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Why did you delete my replies in the discussion with Diannaa, what is this racism ! ميناء (talk) 11:17, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

To begin with you can you please drop the racism accusations - we don't even know each other, so how can racism exist in that vacuum? Second - I'll go take a look, I didn't mean to delete ANY posts. — Ched (talk) 11:21, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Racist behavior does not require prior knowledge, I wrote a reply again. ميناء (talk) 11:26, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

ميناء - I apologize - it looks like I deleted it accidentally when I was attempting to put a signature on a post. My guess is that I had a window open at the same time as sign bot was placing that signature. I've restored it. — Ched (talk) 11:27, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

But do tell - what is it I'm supposedly racist about? — Ched (talk) 11:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

When a person intervenes in a debate that is not his own, deletes the opinion of one of the interlocutors and maintains the other, this is racist behavior. ميناء (talk) 11:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

First - I wasn't intervening in ANYTHING, I was adding a signature that you forgot to put at the end of your post. Second, I think you need to learn the definition of racism. Third - I apologized and put the deleted post back. And fourth - I'm really not interested in you false and hollow claims, so find another editor to bother. — Ched (talk) 11:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, you asked me and I answered you. As for the annoying people, I don't need to look for them, because they are everywhere. ميناء (talk) 11:51, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Indeed — Ched (talk) 11:52, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Question for arbs

Dear Arbcom,

Given this little nugget, I'm thinking that the whole WP:EEML case should be vacated. I could go dig out diffs of "Principles" and "FoF" to show that you folks have just done what you punished so many people for doing back then. I guess this a case of "Do as I say, not as I do". (and yes I know that the ping to user:Arbcom is useless as it's not monitored other than for email, I just want a link or two recorded for posterity) The management around this place is outright disgusting. Shame on all of you. (with a possible exception of WTT since he was recused from the beginning) You all should be ashamed of yourselves and embarrassed to look in the mirror. — Ched (talk) 21:43, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

have to laugh

I've seen some pretty funny vandalism over the years - but the section header of this one had me laughing my fool head off. — Ched (talk) 06:37, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-36

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

Recent changes

• You can use the new termbox interface if you edit Wikidata on a mobile device. This is to edit labels, descriptions and aliases easier on the mobile pages. [1]
• The new version of MediaWiki has been deployed during the last week.
• The previously announced change of positions of the "Wikidata item" link on all wikis has been rollbacked due to unexpected cache issues. [2]
• The limit for rollbacks has been increased from 10 to 100 rollbacks per minute. [3]
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (Recent Changes, Watchlist, and Related Changes) now include two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces. However the "All discussions" filter does not include pseudo talk pages, like discussions that are in the Project: or Wikipedia: namespaces. But it will include changes happening on Project talk: or the Wikipedia talk:. [4]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 September. It will be on all wikis from 5 September (calendar).
• When you log in, the software checks your password to see if it follows the Password policy. From this week, it will also complain if your password is one of the most common passwords in the world. If your password is not strong enough, please consider to change your password for a stronger password. [5]

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 September at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikidata for up to 30 minutes on September 10 at 05:00 (UTC). [6]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 17 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [7]
• You will be able to read but not to edit some mid-sized wikis for up to 30 minutes September 24 at 05:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. [8]
• You will be able to read but not to edit Wikimedia Commons for up to 30 minutes on September 26 at 05:00 (UTC). [9]

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

09:07, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

new

Bishzilla template:
{{User:Bishzilla/Welcome}} (note: Not setup as "Template", just user space page: [[User:Bishzilla/Welcome]]

Welcome!

Hello, Ched, welcome Wikipedia! Hope little Ched like. Here helpful pages:

• Hrair pillars Wikipedia
• Make article
• Help!
• Help, help!
• Make article bigger
• Er... what this for..? How write picky ?

Hope little user enjoy and edit smart like Bishzilla! Please sign talk pages using, er ... many tildes (~~~~) ('zilla can only count to three, regret!). If helpless, check out questions wikipedia, ask on 'zilla talk, or put {{help me}} on own talk, get help soon. Again, welcome! 

