User talk:This, that and the other

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Bug 5645

Saw this bug report over the signature button appearing in namespaces that editor's would rather it didn't and figured I should mention the "obvious"

Just add

		'filters': [ 'body.ns-talk, body.ns-4' ],

to the signature button's entry in jquery.wikiEditor.toolbar.config.js and your done. The same approach is used for the references button (see that same .js file if you don't believe me)

If you want to allow the signature button's generation in more namespaces, just add their numeric designation(s) to the filter using body.ns-4 in the above as your example (no comma after the last entry btw).

You can also exclude button generation for certain namespaces this way....

		'filters': [ 'body:not(.ns-2, .ns-8, .ns-828)' ],

Hope that helps -- George Orwell III (talk) 22:54, 27 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That implementation method was not something I was aware of, so thanks for enlightening me :) However I don't think it is necessarily appropriate for this situation. It wouldn't be right to hard-code the list of namespaces in this JavaScript code, and it also seems a bit wasteful to be stringing together a 'body.ns-' + namespaceId type thing when we can just delete the entry from the JavaScript object.

The main issue surrounding this bug is that no-one can agree on how we should decide which namespaces get the sig button. I would appreciate it if you could contribute, based on the three options I outlined in comment 19 of the bug. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:31, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Same old, same old. No-one agrees because each has their own embedded bias/perspective by now if they've been a regualar for any noteworthy amount of time by now. I dare say even your poo-poo'ing of the existing filter settings has some trace degree of that too.

Look, it seems like all the wiki-projects at least share the same ~17(I forget what the right # is) core namespaces - that's all you folks should be discussing a default setting for. Period.

Half of those are talk-pages so body.ns-talk or some similar solution should allow the button for those talk namespaces. That leaves "you" with what? ~8 core namespaces shared acrosss all the wiki-projects to bicker over? Out of those remaining namespaces, only the Project: ns (ns-4) would have any legit reason to host talk-page like discussions (a la Village Pump for example) where the button is useful.

Get into the namespaces numbered ~100 or higher from one Wiki-domain to the next, and you'll find using content namespaces to include/exclude button generation will not be as neatly uniform as the core namespaces are. This area is where 'ickypedia blinders' cause developers to make changes that typically don't go over well @ any project BUT Wikipedia or Commons (I can almost bet next week's pay-check that whatever solution is applied at the end of the day, it will conflict with the existing ability to use the filter).

My vote is to set a default using whatever manner or method makes the most sense for the core namespaces that all wikis share and leave the far lower trafficked assignable namespaces out of it - let folks deal with it or solve it on their own locally if the presence of the button so annoying to them. Prost. :) -- George Orwell III (talk) 08:52, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We want to be able to configure this behind the scenes on a per-wiki basis. For example, Meta uses signatures in the main namespace, while this wiki does not. It's more about how to determine exactly how this configuration interacts with other wiki elements. For instance, does the presence of __NEWSECTIONLINK__ indicate we should allow the signature button on that page? I don't know the answer to that.

I should also stress that this relates to the MediaWiki software in general, which is used by many others besides the WMF (for example, a lot of companies use MediaWiki internally for planning and collaboration between staff). We need a solution that will work out-of-the-box for all wikis, as well as to be configurable by the server administrator as required. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:43, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think you answered your own question - especially if your rationale goes beyond the Wiki foundation projects and into the "commercial" aspects of the software. Again the core namespaces are not likely not be re-tasked into blogs or newsfeeds but additional namespaces might be. If that rationale is true, the logical approach would be set only the .ns-talk namespaces as the extension's default for sig. button generation while leaving deviation or modification of said default a matter left to local administration to wrangle with post-deployment. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't think I'm "poo-poo'ing" the existing settings, insofar as there are none. The status quo is to show the signature button in all namespaces, which seems rather inadequate. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:43, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well that point on 'showing in all namespaces' goes back to the rather bloated default package of defaults loaded with WikiEditor and the hoops one has to jump through just to customize the basics that are sold as "tools" in a tool-bar. For example, I can appreciate the need to cover Asian character sets along with the others but there should be a way for at least the local administration if not User:s themselves to pick and choose individual sets. Sure, one can add characters to existing sets and add entirely new sets but there is no way to prevent sets in the existing defaults from loading every time the tab is selected - well at least I can't find a way other than removing the entire booklet and rebuilding it without the unwanted sets (I think this is due to the setting 'deferLoad': true, in that same .js mentioned above usurping anything I might have set to removeFromToolbar in my local .js file(s)). If you know better, please, I'm I dying to find out how its done.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that its great to incorporate defaults that allow for a positive "out-of-box experience" but they should not be so embedded in the module that customizing/deviating from those defaults necessitates the negation then duplication of the original coding involved. As the move to more mobile platforms plays out and/or the need for screen-space management increases, it seems things like which default loaded buttons (or tabs) you want loaded by default in which namespace scenario(s) is something that should be standardized in one's User: preferences rather than locked into additional scripting and/or patching as those options currently seem to be. -- George Orwell III (talk) 23:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FtCG

