This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back. Their input is welcome, and their help with messages that I cannot reply to quickly is appreciated.
Frostly is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Wikipedia soon.
Frostly has recently suffered a significant loss and is grieving. Consequently, his ability to work on Wikipedia and his time available to do so may be affected. Your patience with delays in handling Wikipedia responsibilities and in responding to talk page messages or e-mails is appreciated, as is your compassion and understanding. Thank you.
My talk page archives are in disorder, and I'd love any help in fixing them! Otherwise, I'll get to them eventually.
Hello! I am looking for a certain article to make edits on. How do I go about finding that article and then making the edits? Many thanks for any guidance you can offer! --GasGraci (talk) 16:28, 17 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello, im new on wikipedia and im read all guides about how to make company page and i hope im doing good job right now. But i have problem, my company name is Artic Ice in licence stay Artic Ice Trading. We export artic ice from greenland to dubai but in future we want export to all world, i want create page but i dont know how should i put name of page i mean first headline and page url. I was think i cannot put Artic Ice than i put Artic Ice Trading, i hope this is right and allowed to use. Also in last days all newspapers worldwide speak about us like The Guardian, CNN, RTL, Khaleej Times etc. also if you google “Artic Ice” you can find all that news about our company. Im also make external link to The Guardian but i have plan to add more. Can you please check my sandbox and see did i on good way to get approved from wikipedia.
Welcome to the drive! One person cannot make a dent on the backlog, but many people together can. Unfortunately, I don't really know what is your favorite topic area, so I think you should take a look at tips and tricks section to find articles and practice citing them. Good luck for the drive, you'll need it. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello Frostly, happy to have you as a mentor. I wish to write an article, as a paid contributor, about a project about to be released. How should I proceed? --Joan Million (talk) 15:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your quick answer (and for the cute snowflakes)! :) I have no clue how this works. Is it a way to get it done/approved faster or somewhat pre-approved ?
I looked for the title of the article I would like to write about and it doesn't seem taken. I guess it's a good start.
Thank you for the quick answer Frostly! Therefore, requesting an article implies that someone else would be creating it and writing the text as well. Is that correct?
@Joan Million, yes, that would be the case! They would write the article based on information available in published reliable sources. If you have any proposals for further content coverage after the article is published, you can then suggest them to editors. Best, Frostly (talk) 02:01, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 60, November – December 2023
Does editing Wikipedia burn calories? If it does, does it count as exercise? ;)
TWW is back from being long dormant. It was a nice "Hibernation" lol.
Voting regarding the Universal Code of Conduct is taking place on Meta Wiki. More information can be found via the link
EN Wikipedia has a few new Administrators following their successful RFA!
Information on the upcoming Steward Election on Meta can be found here
A new feature called Reference Previews has been created. More information: here
I apologise for the delay, I was not able to edit until recently.
I hope to have TWW published more frequently from this issue onwards. Ideally at least every 2 months. Since its near the end of the month, I decided to name this issue February.
We are always looking for help! If you would like to help out, please let us know!
Like this Issue? Got Feedback? Spot a mistake? Discuss this issue here
To change your subscription, or to subscribe click Here.
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
Starting Monday January 29, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they are looking for, even if this comment was moved elsewhere. This will affect all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. You can read more about this change on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [4]
There are some improvements to the CAPTCHA to make it harder for spam bots and scripts to bypass it. If you have feedback on this change, please comment on the task. Staff are monitoring metrics related to the CAPTCHA, as well as secondary metrics such as account creations and edit counts.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 31 January. It will be on all wikis from 1 February (calendar). [5][6]
Gadgets which only work in some skins have sometimes used the targets option to limit where you can use them. This will stop working this week. You should use the skins option instead. [8]
An RfC about increasing the inactivity requirement for Interface administrators is open for feedback.
Technical news
Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size. (T326065)
Arbitration
Following a motion, the Arbitration Committee adopted a new enforcement restriction on January 4, 2024, wherein the Committee may apply the 'Reliable source consensus-required restriction' to specified topic areas.
Community feedback is requested for a draft to replace the "Information for administrators processing requests" section at WP:AE.
A vote to ratify the charter for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is open till 2 February 2024, 23:59:59 (UTC) via Secure Poll. All eligible voters within the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to either support or oppose the adoption of the U4C Charter and share their reasons. The details of the voting process and voter eligibility can be found here.
Community Tech has made some preliminary decisions about the future of the Community Wishlist Survey. In summary, they aim to develop a new, continuous intake system for community technical requests that improves prioritization, resource allocation, and communication regarding wishes. Read more
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 mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. If you hear of any problems relating to mobile history usage please point them to the phabricator task.
On most wikis, admins can now block users from making specific actions. These actions are: uploading files, creating new pages, moving (renaming) pages, and sending thanks. The goal of this feature is to allow admins to apply blocks that are adequate to the blocked users' activity. Learn more about "action blocks". [9][10]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 February. It will be on all wikis from 8 February (calendar). [11][12]
Talk pages permalinks that included diacritics and non-Latin script were malfunctioning. This issue is fixed. [13]
Future changes
24 Wikipedias with Reference Tooltips as a default gadget are encouraged to remove that default flag. This would make Reference Previews the new default for reference popups, leading to a more consistent experience across wikis. For 46 Wikipedias with less than 4 interface admins, the change is already scheduled for mid-February, unless there are concerns. The older Reference Tooltips gadget will still remain usable and will override this feature, if it is available on your wiki and you have enabled it in your settings. [14][15]
Hello
I want to edit the editry on Admiral John Duckworth in the Memorials setion. I cannot see how to enter the memorials section. Very grateful for your help.
I am trying to delete one word in the material I have uploaded and get the following message every time I try- "As an anti-abuse measure, you are limited from performing this action too many times in a short space of time, and you have exceeded this limit. Please try again in a few minutes. If you are attempting to run a bot or semi-automated script, please read and understand our bot policy, then request approval. Users who run unauthorized bot scripts may lose their editing privileges".
Hello, I want to add to the Wikipedia article about the Anuak tribe attacking members of the Nuer tribe in the Gambella, Ethiopia region. A Lutheran Sudanese Pastor in our congregation here in Faribault, MN, Gatluk Reat, was to leave on a mission trip to his homeland yesterday but had to cancel because of tthe Anuak's attacks on the Nuer tribe. They have attacked people walking on the street, buses carrying people, cars and even an ambulance. --Rogerwilk (talk) 18:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Rogerwilk, the appropriate venue to report alleged attacks would be local law enforcement. Wikipedia can only include information published in reliable sources, and editing with a conflict of interest is strongly discouraged. Best, — Frostly (talk) 21:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
The 2024 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with 135 participants. This is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2017.
Our current leader is newcomer Generalissima (submissions), who has one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher) and 10 GAs and 12 DYKs mostly on New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:
As a reminder, competitors may submit work for the first round until 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February, and the second round starts 1 March. Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round; currently, competitors need at least 15 points to progress. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk·contribs), Epicgenius (talk·contribs), and Frostly (talk·contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. [16][17][18] Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service. [19][20]
Problems
There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 February. It will be on all wikis from 15 February (calendar). [21][22]
As work continues on the grid engine deprecation,[23] tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped. [24]
Hello! My question: Are students who have not yet graduated from a university appropriate to add to notable alumni categories & sections? --93iambic (talk) 10:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for signing up for Women in Red. When I turned up your user and talk pages, I saw that you were being treated as deceased. I am trying to resolved the problem. Please let me know if you see this message.--Ipigott (talk) 13:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
i hope you're doing ok right now; this week has been devastating. take care of yourself, and know that we're all here for each other. reach out if you need to
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
If you have the "Email me when a page or a file on my watchlist is changed" option enabled, edits by bot accounts no longer trigger notification emails. Previously, only minor edits would not trigger the notification emails. [25]
There are changes to how user and site scripts load for Vector 2022 on specific wikis. The changes impacted the following Wikis: all projects with Vector legacy as the default skin, Wikivoyage, and Wikibooks. Other wikis will be affected over the course of the next three months. Gadgets are not impacted. If you have been affected or want to minimize the impact on your project, see this ticket. Please coordinate and take action proactively.
