the best way is to post it on-wiki. You can do that as an AFC draft, or in your user space. If you use on of those options, you are more likely to get feedback from Wikipedia users. — Wug·a·po·des 21:44, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your suggestions Wugapodes. Please take a look at the draft at User:Sultanularefeen/sandbox - Wikipedia and let me know your opinion. Sultanularefeen (talk) 08:30, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: All RFCs request for comment
Your feedback is requested &#32;at Talk:British Empire&#32; on a "All RFCs" request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name. Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) &#124; Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. &#124; Sent at 12:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

New page patrol October 2023 Backlog drive
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-37
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * ORES, the revision evaluation service, is now using a new open-source infrastructure on all wikis except for English Wikipedia and Wikidata. These two will follow this week. If you notice any unusual results from the Recent Changes filters that are related to ORES (for example, "" and ""), please report them.
 * When you are logged in on one Wikimedia wiki and visit a different Wikimedia wiki, the system tries to log you in there automatically. This has been unreliable for a long time. You can now visit the login page to make the system try extra hard. If you feel that made logging in better or worse than it used to be, your feedback is appreciated.

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-tools.svg The Technical Decision-Making Forum Retrospective team invites anyone involved in the technical field of Wikimedia projects to signup to and join one of their listening sessions on 13 September. Another date will be scheduled later. The goal is to improve the technical decision-making processes.
 * Octicons-gift.svg As part of the changes for the Better diff handling of paragraph splits wishlist proposal, the inline switch widget in diff pages is being rolled out this week to all wikis. The inline switch will allow viewers to toggle between a unified inline or two-column diff wikitext format.

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on 20 September. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
 * The Enterprise API is launching a new feature called "breaking news". Currently in BETA, this attempts to identify likely "newsworthy" topics as they are currently being written about in any Wikipedia. Your help is requested to improve the accuracy of its detection model, especially on smaller language editions, by recommending templates or identifiable editing patterns. See more information at the documentation page on MediaWiki or the FAQ on Meta.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:06, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Maaker (11:54, 13 September 2023)
Stupid question perhaps, but can I create a page on Wikipedia dedicated to my own research? --Maaker (talk) 11:54, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 September 2023
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Feedback request: All RFCs request for comment
Your feedback is requested &#32;at Talk:North Africa&#32; on a "All RFCs" request for comment. Thank you for helping out! You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name. Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) &#124; Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. &#124; Sent at 00:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-38
<section begin="technews-2023-W38"/> 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 MediaWiki now has a stable interface policy for frontend code that more clearly defines how we deprecate MediaWiki code and wiki-based code (e.g. gadgets and user scripts). Thank you to everyone who contributed to the content and discussions.

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).
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.
 * All wikis will have a link in the sidebar that provides a short URL of that page, using the Wikimedia URL Shortener.

Future changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg The team investigating the Graph Extension posted a proposal for reenabling it and they need your input.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2023-W38"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 19:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

New pages patrol newsletter
Hello ,

Backlog update: At the time of this message, there are 11,300 articles and 15,600 redirects awaiting review. This is the highest backlog in a long time. Please help out by doing additional reviews!

October backlog elimination drive: A one-month backlog drive for October will start in one week! Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Articles will earn 4x as many points compared to redirects. You can sign up here.

PageTriage code upgrades: Upgrades to the PageTriage code, initiated by the NPP open letter in 2022 and actioned by the WMF Moderator Tools Team in 2023, are ongoing. More information can be found here. As part of this work, the Special:NewPagesFeed now has a new version in beta! The update leaves the NewPagesFeed appearance and function mostly identical to the old one, but updates the underlying code, making it easier to maintain and helping make sure the extension is not decommissioned due to maintenance issues in the future. You can try out the new Special:NewPagesFeed here - it will replace the current version soon.

Notability tip: Professors can meet WP:PROF #1 by having their academic papers be widely cited by their peers. When reviewing professor articles, it is a good idea to find their Google Scholar or Scopus profile and take a look at their h-index and number of citations. As a very rough rule of thumb, for most fields, articles on people with a h-index of twenty or more, a first-authored paper with more than a thousand citations, or multiple papers each with more than a hundred citations are likely to be kept at AfD.

Reviewing tip: If you would like like a second opinion on your reviews or simply want another new page reviewer by your side when patrolling, we recommend pair reviewing! This is where two reviewers use Discord voice chat and screen sharing to communicate with each other while reviewing the same article simultaneously. This is a great way to learn and transfer knowledge.

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for 2013 Chicago Bears season
2013 Chicago Bears season has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Thebiguglyalien ( talk ) 07:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Question from Foxmilder (16:13, 23 September 2023)
Hello,

If you don't mind, there's a few things I've been meaning to ask a more experienced editor about general Wikipedia etiquette.

As a relatively new editor, I've mostly limited my contributions to minor/uncontroversial edits. Mostly, I tend to focus on "polishing" text: rephrasing ambiguous constructions, tidying up formatting, and clarifying the usage and definitions of technical terms.