— Ched (talk) 06:33, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments by Ched

I already covered that on the main case page (see the "Harassment / Bullying (2)" subsection of the "Analysis of evidence" section. Here is what I wrote:

Let's analyze what was actually written, shall we? (portions [in brackets] added by me):

I [Fram] quoted what you [Ymblanter] actually said above[...] [Direct quote from Ymblanter:] "Well, both communities felt confident enough to award me [Ymblanter] administrator privileges, something which I [Ymblanter] have not seen you [Only in death] to achieve with either of them." = ["=" clearly meaning "is the equivalent of saying that"] I [Ymblanter] am an admin, you [Only in death] are not.[10]

I [Fram] quoted what you [Ymblanter] actually said above[...] [Direct quote from Ymblanter:] "But, as I [Ymblanter] said, you [Only in death] are certainly entitled to have your [Only in death] opinion on the subject, even if it is completely uninformed and aggressive. This is ok with me [Ymblanter]." = ["=" clearly meaning "is the equivalent of saying that"] you [Only in death] may have your [Only in death] own stupid opinion.[11]

Here is the post Fram was quoting: [12]

So again we see bogus evidence. Fram never wrote "I [Fram] am an admin, you [Ymblanter] are not. You [Ymblanter] may have your own stupid opinion". (BTW, Ymblanter is an admin, so saying that he isn't would be silly.)

Instead Fram characterized Ymblanter as saying the equivalent of "I [Ymblanter] am an admin, you' [Only in death] are not" and of saying the equivalent of "you [Only in death] may have your own stupid opinion."

Reading Ymblanter's original comment the Fram was quoting, it seems like a reasonable criticism. I certainly don't see a shred of evidence in the diff provided that "Fram causes Ybmlanter to resign". Wouldn't you think this would be something T&S would include diffs establishing? I'm just saying.

Again the real problem is not the bogus evidence. It is the bogus evidence that Fram was not allowed to see and which no independent eyes were allowed to review. --Written by Guy Macon 18:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

--Guy Macon (talk) 10:55, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the post Guy. Considering tens of thousands of bytes that's been posted, I hope you'll forgive me for duplicating your thoughts to some extent. I don't know if I completely missed your original post, or if perhaps I have/had gone a bit brain-dead over the whole thing. I do appreciate you pointing it out to me, and again, I do apologize. IMO it is a real shame and a black eye on Wikipedia that the T&S has created. — Ched (talk) 16:33, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Spam

There is sources available on Flash Rose he is even licensed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiSportsEditor (talk • contribs) 15:55, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Self-promotional spam is not accepted at Wikipedia. — Ched (talk) 16:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

A new section

to show @Almond Plate: how notifications work. (I typed {{ping|Almond Plate}} to do that. — Ched (talk) 01:08, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks :) Almond Plate (talk) 12:38, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

August

red admiral
... with thanks from QAI

... for improving articles in August! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:17, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Why thank you Gerda. To be honest I haven't done much in the line of content or quality editing - just getting some of the wikidata ported over into the short description of articles. I guess it's an easy way to get back into the routine. I'm reading a lot too - trying to get a better understanding of the more advanced ways of citing material. — Ched (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I didn't say you did much ;) - just grabbed the opportunity to pass the you the monthly thanks from QAI, this month picturing the fragile butterfly amidst the thorns, - not a bad image for what we do here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:03, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

ps: thank you also for sources, - I am slow to using them but it should happen within the next week, - keep watching Vespro della Beata Vergine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:05, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh - the .pdf file, no problem. I'm glad you can make use of it. And I have Vespro on my watchlist (would it be correct to call it gospel music?). Gerda Arendt, since I know of your love of music - perhaps you would enjoy Vespro della Beata Vergine (Claudio Monteverdi) as a source for some of your music? — Ched (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I understand gospel music as gospel music, which is not it. Thanks for the link. My souce is the score, going to sing on 1 September, and getting excited about it (see my talk). One listener will fly in from the U.S.. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:04, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

OK - I will try to listen to more, yes that is what I mean by gospel music. It was the closest thing I could think of. Classical music doesn't seem to capture the whole meaning either - I will read more. Congratulations on the singing of it - I wish I could visit to listen and hear you too, but those days where I could travel are gone now. I do wish you the very best with it though. — Ched (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

And the butterfly is beautiful - thank you. — Ched (talk) 21:13, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

If you click on "August" above it, you get to the musical plans and many more pics. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

That's a lot of material, - it may take me a while to go through it. But thank you. :-) — Ched (talk) 21:26, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

My memory is bad, so I need to make notes ;) - if you have little time, go for 12 January, Ray's Rules. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I can relate to the memory issues. Will check that one out for sure. — Ched (talk) 21:40, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

test

Dear Arbcom, I'm not seeing any diffs in your remedy? Seems a bit odd. diffs or it didn't happen. And the first person that claims "privacy"? Imma WP:WHALE yo butt. We're not asking who sent you anything - We're asking for a public diff. Now you say it: "public". Alrighty then? — Ched (talk) 00:33, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter September-October 2019

Hello Ched,

Backlog

Instead of reaching a magic 300 as it once did last year, the backlog approaching 6,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.