Newly auto-created accounts (the accounts you get when you visit a new wiki) now have the same local notification preferences as users who freshly register on that wiki. It is effected in four notification types listed in the task's description.
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 20 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 February. It will be on all wikis from 22 February (calendar). [27][28]
Selected tools on the grid engine have been stopped as we prepare to shut down the grid on March 14th, 2024. The tool's code and data have not been deleted. If you are a maintainer and you want your tool re-enabled reach out to the team. Only tools that have asked for extension are still running on the grid.
The CSS filter property can now be used in HTML style attributes in wikitext. [29]
I stumbled across another Wiki user who was using your snowflake template on their page, and I thought it was so cool that I added it to mine and realized that you were the original creator. Thank you so much for creating such a cool .css!!! I hope you don’t mind that I am using it? I really like snow! Wafflefrites (talk) 05:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 mobile visual editor is now the default editor for users who never edited before, at a small group of wikis. Research shows that users using this editor are slightly more successful publishing the edits they started, and slightly less successful publishing non-reverted edits. Users who defined the wikitext editor as their default on desktop will get the wikitext editor on mobile for their first edit on mobile as well. [30]
The mw.config value wgGlobalGroups now only contains groups that are active in the wiki. Scripts no longer have to check whether the group is active on the wiki via an API request. A code example of the above is: if (/globalgroupname/.test(mw.config.get("wgGlobalGroups"))). [31]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 27 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 28 February. It will be on all wikis from 29 February (calendar). [32][33]
Future changes
The right to change edit tags (changetags) will be removed from users in Wikimedia sites, keeping it by default for admins and bots only. Your community can ask to retain the old configuration on your wiki before this change happens. Please indicate in this ticket to keep it for your community before the end of March 2024.
The first round of the 2024 WikiCup ended at 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February. Everyone with at least 30 points moved on to Round 2, the highest number of points required to advance to the second round since 2014. Due to a six-way tie for the 64th-place spot, 67 contestants have qualified for Round 2.
The following scorers in Round 1 all scored more than 300 points:
Generalissima (submissions), who has 916 points mostly from one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher), 15 GAs, and 16 DYKs on a variety of topics including New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures, in addition to seven reviews
In this newsletter, the judges would like to pay a special tribute to Vami_IV (submissions), who unfortunately passed away this February. At the time of his death, he was the second-highest-scoring competitor. Outside the WikiCup, he had eight other featured articles, five A-class articles, eight other good articles, and two Four Awards. Vami also wrote an essay on completionism, a philosophy in which he deeply believed. If you can, please join us in honoring his memory by improving one of the articles on his to-do list.
Remember that any content promoted after 27 February but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 24th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 24 December 2021. Uh-huh, we're finally covering the good ones among the rest! Aren't you excited? Remember to include a link in double brackets to the script's .js page when you install the script, so that we can see who uses the script in WhatLinksHere! The ScriptInstaller gadget automatically does this. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:00, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Making user scripts load faster by SD0001 is this month's featured script, which caches userscripts every day to eliminate the overhead caused by force-downloading the newest version of scripts every time you open a Wikipedia page. Despite being released in April 2021, our best script scouters have failed to locate it due to its omission from the US of L. For security reasons, the script only supports loading JavaScript pages.
Ahecht has created a fork of SiBr4/TemplateSearch, which adds the "TP:" shortcut for "Template:" in the search box, and updated it to be compatible with Vector 2022.
AquilaFasciata/goToTopFast is a much faster fork of the classic goToTop script that also adds compatibility for Minerva and Vector 2022.
Without caching. Each script takes 400–500ms. A particularly large script takes 1.11 s! Internet download speed is 50 Mbps.With caching enabled. Each script takes just 1-2 ms to load.
Unfortunately, this section has remained nearly identical. Help us out here!
To a lesser extent, the same goes for PrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
Dragoniez/SuppressEnterInForm stops you from accidentally submitting anything due to pressing enter while in the smaller box, and works on almost anything... except the InputBox element itself, used in subscription lists and the Signpost Crossword! Oh, the humanity!
Doǵu/Adiutor(pictured) provides a nice, integrated interface to do some twinkley tasks such as copyvio detection, CSD tagging, and viewing the most recent diff.
Eejit43 has quite the aesthetically pleasing scripts, all made in TypeScript.
/afcrc-helper is a replacement for the unmaintained Enterprisey/AFCRHS and processes Redirects for Creation and Categories for Creation requests.
/ajax-undo stops the "undo" button from taking you to another page while providing a text box to provide a reason for the revert.
/redirect-helper(pictured) adds a much better interface for editing and redirects, including categorization, for which valid categories are dictated by /redirect-helper.json.
/rmtr-helper helps process technical requested moves without being able to actually move them.
Guycn2/UserInfoPopup(pictured) adds a flyout after the watchlist star on userspace pages that displays the common information you might use about a user.
Jeeputer/editCounter, under userspace, adds a portlet link to count your edits by namespace, put them in a table, and put that table in a hardcoded subpage, all in the background.
Hilst/Scripts/sectionLinks converts all section links to use the § sign, which are known to be preferred over the ugly # by 99% of the devils I've met.
PrimeHunter/Category source.js adds portlet links to tell you where a category for an article comes from and supports those from template transclusions.
Sophivorus's MiniEdit adds some nice, li'l buttons next to paragraphs to edit their wikitext with a minimal interface.
Dragoniez/ToollinkTweaks adds more and customizable links next to users in page history, logs, watchlist, recent changes, etc.
Firefly/more-block-info optimizes the display of rangeblocks in contribution pages. Doesn't work outside the English locale of any wiki, unfortunately.
NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh/AjaxLoader makes paging links (e.g. older 50, 500, newest) load without refreshing and makes you realize how slow your internet actually is.
Ahecht/RedirectID adds the redirect target to all redirects. For all the WP:NAVPOPS haters. (Do these exist?)
Dragoniez/MarkBLockedGlobal: Remember the "strike blocked usernames" gadget? Now you can use a red, dotted line to highlight rangeblocks and global locks!
Jonesey/common(pictured) has some styles to overhaul your Vector 2022 experience. It reduces padding everywhere, and makes the top bar animation faster.
Aaron Liu/V22 is a fork that narrows the sidebars instead of upheaving them, reverts the January 2024 dropdown changes, and restores the old page-link color for links that don't go outside the current wiki.
Nardog: SmartDiff is a spiritual successor to Enterprisey/fancy-diffs. It makes the page title part of links in diffs clickable, along with template and parser function calls. Unnamed parameters can be configured per template to also be linked. All links are styled based on the normal CSS classes of rendered links.
For the paranoid: Rublov/anonymize replaces your username at the top of the screen with the generic "User page" text. Remember, it is your duty to persuade everyone that editing is an honor.
/AjaxBlock provides a dialog box for easy input of reasons while blocking users.
/Selective Rollback(pictured) provides a dialog box to customize rollback edit summaries and does them without reloading the page. Seriously, why doesn't MediaWiki already do this?
/flickrsearch adds a portlet link to search for uploadable flickr images about the subject.
/randomincategory adds a portlet link when on Category pages to go to a random page in the current category.
Vghfr/EasyTemplates adds a portlet link to automatically insert some of the most common inline {{fix}} templates.
Yes, we're just doing 'em as we go now. Thanks for reading through this looong issue, if you did! I'm sure this'll send a record for the longest issue ev-ah. You may need to wait even longer for the last issue, as our reserve of old-y and goodie scripts have ran out... We encourage you to try and do some of the requests or improvement tasks. See you in Summer, hopefully!
Our first double issue in almost four years, although we will try to return to a monthly schedule henceforth (incidentally, the last double issue saw Markham's storm petrel at GAN, and this one sees it finally pass FAC).