I loveFtCG, but it would be nice if it could delete templates like {{Category ordered by date|Files licensed by third parties|2013|08|13}}. Thanks! (t) Josve05a (c) 00:09, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Josve05a, I'm really sorry it's taken me this long to answer! Do you think FtCG should remove all invocations of the template "Category ordered by date", or only those with "Files licensed by third parties" as the first parameter? — This, that and the other (talk) 02:51, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All instances, since Commons don't have (didn't the last time I checked) that template. (t) Josve05a (c) 07:16, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing

Is it possible to make FtCG to add:
[[Category:Files uploaded by Josve05a (cleanup)]] [[Category:Files transferred from en.wikipedia by Josve05a]] ‎ to all files I tranfer? (t) Josve05a (c) 00:11, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ping. (t) Josve05a (c) 15:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the Common Good : run reversely

Hi, my home-wiki is Russian.

It is rather often it is needed to move files from Commons to ru-wiki: because a set of files is found not corresponding to the free content criteria yet is useful for many articles under fair use restrictions.

Before writing some bot from a scratch I am wondering if For the Common Good can be a little bit changed (or some settings applied to it as it is) so it could transfer sets of files from Commons to ru.wikipedia.org File: namespace?

The relevant discussion about a bot (in Russian) is currently here.

Best regards, Seva — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neolexx (talk • contribs) 16:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Please help. Details here: Википедия:Запросы к ботоводам#Выгрузка файлов из Викисклада в Рувики (via google translate) --Fastboy (talk) 17:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fastboy Neolexx: My apologies for not replying any sooner. Such a tool would certainly be possible to create. Indeed, in the past, I used a "lightly hacked" version of For the Common Good to transfer files from Wikitravel Shared (a site similar in nature to Wikimedia Commons) to local Wikivoyage editions after the establishment Wikivoyage in late 2012. So it is certainly possible. I will be happy to look at this in the coming week. — This, that and the other (talk) 12:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That would be terrific! By all other means the app seems fit perfectly to our needs uncluding the ability of an editable "template dictionary". I have translated your answer at our forum - as there is no rush then to do and to debug something from a scratch, it is better to wait then. --NeoLexx (talk) 17:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Fastboy and Neolexx, I have uploaded version 1.0.5.11 of For the Common Good to http://atlight.github.io. In conjunction with the instructions at User:This, that and the other/For the Common Good/Reverse transfers, it should now be possible to run FtCG in reverse! If you find any problems or would like additional features to be added, please let me know. Thanks for your interest in FtCG. — This, that and the other (talk) 02:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I will start learning and testing immediately. --NeoLexx (talk) 07:41, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for silly question, but where does the installation go by default? I installed it on Windows 8, closed and now no signs at Program files. --NeoLexx (talk) 08:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh, OK, sorry. It is not installed, it is a single exe. --NeoLexx (talk) 08:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, what is the license you want to be mentioned for this program? I didn't find it at the download page. --NeoLexx (talk) 08:23, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The current version is released into the public domain. Even so, I appreciate it if you provide attribution if you choose to make copies of the program. I will probably release the next version under a license such as MIT, but for the moment, it is in the public domain. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I tried reverse and it worked. I spent decent time to make a config but then I transferred twenty images very quickly. But I found some obstacles that slowed me down:

FtCG doesn't memorize chexbox settings (I had to ckeck "ignore warnings" every other image)
FtCG doesn't have automating to bypass a ban to create image with a name that already exists in commons. Of cauze admins doesn't have this problem. But I had to rename each image manually. It would be nice if you could set some prefix/postfix to new file name once and FtCG would apply it for each next image.
One more feature I'd like to see: mandatory replacements or replacement groups (one of). If such "mandatory" replacement pattern not found, FtCG must make a very nicely visible error warning.