Coordinator

A proposal is taking place here to confirm a nominated user as Coordinator of NPR.

This month's refresher course

Why I Hate Speedy Deleters, a 2008 essay by long since retired Ballonman, is still as valid today. Those of us who patrol large numbers of new pages can be forgiven for making the occasional mistake while others can learn from their 'beginner' errors. Worth reading.

Deletion tags

Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon (you will need to have 'Nominated for deletion' enabled for this in your filters) may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders using Twinkle. They require your further verification.

Paid editing

Please be sure to look for the tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. WMF policy requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.

Subject-specific notability guidelines' (SNG). Alternatives to deletion

• Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves once more with notability guidelines for organisations and companies.
• Blank-and-Redirect is a solution anchored in policy. Please consider this alternative before PRODing or CSD. Note however, that users will often revert or usurp redirects to re-create deleted articles. Do regularly patrol the redirects in the feed.

Not English

• A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, and if they do have potential, tag as required, then move to draft. Modify the text of the template as appropriate before sending it.

Tools

Regular reviewers will appreciate the most recent enhancements to the New Pages Feed and features in the Curation tool, and there are still more to come. Due to the wealth of information now displayed by ORES, reviewers are strongly encouraged to use the system now rather than Twinkle; it will also correctly populate the logs.

Stub sorting, by SD0001: A new script is available for adding/removing stub tags. See User:SD0001/StubSorter.js, It features a simple HotCat-style dynamic search field. Many of the reviewers who are using it are finding it an improvement upon other available tools.

Assessment: The script at User:Evad37/rater makes the addition of Wikiproject templates extremely easy. New page creators rarely do this. Reviewers are not obliged to make these edits but they only take a few seconds. They can use the Curation message system to let the creator know what they have done.

DannyS712 bot III is now patrolling certain categories of uncontroversial redirects. Curious? Check out its patrol log.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Ched. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:13, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

responded there. — Ched (talk) 06:36, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 22

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Heidelberg Raceway, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bob James (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 07:43, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll look later today mr. bot — Ched (talk)

Unprotecting Eric's talk page

I don't want to post on Eric's talk page; he's gone, let's leave him be. As the protecting admin explicitly said anyone was fine to undo it, I don't think there's any policy-backed reason you can't do this. I assume Eric's attitude to this is similar to mine, which is you should tolerate freedom of speech as much as is practical. It does mean that anyone who re-does the protection is wheel-warring. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:41, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Well first things first RICHIE!!! - so good to see you, and I am sorry you got such a raw deal. re Eric, I tried to do what was right, that's all anyone can do. I really appreciate you dropping me a note - TY, and I agree. And yes, I think Eric prefers things out in the open, and I guess let nature take its course. — Ched (talk) 17:02, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 15

Newsletter • September 2019

A final update, for now:

The third grant-funded round of WikiProject X has been completed. Unfortunately, while this round has not resulted in a deployed product, I am not planning to resume working on the project for the foreseeable future. Please see the final report for more information.

Regards,

-— Isarra ༆ 19:23, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-40

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

Problems

• Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be fixed. [13]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 October. It will be on all wikis from 3 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team is working on a watchlist expiry feature. This means you can put things on your watchlist for a period of time instead of forever. They are looking for feedback on the questions they have.
• Special:Contributions will get the standard OOUI look. This makes it easier to use on mobile and makes it look like other Special: pages. There is a script you can use to make the form smaller if you want to. [14]

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

16:49, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-41

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 abuse filter function now has a faster parser. This is to shorten the waiting time when you save an edit. [15]

Problems

• There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [16]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 9 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
• The URL of the Wikimedia wiki main pages could be changed. This is because the current URLs cause several problems. For example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page would be https://www.wikidata.org/ instead. You can tell the developers if this would cause problems for your wiki.
• There is a new technical community newsletter. You can read more about the work of Wikimedia's technical community. Subscribe to get the information in the future.
• Outreachy is an internship program for groups who are underrepresented in free and open-source software. There are seven Wikimedia projects about coding, documentation and quality assurance in the next round. Persons who fit the criteria can apply. The last day to apply is 5 November.