The March 2024 GAN Backlog Drive starts today; everyone is welcome to participate and help reduce the backlog of GANs.
The January edition of our monthly rolling contest was won by Quetzal1964 with 100 points from 40 articles, mainly related to various species of marine fish. simongraham was second with 80 points from 14 articles on jumping spiders.
The February edition saw Quetzal1964 win for the second time in a row, with 114 points from 43 articles. In second place was Snoteleks, with 21 points from 7 seven articles on various unicellular eukaryotes, including the GA Telonemia.
January DYKs
... that Dacrytherium, literally meaning 'tear beast', was named after its "tear-pit"? (3 January)
... that the wood-pasture hypothesis posits that semi-open wood pastures and not primeval forests are the natural vegetation of temperate Europe? (5 January)
... that until April 2023, when the genusTriassosculda was discovered, the mantis shrimp fossil record contained a gap of more than a hundred million years? (5 January)
... that although Olga Hartman believed that her basic research on marine worms had no practical value, it was applied to experimental studies of oysters? (6 January)
... that Oxford ivy grows towards the light to bloom and then towards the darkness when going to seed? (17 January)
... that S. F. Light(pictured) disliked using his full name? (20 January)
... that the fossil turtle Acherontemys was named for a "river of the fabled lower world"? (26 January)
... that having lived in Central Park for more than a year after becoming homeless, Flaco(pictured) has been accused of being a peeping tom? (19 February)
Is this an alternate account of yours? If so, please disclose this on your User page along with any other accounts that you work with. Thank you. LizRead!Talk!04:55, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 Special:Book page (as well as the associated "Create a book" functionality) provided by the old Collection extension has been removed from all Wikisource wikis, as it was broken. This does not affect the ability to download normal books, which is provided by the Wikisource extension. [34]
Maintenance on etherpad is completed. If you encounter any issues, please indicate in this ticket.
Gadgets allow interface admins to create custom features with CSS and JavaScript. The Gadget and Gadget_definition namespaces and gadgets-definition-edit user right were reserved for an experiment in 2015, but were never used. These were visible on Special:Search and Special:ListGroupRights. The unused namespaces and user rights are now removed. No pages are moved, and no changes need to be made. [35]
A usability improvement to the "Add a citation" in Wikipedia workflow has been made, the insert button was moved to the popup header. [36]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 March. It will be on all wikis from 7 March (calendar). [37][38]
Future changes
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. 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. [39]
The HTML markup of headings and section edit links will be changed later this year to improve accessibility. See Heading HTML changes for details. The new markup will be the same as in the new Parsoid wikitext parser. You can test your gadget or stylesheet with the new markup if you add ?useparsoid=1 to your URL (more info) or turn on Parsoid read views in your user options (more info).
I asked a question in the Talk section, but before I created an account. I have donated year after year but never created an account, just enjoyed using wiki, until I came across something that doesn't seem correct based on my experience. In the Magnesium Citrate page Magnesium_citrate it lists 20g/100ml solubility, but I can only get 2g/100ml. This looks like it is off by a decimal. I created an account just now. My question to you is how do I get my account associated with that question? (if I am correct I want to edit that and get credit) Thank you! --GregDeemy (talk) 02:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
No. But based on my experiment the value in Wiki is not only incorrect, it is off by an order of magnitude. I am asking other people to try to dissolve the amount that Wiki says is correct and see if it is really correct (it is not correct). If there is another way to get this corrected, please let me know. GregDeemy (talk) 01:00, 16 March 2024 (UTC) To be clear, I think the value is off by a decimal point - a typographical error.Reply
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
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 12 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 13 March. It will be on all wikis from 14 March (calendar). [40][41]
After consulting with various communities, the line height of the text on the Minerva skin will be increased to its previous value of 1.65. Different options for typography can also be set using the options in the menu, as needed. [42]
The active link color in Minerva will be changed to provide more consistency with our other platforms and best practices. [43]
Structured data on Commons will no longer ask whether you want to leave the page without saving. This will prevent the “information you’ve entered may not be saved” popups from appearing when no information have been entered. It will also make file pages on Commons load faster in certain cases. However, the popups will be hidden even if information has indeed been entered. If you accidentally close the page before saving the structured data you entered, that data will be lost. [44]
Future changes
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. 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. [45][46]
Linguza, welcome to Wikipedia! In articles, it depends. If you are adding a view or opinion of the source or the person who wrote it, you can elect to use quotes, or you can also paraphrase it (a mix of both is usually the best option). Otherwise, if the source presents factual information, write the content in your own words, unless using a quote is helpful for context or further understanding. Best, — Frostly (talk) 00:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi mentor. I used to operate another Wikipedia account but unfortunately it was banned due to some errors. I like contributing to this website and I don't wanna get banned again. Can you tell something more about such policies? And where are you from btw? --Dipayanrao2003 (talk) 10:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't exactly remember my last username (I think it's something like my current username) but I remember that I was banned for a particular duration but the ban period was regularly extended. Dipayanrao2003 (talk) 02:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 notice "Language links are at the top of the page" that appears in the Vector 2022 skin main menu has been removed now that users have learned the new location of the Language switcher. [47]
IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers. [48]
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. [49][50][51]
RevisionSlider is an interface to interactively browse a page's history. Users in right-to-left languages reported RevisionSlider reacting wrong to mouse clicks. This should be fixed now. [53]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar). [54][55]
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. [56][57]
Hello, if an article has been flagged as possible advertisement. Fails WP:NCORP how is it possible to edit it so it wouldn't get deleted? --Linguza (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would like to add new content regarding several people’s historical contribution in a few areas that I am personally knowledgeable about. One is my father (now deceased) that made a huge impact in early mechanical mining.
Hello
I'm new in wikipedia and so excited about it!
I wanted to create an article that was missed in the site.
I wondered if it's possible to do that although I'm a begginer, and wanted to ask you for a guidance in order to do that.
Thank you very much --Amal institute (talk) 04:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello mentor.
How do I update or create an article about an organization details or another person details? I mean the format to use. --JOSE LG22 (talk) 14:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
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
Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed. [60]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (calendar). [61][62]
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment on the talk page.
Backlog update: The October drive reduced the article backlog from 11,626 to 7,609 and the redirect backlog from 16,985 to 6,431! Congratulations to Schminnte, who led with over 2,300 points.
Following that, New Page Patrol organized another backlog drive for articles in January 2024. The January drive started with 13,650 articles and reduced the backlog to 7,430 articles. Congratulations to JTtheOG, who achieved first place with 1,340 points in this drive.
Looking at the graph, it seems like backlog drives are one of the only things keeping the backlog under control. Another backlog drive is being planned for May. Feel free to participate in the May backlog drive planning discussion.
It's worth noting that both queues are gradually increasing again and are nearing 14,034 articles and 22,540 redirects. We encourage you to keep contributing, even if it's just a single patrol per day. Your support is greatly appreciated!
2023 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2023 cup with 17,761 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 50/day. There was one Platinum Award (10,000+ reviews), 2 Gold Awards (5000+ reviews), 6 Silver (2000+), 8 Bronze (1000+), 30 Iron (360+) and 70 more for the 100+ barnstar. Hey man im josh led on redirect reviews by clearing 36,175 of them. For the full details, see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone for their efforts in reviewing!
Recruitment: A couple of the coordinators have been inviting editors to become reviewers, via mass-messages to their talk pages. If you know someone who you'd think would make a good reviewer, then a personal invitation to them would be great. Additionally, if there are Wikiprojects that you are active on, then you can add a post there asking participants to join NPP. Please be careful not to double invite folks that have already been invited.
Reviewing tip: Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages within their most familiar subjects can use the regularly updated NPP Browser tool.