Could you make some of such features? Or, could I contribute to code? ~Nirvanchik~ ^⊤άλҟ 07:34, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And, by the way, in reverse order you can configure only "source" wiki which is commons and which is English, and you can't configure "destination" wiki, which is not English, so I had to use very coplicated replacement pattarn to change image description template by Russian version of these template, and to move all variables correctly. It would be nice if reverse wiki could be supported in more natural way. ~Nirvanchik~ ^⊤άλҟ 07:39, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Btw thanks for that previous support! It really helped! ~Nirvanchik~ ^⊤άλҟ 07:43, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

512 character limit for special page titles

Assuming you are the "tto" on Freenode who asked "just wondering if you could clarify for me why you added the 512-character limit on special page titles in r18220?" I didn't add a 512-character limit, I raised the limit from 255 to 512 bytes on the basis that 255 bytes was not sufficient. 512 bytes was sufficient for use cases then in existence. -- Tim Starling (talk) 09:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That was me :) Thanks for the clarification. So it was mostly an arbitrary choice, then. That was what I was interested in knowing. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:This, that and the other/For the Common Good/Reverse transfers

Did you notice that this redirect format doesn't work? I'm not sure if it is the page or Mediawiki which should be fixed. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:37, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's the long standing bug 6151. I've been poking around at the MediaWiki title code recently, so I might try to fix it... although the fact that it hasn't been fixed in 8 years isn't promising... — This, that and the other (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Beth Sotelo (September 5)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Beth Sotelo and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
You can also get real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Coin945 (talk) 07:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your submission at Articles for creation: Beth Sotelo (September 10)

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Beth Sotelo and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk or on the reviewer's talk page.
You can also get real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Coin945 (talk) 11:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A3 template changes

Hello TTATO,
I don't mean to be pushy, but you said on Wikipedia talk:Twinkle that you would do preliminary work on Twinkle tomorrow (which is probably yesterday now), however Twinkle is still tagging pages with {{db-nocontent}}. Please tell me why this is the case as my new templates are now finished and are ready to be moved. Thanks, Passengerpigeon (talk) 14:54, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Passengerpigeon, this is a bit of a "chicken or egg" problem. But so long as the new A3 templates are set up as redirects to db-nocontent for the time being, there shouldn't be an issue. I can't promise when the change to Twinkle will be deployed, but hopefully it will be available on-wiki not long after I finish writing the code tonight. — This, that and the other (talk) 23:15, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

{{db-a3}} will not change in the move, and {{db-a3-notice}} currently redirects to {{db-nocontent-notice}} but will be overwritten by {{db-nocontent-notice}} once the move takes place, thus everything should work the same way it does currently. Passengerpigeon (talk) 23:32, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright checks when performing AfC reviews

Hello This, that and the other. This message is part of a mass mailing to people who appear active in reviewing articles for creation submissions. First of all, thank you for taking part in this important work! I'm sorry this message is a form letter – it really was the only way I could think of to covey the issue economically. Of course, this also means that I have not looked to see whether the matter is applicable to you in particular.

The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered.

If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.)

If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Wikipedia to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using {{db-g12|url=URL of source}}. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with {{subst:copyvio|url=URL of source}}.

Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors.

I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the Common Good

Good day.

My name is Sergey Semenov, I'm the administrator Russian Wikipedia. I am writing to you about the reverse transfer images from the Commons in the Russian Wikipedia using a program For the Common Good. Unfortunately, this program is quite difficult to master, and will move quite a lot.

I have uploaded to Commons several thousand images of tombstones set in the cemeteries of Russia. Unfortunately, in our country there is complete freedom of panorama, so these files can at any time be removed. I decided to move them to the Russian Wikipedia template FoP-Russia. In connection with this appeal to you to write the configuration files for the particular transport mechanism to simplify the programming work far from the participants. In today's conditions, the use of mass transfer of files can lead to disastrous results.

P. S. I'm sorry for the mistakes I badly speak English and translate through Google translator. --SerSem (talk) 12:55, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sergey, thanks for your message, and don't worry about your English, I understand it well! I understand that reverse transfers with FtCG aren't as easy as they perhaps should be. I'll have a moment later today to see if I can prepare you a configuration file that will do what you ask. Thanks, — This, that and the other (talk) 03:40, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I'll wait. --SerSem (talk) 12:51, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I made this configuration file for For the Common Good: http://atlight.github.io/ftcg/ForTheCommonGood_SerSem.cfg You should download it, rename it to ForTheCommonGood.cfg, and move it to the same location as ForTheCommonGood.exe.