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

15:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Visual Editor has a problem - imagine that. Keep on changing, 'updating', "fixing", etc. There's still a few things that aren't broke. — Ched (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Editing News #2 – Mobile editing and talk pages – October 2019

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter

Inside this newsletter, the Editing team talks about their work on the mobile visual editor, on the new talk pages project, and at Wikimania 2019.

Help

What talk page interactions do you remember? Is it a story about how someone helped you to learn something new? Is it a story about how someone helped you get involved in a group? Something else? Whatever your story is, we want to hear it!

Please tell us a story about how you used a talk page. Please share a link to a memorable discussion, or describe it on the talk page for this project. The team would value your examples. These examples will help everyone develop a shared understanding of what this project should support and encourage.

How does this add anything to the encyclopedia? — Ched (talk) 17:11, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Talk Pages

The Talk Pages Consultation was a global consultation to define better tools for wiki communication. From February through June 2019, more than 500 volunteers on 20 wikis, across 15 languages and multiple projects, came together with members of the Foundation to create a product direction for a set of discussion tools. The Phase 2 Report of the Talk Page Consultation was published in August. It summarizes the product direction the team has started to work on, which you can read more about here: Talk Page Project project page.

The team needs and wants your help at this early stage. They are starting to develop the first idea. Please add your name to the "Getting involved" section of the project page, if you would like to hear about opportunities to participate.

I'll think about it - but consider me as doubtful. — Ched (talk) 17:12, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Mobile visual editor

The Editing team is trying to make it simpler to edit on mobile devices. The team is changing the visual editor on mobile. If you have something to say about editing on a mobile device, please leave a message at Talk:VisualEditor on mobile.

Edit Cards

What happens when you click on a link. The new Edit Card is bigger and has more options for editing links.

• On 3 September, the Editing team released version 3 of Edit Cards. Anyone could use the new version in the mobile visual editor.
• There is an updated design on the Edit Card for adding and modifying links. There is also a new, combined workflow for editing a link's display text and target.
• Feedback: You can try the new Edit Cards by opening the mobile visual editor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Edit cards talk page.

Toolbar

The editing toolbar is changing in the mobile visual editor. The old system had two different toolbars. Now, all the buttons are together. Tell the team what you think about the new toolbar.

• In September, the Editing team updated the mobile visual editor's editing toolbar. Anyone could see these changes in the mobile visual editor.
  • One toolbar: All of the editing tools are located in one toolbar. Previously, the toolbar changed when you clicked on different things.
  • New navigation: The buttons for moving forward and backward in the edit flow have changed.
  • Seamless switching: an improved workflow for switching between the visual and wikitext modes.
• Feedback: You can try the refreshed toolbar by opening the mobile VisualEditor on a smartphone. Please post your feedback on the Toolbar feedback talk page.

The pictures don't really tell me anything. Also - I tried VE about 2 weeks ago .. AGAIN - still not a fan. sorry. — Ched (talk) 17:13, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikimania

The Editing Team attended Wikimania 2019 in Sweden. They led a session on the mobile visual editor and a session on the new talk pages project. They tested two new features in the mobile visual editor with contributors. You can read more about what the team did and learned in the team's report on Wikimania 2019.

Looking ahead

• Talk Pages Project: The team is thinking about the first set of proposed changes. The team will be working with a few communities to pilot those changes. The best way to stay informed is by adding your username to the list on the project page: Getting involved.
• Testing the mobile visual editor as the default: The Editing team plans to post results before the end of the calendar year. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: VisualEditor as mobile default project page.
• Measuring the impact of Edit Cards: The Editing team hopes to share results in November. This study asks whether the project helped editors add links and citations. The best way to stay informed is by adding the project page to your watchlist: Edit Cards project page.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of mobile editing either. Too many mistakes happen that way. — Ched (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-42

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

Recent changes

• You can now use more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version. [17]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [18]
• In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.

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

23:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-43

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 API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [19]

Problems

• There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [20]
• The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [21]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
• Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.

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

14:29, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Ched. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:11, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I replied to the email by email Barkeep49 - or something to that affect. — Ched (talk) 19:33, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-44

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

Recent changes

• You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
• Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [22][23]
• You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
• OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [24][25]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [26]
• Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.