Hello there, in the page of tholkapiyam there is mentioned as Hindu gods,and as on that century no Hindu saying in that century.. please recorrect --Annache3 (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi Frostly, when writing an edit summary, you can use /* [Section] */ to specify where you edited. Is there a way to be more specific than that, for a subsection? Example: I'm working on the page 2024 in archaeology, there is a "Finds" section and an "Events" section, both have subsections named after months (i.e. April). How do I go about specifying if I edited in Finds' April versus Events' April? Thanks! --Dmhll (talk) 06:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
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
Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings. [65]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar). [66][67]
New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. [68]
Hello and welcome to the April 2024 newsletter, a quarterly digest of Guild activities since December. Don't forget you can unsubscribe at any time; see below. We extend a warm welcome to all of our new members. We wish you all happy copy-editing.
Election results: In our December 2023 coordinator election, Zippybonzo stepped down as coordinator; we thank them for their service. Incumbents Dhtwiki and Miniapolis were reelected coordinators, and Wracking was newly elected coordinator, to serve through 30 June. Nominations for our mid-year Election of Coordinators will open on 1 June (UTC).
Drive: 46 editors signed up for our January Backlog Elimination Drive, 32 of whom claimed at least one copy-edit. Between them, they copy-edited 289 articles totaling 626,729 words. Barnstars awarded are here.
Blitz: 23 editors signed up for our February Copy Editing Blitz. 18 claimed at least one copy-edit and between them, they copy-edited 100,293 words in 32 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.
Drive: 53 editors signed up for our March Backlog Elimination Drive, 34 of whom claimed at least one copy-edit. Between them, they copy-edited 300 articles totaling 587,828 words. Barnstars awarded are here.
Blitz: Sign up for our April Copy Editing Blitz, which runs from 14 to 20 April. Barnstars will be awarded here.
Progress report: As of 23:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors have processed 109 requests since 1 January 2024, and the backlog stands at 2,480 articles.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from Baffle gab1978 and your GOCE coordinators Dhtwiki, Miniapolis and Wracking.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
We are approaching the end of the 2024 WikiCup's second round, with a little over two weeks remaining. Currently, contestants must score at least 105 points to progress to the third round.
Competitors may submit work for the second round until the end of 28 April, and the third round starts 1 May. Remember that only competitors with the top 32 scores will make it through to the third round. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs. As a reminder, competitors are strictly prohibited from gaming Wikipedia policies or processes to receive more points.
Péter Fried is the leading operatic basso singer in the Hungarian State Opera. He has won more prizes of his musical life: the "Liszt" Prize, the "Bartók" Award, and the “Artisjus" Prize of the Hungarian Contemporary Composers.
He had success with his most important roles from the U.S. to Japan in the famous concert-halls and opera houses, e.g., Toronto, Baltimore, Washington, Tokyo, Nagoya,Barcelona, Grenoble, Paris, London, Roma, Brussels, Nizza, Monte Carlo, Bayreuth, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Bangkok, Vienna, Köln, Stuttgart, Amsterdam,Rotterdam.
He had an exclusive contract with Pierre Boulez Management for ten years. He was a returning guest star at famous festivals: PROMS BBC in Barbican Hall, in Royal Albert Hall, in Beaux-Arts (BOZAR)-Brussels, in Paris Salle Pleyel, Cité de la Musique, in Saint Denis Festival, Ravenna Festival-all of which were broadcast by Eurovision and by EUB, and Santa Cecilia Hall Roma, Cologne-Festival, Nashville Festival U.S., and Lincoln Center New-York.
Péter Fried has other performances, e.g., in Schönberg's Die Glückliche Hand in Beaux-Arts in Brussels, conducted by Boulez, recorded by Radio Benelux, and also performed in Royal Albert Hall, recorded by the BBC. He had a personal invitation from Péter Eötvös to his own opera Three Sisters Solioni’s role in the Opera National de Lyon and in Wiener Festwochen, and he sang the Seneca role of Monteverdi‘s Poppea in London.He has performed the title role of "Bluebeard" on more than 100 invitations around the world. Bartók‘s Bluebeard's Castle was performed by Péter Fried and conducted by Péter Eötvös in Stuttgart. The CD of this performance was recorded by SWR in 2004 and has won Grammy Award Nomination.
In 2006, Pierre Boulez invited Péter Fried to play the title role in "Bluebeard Duke" at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, which he conducted. Judith's role was sung by Ms. Jessye Norman. This performance has won the “year of the best classical music concert” title and was recorded by Radio France. He had more important performances also in the USA, recorded by the BBC, NBC, and CBS, and in Torino, recorded by RAI.
Péter Fried has other performances, e.g., in Schönberg's Die Glückliche Hand in Beaux-Arts in Brussels, conducted by Boulez, recorded by Radio Benelux, and also performed in Royal Albert Hall, recorded by the BBC. He had a personal invitation from Péter Eötvös to his own opera Three Sisters Slioni’s role in the Opera National de Lyon and in "Wiener Festwochen," and he sang Seneca's role in Monteverdi‘s Poppea in London.
He has made his opera debuts at the Opera de Monte-Carlo in Handel's Judas Maccabeus, in the role of Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute in Monaco, and in the role of Ramfis in Verdi's Aida in the Grand Arena Pula’s.
He sang many times in the Budapest Spring Festival, the King Henrik in Wagner‘s Lohengrin and the role of Landgraf Hermann Wagners Tannhãuser as a partner of Linda Watson,Riccarda Marberth, and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor with Edita Gruberova.
Péter Fried has received more invitations from world-famous conductors, e.g. Sir Yehudi Menuhin,Pierre Boulez, Péter Eötvös, Philippe Jordan, Rico Saccani, Jurij Simonov, Pierre Giorgio Morandi, Richard Bradshaw, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and famous directors such as Vilppu Kiljunen, Calixto Bieito, Laurent Pelly, Robert Lepage, and Katharina Wagner.
Péter Fried’s most important opera roles are:
Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle, title roll
Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea-Seneca
Mozart: Cosi fan tutte-Don Alfonso,
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte-Sarastro
Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail-Osmin
Beethoven: Fidelio-Rocco
Verdi: Don Carlo: II.Philipp
Verdi: Aida +- Ramfis
Verdi: Macbeth-Banquo,
Verdi: Rigoletto, Sparafucile,
Wagner: Lohengrin, King Henrik
Wagner: Tannhäuser, Landgraf Hermann,
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande - Roi Arkel
Puccini: La Boheme, Colline,
Puccini: Turandot, Timur,
Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Basilio
Rossini: La Cenerentola: Alidoro
Tchakowsky: Onegin-Gremin
Borodin: Prince Igor-Khan Kontchak
Schönberg: Die Glückliche Hand
Goldmark: Die Königin in Saba
Péter Fried’s oratorio repertoire (extract)
Handel: Judas Maccabeus: Kaleb,
Handel. Saul, Title Roll
Handel: Messiah, Arias Basso
J.S. Bach: St. Matthew - Passion
J.S. Bach: Christmas oratorio
J.S. Bach: Mass in B-minor
J.S. Bach: Magnificat
J.S. Bach: Phoebus and Pan
Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten
Haydn: Die Schöpfung
Beethoven: IX Symphony
Mozart: Requiem
Rossini: Stabat Mater
Dvorak: Stabat Mater
Verdi: Requiem
Songs-Lieder:
Péter Fried has sung Lieders from many musical ages, e.g.: of preclassical, of baroque,
of classical and romantic composers. His preferred age is "Deutsche Lied, not
only the Wiener Classical composer's work, but inclusive Schubert’s, Schumann’s,
Wolf's, Brahms’s lieder, and so many others also. Track3000 (talk) 19:40, 14 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Track3000, I see that you've submitted a draft for review about this topic! Please let me know if there's any questions that I can answer for you. Sincerely, Frostly (talk) 03:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
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
Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "Reverted" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed. [69][70]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar). [71][72]
Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked). [73]
A new variable page_last_edit_age will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made. [74]
Future changes
Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the abuse_filter and abuse_filter_history tables. Some queries might need to be updated. [75]
Hi, can you please help me? I am blocked for fixing a little typo and have been told that I did "vandalism", although I actually only fixed a typo (last time I haven't have an account). I am sorry if this is actually not allowed. Can you please help me unblock my IP address? --GlowFrog1912 (talk) 14:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
I added to an article but I now think that it’s more of my personal opinion. I also didn’t reference a scripture verse properly that I noted. I’m not sure if this post is correct and acceptable because it’s of an opinion nature. I’m thinking I should remove it. --The Lane Vision (talk) 04:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello. When I was three years old (1953) living in Victor Iowa, I used to play with the women who became the 1968 Miss America and I am looking for contact information so I can ask her if she remembers any of that. --Eastmanlaw (talk) 23:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.