Recently, I've happened upon a couple of pages in which technical and academic terms are insufficiently defined or invoked in an awkward manner. This is the kind of editing I'm most comfortable doing, and I believe I can make some minor improvements.

But there's a catch: these articles pertain to contentious political topics, and I'm wary of getting dragged into any kind of dispute related to alleged bias.

The edits I have in mind are aimed narrowly toward ensuring clarity, accuracy, and faithfulness to the cited sources. But when it comes to contentious topics, I often encounter dubious, politically-charged framing in places it can't be ignored — in the lead paragraph, for instance.

My questions, then, are two:

1. In the eyes of the Wikipedia community, is it considered acceptable for a relative newcomer to edit contentious articles?

2. If so, what's the best way to go about it? Should I be so bold as to make cautious, sensible edits as I see fit? Or should I instead try to first build a consensus on the talk page?

Any advice you have for me would be greatly appreciated. --Foxmilder (talk) 16:14, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for your help maintaining the encyclopedia!(1) Generally (see important exceptions) if a page is not protected from editing, you may edit it. If someone reverts you solely for being a new account, that would be inappropriate (but see the prior exceptions), but as a new account you will attract a lot of scrutiny which means it's more likely someone will revert you. It doesn't mean your contributions are inappropriate or unwelcome, they just need more discussion and improvement.(2) There's no best way; the choice depends on a lot of factors. If it's a blatantly obvious change--typo, comma change, etc--you can just make the change. For more complicated changes, like rearranging paragraphs or removing content, it's better to at least explain what you're doing on the talk page. If the page is really obscure and doesn't have a lot of people watching it, it's probably better to just make the change rather than wait around to see if someone responds to your talk page message (the former is more likely to attract editors who patrol recent changes, leading to slightly faster review). If the page is prominent or very active, it's best to post on the talk page first rather than making the change since the active editors will probably be quick to respond and avoids unknowingly stepping into an area under active dispute. If there's a cleanup tag like clarify-section, you should feel welcome to make a bold change since someone has explicitly asked for an issue to be resolved (though check the talk page for any additional details or discussion on why the tag was placed).Speaking personally, I think our policy at Be bold is better titled Be bold but not reckless which covers a lot of the considerations above. You shouldn't be afraid to edit the encyclopedia or contentious areas, but you shouldn't step in and accidentally make a situation worse. Obvious minor changes, stale pages, addressing cleanup tags: these are all situations where the chances you will wander into an active dispute are low and the benefit of delaying the change is marginal, so you should be bold. Complex changes, highly visible pages, lots of editors actively making changes: these are situations where you are highly likely to wander into an ongoing dispute so crashing in with even more unannounced changes would be reckless and counterproductive. The reality is that you're probably going to find yourself in between these two extremes most of the time. The safest option is to always post on the talk page before making a change, and there are plenty of editors whose preferences tend toward that extreme. I tend toward the more bold end of the spectrum but I also have spent a lot of time getting a feel for where the middle ground is (and took some lumps along the way). My recommendation in contentious topics is to start on the "always ask" side and work your way up to more bold edits. Not only is it the safest option, it will show other editors that you're being considerate of other opinions in the area which will buy you some good will when you do start making some bold changes. I hope that helps, and feel free to ask other questions should they come up as you edit more topics. I look forward to more of your contributions! — Wug·a·po·des 20:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

September music
Our festival's last concert was most moving and inspiring, - also the story of Walter Arlen, - proud that I survived the decision in WP:ARBINFOBOX for 10 years, standing and singing -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:18, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Today's story is about a great pianist with an unusual career, taking off when he was 50. It's the wedding anniversary of Clara and Robert Schumann, but I was too late with our gift. Just for fun: when do you think did Mrs. and Mr. Schumann get their infoboxes, and by whom? (The answer can be found here, but please think first.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Today I remember Raymond Arritt, who still helps me, five years after he died, per what he said in my darkest time on Wikipedia (placed in my edit-notice as a reminder), and by teh rulez. - Latest pics from a weekend in Berlin (one more day to come). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:12, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

The day came (updating Berlin). - Please take a look at Talk:Noël Coward, regarding the previous question how that kind of "discussion" can be avoided. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:12, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-39
<section begin="technews-2023-W39"/> 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
 * The Vector 2022 skin will now remember the pinned/unpinned status for the Table of Contents for all logged-out users.

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-tools.svg The ResourceLoader <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> modules are now deprecated as part of the move to Vue.js and Codex. There is a guide for migrating from MediaWiki UI to Codex for any tools that use it. More details are available in the task and your questions are welcome there.
 * Gadget definitions will have a new "namespaces" option. The option takes a list of namespace IDs. Gadgets that use this option will only load on pages in the given namespaces.

Future changes
 * New variables will be added to AbuseFilter:  and  . They are available only when an account is being created. You can use them to prevent blocking automatic creation of accounts when users with many edits elsewhere visit your wiki for the first time.

Meetings
 * You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 27 October at 17:00 (UTC). See details and 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-2023-W39"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 16:49, 26 September 2023 (UTC)