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

16:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Just for the record

I mistakenly thought your comments on my talk page were directed towards me. Once I realized my mistake, I retracted my response. Toddst1 (talk) 14:30, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@Toddst1:, you have no idea how glad I am to hear that. I got up this morning and saw the first responses, and just said "Mark all as read" and figured somehow I screwed up in trying to help. I thought it best to just move on and not trouble you anymore, and took your talk off my watchlist. I've always had a great deal of respect for your work here, and I have to admit - I was a bit bummed out by it. So glad it was crossed signals in communication. Cheers. — Ched (talk) 14:45, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I should have known that [my interpretation of] a response like that from you directed at me was uncharacteristic (although you never know what to expect from ANI). Have a good weekend. Toddst1 (talk) 15:55, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

All good. You have a good weekend as well. — Ched (talk) 16:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-45

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

• At Special:Contributions you could see up to 5000 edits at the same time if you edited the URL. This has been lowered to 500. This is to stop requests which break the sites. [27]

Changes later this week

• MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry can set the default length to block a user for your wiki. You will be able to use MediaWiki:ipb-default-expiry-ip to set a different default block length for IP editors. [28]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 5 November. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 6 November. It will be on all wikis from 7 November (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 6 November at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

16:47, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter November 2019

Hello Ched,

This newsletter comes a little earlier than usual because the backlog is rising again and the holidays are coming very soon.

Getting the queue to 0

There are now 811 holders of the New Page Reviewer flag! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog but it's still roughly less than 10% doing 90% of the work. Now it's time for action.
Exactly one year ago there were 'only' 3,650 unreviewed articles, now we will soon be approaching 7,000 despite the growing number of requests for the NPR user right. If each reviewer soon does only 2 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by every reviewer doing only 1 review every 2 days - that's only a few minutes work on the bus on the way to the office or to class! Let's get this over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
Want to join? Consider adding the NPP Pledge userbox.
Our next newsletter will announce the winners of some really cool awards.

Coordinator

Admin Barkeep49 has been officially invested as NPP/NPR coordinator by a unanimous consensus of the community. This is a complex role and he will need all the help he can get from other experienced reviewers.

This month's refresher course

Paid editing is still causing headaches for even our most experienced reviewers: This official Wikipedia article will be an eye-opener to anyone who joined Wikipedia or obtained the NPR right since 2015. See The Hallmarks to know exactly what to look for and take time to examine all the sources.

Tools

• It is now possible to select new pages by date range. This was requested by reviewers who want to patrol from the middle of the list.
• It is now also possible for accredited reviewers to put any article back into the New Pages Feed for re-review. The link is under 'Tools' in the side bar.

Reviewer Feedback

Would you like feedback on your reviews? Are you an experienced reviewer who can give feedback to other reviewers? If so there are two new feedback pilot programs. New Reviewer mentorship will match newer reviewers with an experienced reviewer with a new reviewer. The other program will be an occasional peer review cohort for moderate or experienced reviewers to give feedback to each other. The first cohort will launch November 13.

Second set of eyes

• Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work, especially while some routine tagging for deletion can still be carried out by non NPR holders and inexperienced users. Read about it at the Monitoring the system section in the tutorial. If you come across such editors doing good work, don't hesitate to encourage them to apply for NPR.
• Do be sure to have our talk page on your watchlist. There are often items that require reviewers' special attention, such as to watch out for pages by known socks or disruptive editors, technical issues and new developments, and of course to provide advice for other reviewers.

Arbitration Committee

The annual ArbCom election will be coming up soon. All eligible users will be invited to vote. While not directly concerned with NPR, Arbcom cases often lead back to notability and deletion issues and/or actions by holders of advanced user rights.

Community Wish list

There is to be no wish list for WMF encyclopedias this year. We thank Community Tech for their hard work addressing our long list of requirements which somewhat overwhelmed them last year, and we look forward to a successful completion.

---

To opt-out of future mailings, you can remove yourself here

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Wiki Commons images - wholesale

If you look at the edit history of the films of Josef von Sternberg early in 2019, you will see that dozens of images were stripped from the articles in a single day. Can you discern who did this, and why? The images no longer exist at Wiki Commons. I strongly suspect vandalism. --38.126.242.222 (talk) 18:11, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll try to take a look tonight, although I'm not a sysop on commons. I don't think anyone except a sysop on commons can delete the pictures there, so it's more likely some sort of WP:COPYVIO issue where the pictures weren't in public domain. — Ched (talk) 19:09, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi back!