If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.
Growth features are currently configurable at Special:EditGrowthConfig. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.
An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.
In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.
The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:
The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
The likelihood that they are retained as newcomers (+24.3% over baseline)
The number of edits they make during their first two weeks on the wiki (+21.8% over baseline)
A lower probability of the newcomers' edits will be reverted (-3.3% over baseline).
This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)
As in previous years, donors were directed to a Thank you page after donation (example). However, this year we tested a new “Try editing Wikipedia,” call to action on the Thank You page. This call to action linked to a unique account creation page. From this account creation page we were able to track Registrations and Activation (editing for the first time). During the English banner campaign, the Donor Thank you page led to 4,398 new accounts, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours. (T352900)
Annual Plan
The Growth team and the Editing team will work on the WE1.2 Key Result in the coming fiscal year. We will start initial discussions with communities soon to help finalize our plans. (T361657)
We plan to A/B test adding a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We are early in the planning phase of this project that will take place first at our pilot wikis and wikis volunteering. We welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.
The second round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 April. This round was particularly competitive: each of the 32 contestants who advanced to Round 3 scored at least 141 points. This is the highest number of points required to advance to Round 3 since 2014.
The following scorers in Round 2 all scored more than 500 points:
BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 548 points, mostly from a featured article about the snooker player John Pulman, two featured lists, and one good article;
The full scores for Round 2 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 18 featured articles, 22 featured lists, and 186 good articles, 76 in the news credits and at least 200 did you know credits. They have conducted 165 featured article reviews, as well as 399 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 21 articles to featured topics and good topics.
Remember that any content promoted after 28 April but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed during Round 3, which starts on 1 May at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.
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
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Vietnamese Wikipedia. These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this test gave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks. [80]
Kartographer maps can use an alternative visual style without labels, by using mapstyle="osm". This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed. [89]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar). [90][91]
Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531
You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.
This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
The newsletter will not be returning to a monthly format (mainly because the author is busy failing every exam imaginable) and is on a bimonthly schedule for the foreseeable future.
The second round of the WikiCup was very competitive, requiring the highest points total to advance since 2014. Two TOL editors, AryKun and Fritzmann2002, advanced to the third round.
The March edition of our monthly rolling contest was won by simongraham, who amassed 118 points from 21 articles on various species of jumping spider; in second place was Quetzal1964 with 109 points from 53 articles on marine ray-finned fish.
Quetzal1964 and simongraham were also the top two in the April edition, although Quetzal was ahead this time, with 68 points to simongraham's 48. In the annual leaderboard, Quetzal and simongraham are in first and second place respectively, with 291 and 246 points; in third place is Snotoleks, with 76 points.
... that the cherry blossom was used symbolically in Japanese World War II propaganda, with falling petals representing "young soldiers' sacrifice for the emperor"? (8 March)
... that the Kīlauea lava cricket disappears from a lava field as soon as any plants start to grow there? (13 March)
... that Julian Assange's lawyer argued that the rules set by the Ecuadorian embassy requiring Assange to take care of his pet cat Michi were "denigrating"? (13 March)
... that mule deer sometimes prefer the flavor of one Rocky Mountain juniper tree, like "ice cream", over another? (21 March)
... that the skeleton panda sea squirt was known on the Internet for its skeleton-like appearance years before its formal description? (26 March)
... that only one fruit but several thousand seeds were known when Allenbya collinsonae was named? (26 March)
... that while named for alliums, the fossil Paleoallium(pictured) was not necessarily directly related to any allium species? (27 March)
... that the extinct genus Mixtotherium, meaning 'mixed beast', has traits of both extinct primates and hyraxes? (28 March)
... that the fossil fern Dickwhitea was described from a single block of chert? (28 March)
... that only six years after its 2016 discovery, the Meratus blue flycatcher(pictured) was found being sold in Indonesian songbird markets? (30 March)
... that the spirit liverwort is called such because of its proximity to the Māori afterlife? (31 March)
... that cultures of the fungus Lentinus brumalis have been flown on three different satellites? (31 March)
... that the English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper claimed that eating alkanet leaves would make a person's spit deadly to serpents? (31 March)
Eufriesea purpurata
Korowai gecko
Paleoallium billgenseli fossil
Male Meratus blue flycatcher
April DYKs
... that despite its name meaning 'unscented', Hypericum × inodorum can smell strongly of goat? (1 April)
... that color-changing cats(artist's impression pictured) could help us communicate with the future? (2 April)
... that the white-tailed jay(example pictured) found in Ecuador and Peru was once thought to have been brought to Mexico by pre-Columbian trade? (5 April)
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
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks. [92][93]
Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the SiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page. [94]
Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services. [95]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar). [96][97]
When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs". [98]
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 Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word __EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list. [100]
If you use the user-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page. [101]
Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the alt= attribute. This is identical in usage to the alt= attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive. [102]
The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people. [103]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar). [104][105]
The Special:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure. [106]
Future changes
In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more. [107]
Two columns of the pagelinks database table (pl_namespace and pl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new linktarget table instead (lt_namespace and lt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
Replace JOIN pagelinks with JOIN linktarget and pl_ with lt_ in the ON statement
Below that add JOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id
Hello Mentor. I am struggling to find those pages of my niche to, where I have the expertise to edit. Even thought I am using the topic filters but still I am struggling to find where I can contribute the best. My niches - India, government schemes of india, blogging, digital skills, laghu udyog, NGOs in India, etc. Please help. --Jagrukbanoindia (talk) 18:22, 16 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. [110]
New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description. [111][112]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [113][114]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
Brugabysebreka, Wikipedia is not a web hosting service. If you are interested in using the wiki technology for a collaborative effort on something else, even just a single page, many free and commercial sites provide wiki hosting. You can also install wiki software on your own server. See the installation guide at MediaWiki.org for information on doing this. — Frostly (talk) 16:37, 22 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
I want to update an article ("Thomas Bernard 1750-1818") based on a 1911 public-domain source, which is badly outdated and misses the most important and influential parts of his career while focusing on minor parts. Can I rewrite the whole thing, or do I need to work with 1911 as the base text? I will be providing many citations from the history of science scholarship and some of my own published research.
Please advise,
@ThomasDibdin, I'm not sure that I fully understand your question, but it's completely fine to rewrite an entire article to improve its content and references! There are some considerations for citing work by yourself. Best, Frostly (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, this is what I needed to know; I'll also be sparing with any references to my own work.
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
Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: .collapsible, .multicol, .reflist, .coordinates, .topicon. Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar). [115][116]
When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules. [117]
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
It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [118]
The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [119]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [121][122]
Future changes
Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.
Hi,
I am reaching out to you because you are listed as my mentor and I do need help with Wikipedia. I recently created an article and I received a message from “Air on White (talk)” saying the following (among some other stuff but this is the important part):
Hello, Titusunlimited, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as User:Titusunlimited, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's content policies and may not be retained. In short, the topic of an article must be notable and have already been the subject of publication by reliable and independent sources.
Please review Your first article for an overview of the article creation process.