Be aware of a couple of things:

You must turn off the "Tag file with {{now commons}}" check box above the "Transfer" button.
If you want to go through each of your uploads, you can download this text file: http://atlight.github.io/ftcg/SerSem_files.txt and click the "Other source" option to load this text file into FtCG.
There is no template on ruwiki for CC-BY-SA version 4.0 (see c:template:cc-by-sa-4.0). You will need to create this template on ruwiki before transferring.

I would say that, since you have such a huge number of files, it might be better to ask for a bot to perform the transfers. I think you will find FtCG too slow for this work. But if you wish to give it a go, I hope it helps you. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:13, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your help, I was able to master the program and begin to transfer files with its help. All I do not need to unload, I have old photos uploaded to Commons. With the help of your program I have unloaded in Russian Wikipedia about 700 photos. This is a very important and necessary option in the program. --SerSem (talk) 18:01, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good day. I tried to upload a list of files at once from the category "Literatorskie mostki", but I did not succeed. If I use the text in this form, as provided by you in the file, the program writes the message: "An API error occured. Bad title" File: "". If I add the "File:" at the beginning of each line, the program writes the message: "An API error occured. Bad title:" File: <>. JPG ". What could be wrong? --SerSem (talk) 14:39, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I would suggest that you check the encoding of the text file. For the Common Good expects the file to be stored in the UTF-8 encoding. Alternatively, you could upload the file to the Internet so I could look at it and check it for any problems. — This, that and the other (talk) 00:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	For assistance in establishing unloading unfree files in the Russian Wikipedia Commons. The administrator Russian Wikipedia SerSem (talk) 18:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Toolserver

Hi Purodha, I was triaging some old Toolserver migration bugs, and noticed that there is a task phab:T63028 relating to one of your tools. Do you intend to migrate this tool to Tool Labs? — This, that and the other (talk) 00:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Although I do not unterstand the phab:T63028 web page, I understand that someone ist asking whether or not I plan to migrate former toolserver tools to tools labs. I do. I only do not have plans as to when I have time to do it. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 19:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bugzilla seems not wo work any more. It redirects to something else. My account to bugzilla was lost in the process. So, for the time being, I am out of this business. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 09:48, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Purodha: Bugzilla was migrated to the new Phabricator issue tracking system a few weeks ago. You can create a Phabricator account that is attached to your Wikimedia SUL account, if you want to comment on bugs. See mw:Phabricator/Help#Creating_your_account for some info.

In any case I'll update the Phabricator task to say that you haven't forgotten about it. Thanks for the reply! — This, that and the other (talk) 09:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I knew about the migration, and I was on the Phabricator page that should allow me to connect to my old bugzilla account a few day ago. That is why I wrote that my access was lost. Maybe, I just have to wait for it to be migrated, I did not really dive into the details. -- Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 10:44, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 133#Custom notices on user .js and .css pages

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 133#Custom notices on user .js and .css pages. Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 15:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisting of TfD for Template:Infobox academic division

TTO, Template:Infobox academic division has been re-nominated for deletion/merger, following a DRV. You participated in the previous TfD discussion, and I thought you would appreciate the opportunity to comment on the newly re-opened/re-listed discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 January 22#Template:Infobox academic division. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Now re-re-relisted for more betterness (under the original link), containing the original discussion, but not any comments made in the re-listing. Sorry for the mess. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RfC - Helper Script access

An RfC has been opened at RfC to physically restrict access to the Helper Script. You are invited to comment. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Problem!

Hi! In attempt to load the file from Ruvika jumps out the message: "The Internet inquiry isn't executed. The inquiry was interrupted: The inquiry is cancelled." Photo: http://radikall.com/images/2015/02/13/ecRa7.jpg --Dogad75 (talk) 10:43, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle for TRwiki

I am a technician from TRwiki. I wanna activate Twinkle. I created following pages(from ENwiki) but "TW tab" didnot appeared.

And I made necessary changes in Gadgets tab. Wikipedia:Twinkle/Localisation pages is outdated. Is there a new instruction page? What I am missing? --Mavrikant (talk) 01:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Mavrikant: Try altering the Gadgets-definition line to the following:

Twinkle[ResourceLoader|dependencies=mediawiki.user,mediawiki.util,jquery.ui.dialog,jquery.tipsy|rights=autoconfirmed]|morebits.js|morebits.css|Twinkle.js|twinklespeedy.js|twinklediff.js|twinkleconfig.js|twinklefluff.js

— This, that and the other (talk) 06:28, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is working. I followed new version of Wikipedia:Twinkle/Localisation page. Thank you Siddhartha Ghai and User:This, that and the other --Mavrikant (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You've got mail!