Sorry it took me a month to acknowledge your nice message. :( All seems well. I haven't been getting myself into as much trouble as I used to. Mellowing with age, maybe. Or maybe just avoiding it, most of the time. 0:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:04, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Hey Bugs, no problem. I logged back in a couple months ago, mainly because of the whole WP:FRAM issue, and haven't really left again ... at least not yet. I looked around a bit, and didn't see your name at WP:AN or WP:ANI and it got me wondering if you were still around. Your talk page was blank, so I checked your contribs and noticed you're mostly working on reference/help desk things. I just wanted to say hello. I thought maybe you were just avoiding everything and everybody just for some peace and quiet. Glad you're not getting in to much trouble these days. Take care my friend. — Ched (talk) 16:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, they asked (or told) me to stay away from ANI for at least 6 months. That was nearly a year and a half ago, and things are just fine. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:37, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Glad it's going so well for you. :-) — Ched (talk) 16:07, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to read you've been thinking about leaving

What the subject says. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:48, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

TY Barkeep49, it's just an option, not a certainty. The culture here has changed drastically over recent years, it's a lot of work to catch-up. We'll see. Not something I want to get into a big "on wiki" discussion about. (actually surprised that his page is so well watched) but TY. — Ched (talk) 04:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to archive for now if you don't mind - feel free to email if it's something you want to discuss. — Ched (talk) 05:00, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 election voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-47

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

• You will be able to read but not to edit some wikis for up to 30 minutes on 26 November at 06:00 (UTC). You can see which wikis. It will probably last much shorter than 30 minutes. This will also affect the centralauth database. This could for example affect changing passwords, logging in to new wikis, changing emails or global renames. [29]

Changes later this week

• You can soon vote on proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 20 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

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

20:16, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-46

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

• MediaWiki2LaTeX can put different pages from a Wikimedia wiki into a PDF. It can now make a PDF with around 5000 pages. Previously this was 800 pages.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 13 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Wikimedia will take part in Google Code-in. This is for young students who want to help with open source software. You can read more. Experienced technical Wikimedians can mentor students.

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

22:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

A survey to improve the community consultation outreach process

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Kbrown (WMF) - I'm really sorry I let this slip through the cracks. I know it's well beyond the expiration date, but I'll try to jot down a couple notes sometime this weekend. Cheers and best, — Ched (talk) 16:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-48

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 mobile beta mode will be disabled to have less maintenance. The developers will focus on the desktop improvements project. You can turn on advanced mobile contributions mode if you want to see the categories. You could also jump back to the top. This can instead be done with a gadget or user script. [30]
• Parsoid is software we use for the visual editor, content translation, Flow and the Android app. This has been rewritten. It will come to the wikis gradually over the next two weeks. It has been tested, but there could be some diffs or previews that don't look right. If you see any you can report them. [31]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 November. It will be on the other wikis next week (calendar). This is because of holidays.

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 27 November at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• You will switch between the article and the talk page in a new way in the mobile view in the future. It will use tabs. This is more like in the desktop view. [32]

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

16:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Tech News: 2019-49

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

• Mix'n'match is a tool to connect Wikidata items to information in other databases. It can be used to find subjects that are missing in a Wikipedia. It now has more than 3000 datasets. Before it was closer to 2000.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 3 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 4 December. It will be on all wikis from 5 December (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 4 December at 16:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• There will be a new schema for XML dumps. Scripts and apps that use them will need to be updated. If they are not updated they will no longer work. [33]
• The {{REVISIONID}} magic word will no longer work in the content namespaces. This is for performance reasons. When you preview a page it returns "" (empty string). When you read a page it returns "-" (dash). In the future this will also affect other namespaces. The next ones are file and category namespaces. [34]

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

16:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration Case Opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 20, 2019, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQL^{Query me!} 20:37, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

SQL - I know it's somewhat automated, but TY for the message. I really don't have anything because I've never really worked with the Portal stuff. I could add the links and info about the BHG block and unblock - but that's more a civility/NPA issue than a Portal issue. On top of that, I wasn't involved in either the block or unblock so I'd think that would be up to Diannaa or JBW to provide evidence. Still, I appreciate the note - and if you really want me to find the links for the block issue then let me know and I'll dig them up. Best, — Ched (talk) 23:20, 26 November 2019 (UTC)