I sent a response saying the following but I haven’t received an answer:
I wanted to create a bio page so when people google me they can see a short description of myself form a reliable source: me. I am not sure if "creating an article" was the right approach and I would appreciate the help/guidance because wikipedia seems quite convoluted and it is not easy to publish anything. I referenced extensively as I have had many interviews and features so I am not sure what exactly goes against the guidelines. I also wanted to add a picture/s but could not figure out how. Can you please assist?
Thanks,
Jean Titus --Titusunlimited (talk) 14:25, 6 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Understood but, if I don't write it myself, how do I get it written? There is enough notoriety and references I can use and I am not looking to write anything self-aggrandizing...just something simple that is mostly matter of fact and basic. Can you provide some guidance? Thanks! Titusunlimited (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello and welcome to the June 2024 newsletter, a quarterly-ish digest of Guild activities since April. Don't forget you can unsubscribe at any time; see below.
Election news: Wanted: new Guild coordinators! If you value and enjoy the GOCE, why not help out behind the scenes? Nominations for our mid-year coordinator election are now open until 23:59 on 15 June (UTC). Self-nominations are welcome. Voting commences at 00:01 on 16 June and continues until 23:50 on 30 June. Results will be announced at the election page.
Blitz: Nine of the fourteen editors who signed up for the April 2024 Copy Editing Blitz copy edited at least one article. Between them, they copy edited 55,853 words comprising twenty articles. Barnstars awarded are available here.
Drive: 58 editors signed up for our May 2024 Backlog Elimination Drive and 33 of those completed at least one copy edit. 251 articles and 475,952 words were copy edited. Barnstars awarded are here.
Progress report: As of 05:23, 8 June 2024 (UTC) , GOCE copyeditors have completed 161 requests since 1 January and the backlog stands at 2,779 articles.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from Baffle gab1978 and your GOCE coordinators Dhtwiki, Miniapolis and Wracking.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Hi I was wondering what the policy is for creating an article about someone who is "notable" but only in a specific area or region? For example I was thinking about creating an article on a pro wrestler here in the Appalachian mountains. He has won several championships here and has helped to raise a lot of money for charity so my question is would he be considered an appropriate topic for an article? --Eastkygirl (talk) 01:33, 9 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello. I think The Atlanta Dream team would be a lot better if we could get Sami Whitcomb. She is a knock down 3 point shooter. Adding another 3 point shooter could help the team with a penetrating guard like J. Canada. --Dreamdogg (talk) 23:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
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 software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering. [123]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [124]
Problems
There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed. [125]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [126][127]
The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [128]
On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [129]
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
People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details. [130]
The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page. [133]
Problems
Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center. [134]
Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here. [135]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar). [136][137]
Starting June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable. [138]
Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software. [139]
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
Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage. [140]
The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode. [141]
Problems
You can copy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp. This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug. [142]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [143][144]
Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [145]
The third round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 28 June. As with Round 2, this round was competitive: each of the 16 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 256 points.
The following editors all scored more than 400 points in Round 3:
Sammi Brie (submissions) with 557 points, mostly from 1 featured article on KNXV-TV, 5 good articles, and 8 did you know nominations; and
AryKun (submissions) with 415 points, mostly from 1 featured article on Great cuckoo-dove, with a high number of bonus points from that article.
The full scores for round 3 can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 28 featured articles, 38 featured lists, 240 good articles, 92 in the news credits, and at least 285 did you know credits. They have conducted 279 featured article reviews, as well as 492 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 22 articles to featured topics and good topics.
Remember that any content promoted after 28 June but before the start of Round 4 can be claimed during Round 4, which starts on 1 July at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.
Not sure if your article qualifies? See the guidelines for more information or contact a coordinator for verification.
New to Wikipedia? Many experienced editors are part of this contest and willing to help; feel free to ask questions about the contest on the talk page.
Know someone else who might be interested? Sign-ups remain open until 15 July, so don't hesitate to invite other editors!
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
Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of the top-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information in the latest Web team update. [146]
Logged-in users can now set global preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis. [147]
If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use new CSS features and to send less code to all readers. [148][149]
Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily using Community Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configure Growth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months. [150]
Editors interested in language issues that are related to Unicode standards, can now discuss those topics at a new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now a member of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on your wiki. This extension helps in managing and making events more visible, giving Event organizers the ability to use tools like the Event registration tool. To learn more about the deployment status and how to request this extension for your wiki, visit the CampaignEvents page on Meta-wiki.
Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin, has been fixed.
Future changes
The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introduce temporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team has created documentation explaining how to do the update. Learn more.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page. [153]
Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.
Hi Frostly!
I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, but I'd like to know how to flag a discrepancy between a cited claim in the body of a wikipedia article and the linked sources.
Thanks! --Foobaru (talk) 02:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 63, May – June 2024
HI FROSTY I WAS WONDERING CAN I COPEY ANYTHING AND PUT IT INTO A BOOK IF I GIVE WICKIPEDIA CREDIT AND PUT IN A BILBRYOGRAPHY ? --Hosecrazy (talk) 20:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature News
Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [154]
Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [155]
Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [156]
Project Updates
Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.
Learn more
Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.
Hi! I'm new to this and am someone who doesn't know much about coding (some very, very basic stuff). I was trying to use the VisualEditor, as that is easier for me to use. My issue is: I'm trying to add reference links and want to put spaces between the items. I see someone else used a template for their reference and I'm not sure how to add what I want either using the template, or just adding my info without using the template. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! --Melodic Poetry Rowing (talk) 08:32, 28 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.
Bugs status
Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [157]
The Growth team released Community Configuration at all Wikipedias. You can access it at Special:CommunityConfiguration.
This new special page replaces Special:EditGrowthConfig. For now, all Growth features can be configured using Community Configuration. Configuration for AutoModerator (T365046) and other features will be available in the future.
We will add a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We have released a simple version available to beta wikis. We will conduct an A/B test at our pilot wikis using the new Metrics Platform. We still welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.
As part of the Growth team 2024/2025 Annual Plan, the Growth team will explore various ways to increase the percentage of newcomers who successfully start editing.
Editing a Wikipedia page requires too much context and patience. It means many trial and error for newcomers to contribute, meaning a steeper learning curve and potential discouraging reverts. To support a new generation of volunteers, we will increase the number and availability of smaller, structured, and more task-specific editing workflows (E.g. Edit Check and Structured Tasks). The Growth team will primarily focus on Structured Tasks, while working closely with the Editing team to ensure our work integrates well with Edit Check.
Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work. If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.
Hey there, welcome to the 25th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 1 March 2024. We've got a ton of wonderful editors taking back their pitchforks today. Don't worry, for they come in peace, to forcibly fix and extend existing scripts you use with sheer passion. There's so many, them forks have got what's basically their own column now! gift us with some rows before it's too late Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
To a lesser extent, the same goes for PrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
An easily configurable script to add a link to the #p-vector-user-menu-overflow portlet with a name, target, and icon. This one should be a relatively easier one. I would do it myself, but I'm too busy rotting away on Celeste (video game).
After the ＲＩＩＪ update, Aaron Liu: Watchlyst Greybar Unsin has a dismiss button that allows you to mark an item as read in one click and cycle to the next Watchlist item.
Lordseriouspig/StatusChangerImproved is just like Enterprisey's script, except you select your status from a dropdown instead of cycling through them with a button. The WMF operates out of car-centric infrastructure anyway. Shame!
Aaron Liu has created Duplinks from Evad37/duplinks-alt; his fork adds a config variable to automatically highlight duplicate links on the loading of any page where the portlet link would've appeared.
Tired of staring at a bunch of filtering text and waiting for darn filter logs to load? Msz2001/AbuseFilter analyzer can parse abuse filters into a visual syntax tree and evaluate locally on-demand!
Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences finds references with the same link and displays the number of them along with a button to add the {{duplicated citations}} tag under the references section. Being lazy has never been easier!
fastest gun on the net Ponor/really-quick-block really quick add to contribution lists three buttons awesome
The 2024 Developing Countries WikiContest has now been running for a month, and we've already seen some momentous improvement in the quality of many articles about underrepresented subjects! So far, our top-scoring participants are:
Magentic Manifestations (submissions) – 338 points, mainly from nine good articles. He's a contender for the "most submissions for a single country" specialty award, with nine submissions for India.
Arconning (submissions) – 305 points, including from six seasonally-appropriate Olympics-related good articles.
Generalissima (submissions) – 290 points, the bulk from her featured article about Greenlandic interpreter Qalaherriaq and two China-related good articles.
Thebiguglyalien (submissions) – 144 points from three good articles, including two about Kiribati elections, and four reviews of good article nominees.
Looking for ways to climb up the leaderboard yourself? Help out your fellow participants by answering a few review requests, particularly the older entries. Several more nominations needing attention are listed at eligible reviews, and highlighed entries receive a 1.5× multiplier! The coordinators would like to extend a special thanks to Thebiguglyalien (submissions) for his commitment to keeping these review pages up to date.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [158][159]
Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.
Project updates
Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.
hi there, I created an account to suggest an edit cause I don't know how to edit and never done it before. I posted a topic in the "talk" section of Lowitja O'Donohouge's page. Was this okay to do? --AngryDorito (talk) 05:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [162]
Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [163][164]
Bugs status
Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.
Learn more
The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Administrators can now test the temporary accounts feature on test2wiki. This was done to allow cross-wiki testing of temporary accounts, for when temporary accounts switch between projects. The feature was enabled on testwiki a few weeks ago. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Temporary Accounts is a project to create a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors which are no longer made public. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
Later this week, editors at wikis that use FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") may notice that the indicators at the top of articles have changed. This change makes the system more consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface. [165]
Bugs status
Editors who use the 2010 wikitext editor, and use the Character Insert buttons, will no longer experience problems with the buttons adding content into the edit-summary instead of the edit-window. You can read more about that, and 26 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
Please review and vote on Focus Areas, which are groups of wishes that share a problem. Focus Areas were created for the newly reopened Community Wishlist, which is now open year-round for submissions. The first batch of focus areas are specific to moderator workflows, around welcoming newcomers, minimizing repetitive tasks, and prioritizing tasks. Once volunteers have reviewed and voted on focus areas, the Foundation will then review and select focus areas for prioritization.
Do you have a project and are willing to provide a three (3) month mentorship for an intern? Outreachy is a twice a year program for people to participate in a paid internship that will start in December 2024 and end in early March 2025, and they need mentors and projects to work on. Projects can be focused on coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, research). See the Outreachy page for more details, and a list of past projects since 2013.
Learn more
If you're curious about the product and technology improvements made by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, read this recent highlights summary on Diff.
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
The fourth round of the 2024 WikiCup ended on 29 August. Each of the 8 contestants who advanced to Round 4 scored at least 472 points, and the following contestants scored more than 700 points:
Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated. Contestants put in extraordinary amounts of effort during this round, and their scores can be seen here. So far this year, competitors have gotten 36 featured articles, 55 featured lists, 15 good articles, 93 in the news credits, and at least 333 did you know credits. They have conducted 357 featured content reviews, as well as 553 good article reviews and peer reviews, and have added 30 articles to featured topics and good topics.
Any content promoted after 29 August but before the start of Round 5 can be claimed during Round 5, which starts on 1 September at 00:00 (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. If two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether for a good article, featured content, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Remember to claim your points within 14 days of earning them, and importantly, before the deadline on 31 October.
I have to create a Wikipedia page for GIGL summaries. It's an Indian startup all my information is backed by published news on different channels. How can I proceed with editing? --Anugigl2024 (talk) 05:18, 31 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.
Miscellaneous
Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualisation can now test the new software for charts. Its early version is available on beta Commons and beta Wikipedia. This is an important milestone before making charts available on regular wikis. You can read more about this project update and help to test the charts.
Feature news
Editors who use the Special:UnusedTemplates page can now filter out pages which are expected to be there permanently, such as sandboxes, test-cases, and templates that are always substituted. Editors can add the new magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ to a template page to hide it from the listing. Thanks to Sophivorus and DannyS712 for these improvements. [166]
Editors who use the New Topic tool on discussion pages, will now be reminded to add a section header, which should help reduce the quantity of newcomers who add sections without a header. You can read more about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Last week, some Toolforge tools had occasional connection problems. The cause is still being investigated, but the problems have been resolved for now. [167]
Translation administrators at multilingual wikis, when editing multiple translation units, can now easily mark which changes require updates to the translation. This is possible with the new dropdown menu.
Project updates
A new draft text of a policy discussing the use of Wikimedia's APIs has been published on Meta-Wiki. The draft text does not reflect a change in policy around the APIs; instead, it is an attempt to codify existing API rules. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome on the proposed update’s talk page until September 13 or until those discussions have concluded.
Learn more
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
The Developing Countries WikiContest has now been running for two months, and we've seen tremendous improvement in the encyclopedic coverage of several underrepresented areas from a wide range of editors! The coordinators would like to highlght some of the newer faces who have been making notable contributions in the contest, including but by no means limited to:
Only one month remains until the end of the contest, so it's time to make your remaining nominations! Please consider answering some review requests, particularly the older entries, as a way of helping out your fellow participants and moving up the leaderboard. Good luck!
Hello, I am trying to add a missing title to Pico Iyer's entry. It is Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells (2019) I have seen it referenced many times, have read the book, and possibly seen a Wiki entry for the book title although I am not finding that at the moment. I have opened a Wiki account and tried unsuccessfully several times to add this title to his bibliography. --Giniam814 (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello @Giniam814, apologies for the late reply. The book does appear to be on the page, near the end of the list at Pico Iyer#Books. Am I missing something here? Anyways this seems like a really cool author, thanks for the suggestion and have fun reading! Justiyaya11:54, 13 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Starting this week, the standard syntax highlighter will receive new colors that make them compatible in dark mode. This is the first of many changes to come as part of a major upgrade to syntax highlighting. You can learn more about what's to come on the help page. [169][170]
Editors of wikis using Wikidata will now be notified of only relevant Wikidata changes in their watchlist. This is because the Lua functions entity:getSitelink() and mw.wikibase.getSitelink(qid) will have their logic unified for tracking different aspects of sitelinks to reduce junk notifications from inconsistent sitelinks tracking. [171]
Project updates
Users of all Wikis will have access to Wikimedia sites as read-only for a few minutes on September 25, starting at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [172]
Contributors of 11 Wikipedias, including English will have a new MOS namespace added to their Wikipedias. This improvement ensures that links beginning with MOS: (usually shortcuts to the Manual of Style) are not broken by Mooré Wikipedia (language code mos). [173]
Hello and welcome to the September newsletter, a quarterly digest of Guild activities since June. Don't forget you can unsubscribe at any time; see below.
Election news: Project coordinators play an important role in our WikiProject. Following the mid-year Election of Coordinators, we welcomed Mox Eden to the coordinator team. Dhtwiki remains as Lead Coordinator, and Miniapolis and Wracking returned as assistant coordinators. If you'd like to help out behind the scenes, please consider taking part in our December election – watchlist our ombox for updates. Information about the role of coordinators can be found here.
Blitz: 13 of the 24 editors who signed up for the June 2024 Copy Editing Blitz copy edited at least one article. Between them, they copy edited 169,404 words comprising 41 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.
Drive: 38 of the 59 editors who signed up for the July 2024 Backlog Elimination Drive copy edited at least one article. Between them, they copy edited 482,133 words comprising 293 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.
Blitz: 10 of the 15 editors who signed up for the August 2024 Copy Editing Blitz copy edited at least one article. Between them, they copy edited 71,294 words comprising 31 articles. Barnstars awarded are here.
Drive:Sign up here to earn barnstars in our month-long, in-progress September Backlog Elimination Drive.
Progress report: As of 05:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors have processed 233 requests since 1 January, and the backlog of tagged articles stands at 2,824 articles.
Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we do without you! Cheers from Baffle gab1978 and your GOCE coordinators Dhtwiki, Miniapolis, Mox Eden and Wracking.
To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
I recently made an edit to the Desert Tech wiki page, but it was rejected with the explanation that it constituted advertising or promotion. I find this response disappointing, especially since I invested considerable time ensuring the content adhered to Wikipedia's guidelines. Moreover, the rejection notice did not provide specific details about which sections or content were problematic, leaving me unsure about how to improve my contribution.
To avoid such issues, I closely reviewed similar pages, such as those for Barrett Firearms and B&T Manufacturing, and structured my edits accordingly. These pages contain comparable types of information to what I included in my edits, yet my contribution was still rejected. I would appreciate more specific guidance on which aspects of my edits were deemed promotional so that I can make the necessary adjustments.
I understand and respect Wikipedia's policies, and my intention was not to advertise but to provide factual, well-sourced information that adds value to the Desert Tech page. Any clarification or advice you can provide would be helpful. --RazorKent (talk) 22:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello @UndergradSolidarity4AcademicFreedom, I assume that you are asking for your sandbox. The major issues that I see are relating to biographies of living people, which is quite strict on sourcing. We do not usually see advocacy organizations as reliable, and they seem to be used to support most of the content in the page. Another issue (that sort of go hand in hand with the first one) is notability, Wikipedia requires most subjects to have multiple independent reliable sources discussing it in depth in order for it to have an article (see WP:GNG) and I don't think I see that just yet. Improving sourcing and making sure the new sources are reliable is the first thing you should do.
If you feel like you have corrected much of the issue above, feel free to directly click the blue button on the draft and submit the page for review. Message us back if you have any questions! Justiyaya11:38, 13 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
On the issue of notability, we deem Dr. bin Ghaith notable for an article as his information appears 8 times on the wikipedia page dedicated to 'Human rights in the United Arab Emirates'. Furthermore, he appears in multiple international news sources, and government documents including the United Nations. Members of the same trials as Dr. bin Ghaith such as Ahmed Mansoor and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq have been warranted a dedicated page, with arguably similar levels of information and support.
May I ask if there is an issue with the quantity of the sources, or the sources themselves?
If the page were to be published now, do you feel it would be rejected?
And, what would you suggest in bolstering the notability/reliability of our article, if it is slated to be rejected?
Thanks for the reply, I'm looking to this more carefully and I think I may be wrong in some instances in my initial reply. I think that scholars at risk could be a better source than I initially thought, now that I'm looking at it and discussions surrounding similar organizations. I still won't regard that specific page as usable though, as it is a petition and not meant to be neutral. I think the same might go for the Mena Rights source. If you'd like another opinion, go ask at the teahouse. I would remove all unreliable and primary sources.
Looking at all the sources again, I think middle east eye is probably a reasonably good quality source for the article. I see a lot of sources where the coverage is closer to passing mentions so I'm not entirely sure whether the article meets WP:GNG with the sources currently in the article. You could directly submit the article if you'd like another opinion.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Improvements and Maintenance
Editors interested in templates can help by reading the latest Wishlist focus area, Template recall and discovery, and share your feedback on the talkpage. This input helps the Community Tech team to decide the right technical approach to build. Everyone is also encouraged to continue adding new wishes.
The new automated Special:NamespaceInfo page helps editors understand which namespaces exist on each wiki, and some details about how they are configured. Thanks to DannyS712 for these improvements. [176]
References Check is a feature that encourages editors to add a citation when they add a new paragraph to a Wikipedia article. For a short time, the corresponding tag "Edit Check (references) activated" was erroneously being applied to some edits outside of the main namespace. This has been fixed. [177]
It is now possible for a wiki community to change the order in which a page’s categories are displayed on their wiki. By default, categories are displayed in the order they appear in the wikitext. Now, wikis with a consensus to do so can request a configuration change to display them in alphabetical order. [178]
Tool authors can now access ToolsDB's public databases from both Quarry and Superset. Those databases have always been accessible to every Toolforge user, but they are now more broadly accessible, as Quarry can be accessed by anyone with a Wikimedia account. In addition, Quarry's internal database can now be queried from Quarry itself. This database contains information about all queries that are being run and starred by users in Quarry. This information was already public through the web interface, but you can now query it using SQL. You can read more about that, and 20 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Any pages or tools that still use the very old CSS classes mw-message-box need to be updated. These old classes will be removed next week or soon afterwards. Editors can use a global-search to determine what needs to be changed. It is possible to use the newer cdx-message group of classes as a replacement (see the relevant Codex documentation, and an example update), but using locally defined onwiki classes would be best. [179]
Technical project updates
Next week, all Wikimedia wikis will be read-only for a few minutes. This will start on September 25 at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. This maintenance process also targets other services. The previous switchover took 3 minutes, and the Site Reliability Engineering teams use many tools to make sure that this essential maintenance work happens as quickly as possible. [180]
Tech in depth
The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes details about: research about hook handlers to help simplify development, research about performance improvements, work to improve the REST API for end-users, and more.
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
Hackathon Showcase (45 mins) - 19 short presentations by some of the Hackathon participants, describing some of the projects they worked on, such as automated testing of maintenance scripts, a video-cutting command line tool, and interface improvements for various tools. There are more details and links available in the Phabricator task.
Co-Creating a Sustainable Future for the Toolforge Ecosystem (40 mins) - a roundtable discussion for tool-maintainers, users, and supporters of Toolforge about how to make the platform sustainable and how to evaluate the tools available there.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on Wednesday September 25 at 15:00 UTC. Reading the wikis will not be interrupted, but editing will be paused. These twice-yearly processes allow WMF's site reliability engineering teams to remain prepared to keep the wikis functioning even in the event of a major interruption to one of our data centers.
Updates for editors
A screenshot of the interface for the Alt Text suggested-edit feature
Editors who use the iOS Wikipedia app in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or Chinese, may see the Alt Text suggested-edit experiment after editing an article, or completing a suggested edit using "Add an image". Alt-text helps people with visual impairments to read Wikipedia articles. The team aims to learn if adding alt-text to images is a task that editors can be successful with. Please share any feedback on the discussion page.
The Codex color palette has been updated with new and revised colors for the MediaWiki user interfaces. The most noticeable changes for editors include updates for: dark mode colors for Links and for quiet Buttons (progressive and destructive), visited Link colors for both light and dark modes, and background colors for system-messages in both light and dark modes.
It is now possible to include clickable wikilinks and external links inside code blocks. This includes links that are used within <syntaxhighlight> tags and on code pages (JavaScript, CSS, Scribunto and Sanitized CSS). Uses of template syntax {{…}} are also linked to the template page. Thanks to SD0001 for these improvements. [181]
Two bugs were fixed in the GlobalVanishRequest system by improving the logging and by removing an incorrect placeholder message. [182][183]
The API now enables 5,000 on-demand API requests per month and twice-monthly HTML snapshots freely (gratis and libre). More information on the updates and also improvements to the software development kits (SDK) are explained on the project's blog post. While Wikimedia Enterprise APIs are designed for high-volume commercial reusers, this change enables many more community use-cases to be built on the service too.
The Snapshot API (html dumps) have added beta Structured Contents endpoints (blog post on that) as well as released two beta datasets (English and French Wikipedia) from that endpoint to Hugging Face for public use and feedback (blog post on that). These pre-parsed data sets enable new options for researchers, developers, and data scientists to use and study the content.
In depth
The Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) is used to get answers to questions using the Wikidata data set. As Wikidata grows, we had to make a major architectural change so that WDQS could remain performant. As part of the WDQS Graph Split project, we have new SPARQL endpoints available for serving the "scholarly" and "main" subgraphs of Wikidata. The query.wikidata.org endpoint will continue to serve the full Wikidata graph until March 2025. After this date, it will only serve the main graph. For more information, please see the announcement on Wikidata.
Running from October 1 to 31, 2024, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.
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