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— MusikAnimal ^talk 03:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did you get my email? I'm eager to move forward with the block module but am having trouble with testing. Should I use the fragmented modules on testwiki (as opposed to one big twinkle.js)? How can I get the perl script to upload there instead of enwiki? I can't get the concatenated twinkle.js to work in my userspace since it requires morebits. Morebits doesn't appear to be a module that I can use with mw.loader.load and mw.loader.using, and even trying putting the Twinkle init stuff in a callback of $.getScript things still don't load in the right order. I feel like there must be an easier way. Thanks — MusikAnimal ^talk 23:45, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I often have trouble getting Twinkle to show up in the UI on testwiki. Normally I will just open my browser's F12 tools and directly call the callback, e.g. Twinkle.protect.callback(). — This, that and the other (talk) 01:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Beautiful :) Not sure why I didn't think of that! Many thanks — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:52, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I take it you wish not to communicate through email? I understand if you do not, there's just some matters I'd rather discuss in private. Anyway, I've been working hard and have the interface for the blocking module more or less done. I thought I'd run this by you before I move on to the actual blocking functionality, just in case something stands out that I'm doing wrong. Pull request is here, feel free to comment. Thanks! — MusikAnimal ^talk 03:13, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation

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MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Lua/Modules

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Hillary Rodham Clinton - Move Discussion

Hi,

This is a notification to let you know that there is a requested move discussion ongoing at Talk:Hillary_Rodham_Clinton/April_2015_move_request#Requested_move. You are receiving this notification because you have previously participated in some capacity in naming discussions related to the article in question.

Thanks. And have a nice day. NickCT (talk) 18:55, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Persondata RfC

Hi, You participated in the previous Persondata RfC. I just wanted to notify you that a new RfC regarding the methodical removal of Persondata is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Thanks, —Msmarmalade (talk) 08:15, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New question raised regarding Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton/April 2015 move request

Some opposers of this move have now contended that there is a "Critical fault in proposal evidence", which brings the opinions expressed into question. Please indicate if this assertion in any way affects your position with respect to the proposed move. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback on WP:UND

Hello, This, that and the other. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#User talk:User.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I thought I'd post this here as well since i assume you were asking about this in order to find Twinkle defects. Steel1943 (talk) 14:05, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, This, that and the other. You have new messages at Eman235's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

You've got mail

Hello, This, that and the other. 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 remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Community desysoping RfC

Hi. You are invited to comment at RfC for BARC - a community desysoping process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:58, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

very belated reply re Wikiquote 'This Sporting Life' deletion

Hi there TTO (I hope that abbreviation is ok, I'm very lazy),

I'm just writing to say I've been meaning to reply to your April 2014 heads-up on my talk page regarding the above. Unfortunately I was probably either taking a break from the insanity that is Wikipedia or else just busy with other things when you posted. What a shame that was removed (was it because TSL doesn't meet USA-dominated notability standards or something like that?). Very annoying.

Kind regards,

--Ty rS 07:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi TyrS! Wow, that was a long time ago. I had forgotten about it. If you head over to the Wikiquote link, you will see the page was deleted because it had "no sourced quotes", so I suspect it was not a matter of notability - rather, one of sourcing. If you want to further work on the page, I imagine Wikiquote has a process for requesting undeletion or deletion review, in the same way as we have our processes here. — This, that and the other (talk) 07:10, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to subscribe to the edit filter mailing list

Hi, as a user in the edit filter manager user group we wanted to let you know about the new wikipedia-en-editfilters mailing list. As part of our recent efforts to improve the use of edit filters on the English Wikipedia it has been established as a venue for internal discussion by edit filter managers regarding private filters (those only viewable by administrators and edit filter managers) and also as a means by which non-admins can ask questions about hidden filters that wouldn't be appropriate to discuss on-wiki. As an edit filter manager we encourage you to subscribe; the more users we have in the mailing list the more useful it will be to the community. If you subscribe we will send a short email to you through Wikipedia to confirm your subscription, but let us know if you'd prefer another method of verification. I'd also like to take the opportunity to invite you to contribute to the proposed guideline for edit filter use at WP:Edit filter/Draft and the associated talk page. Thank you! Sam Walton (talk) and MusikAnimal ^talk 18:22, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

please delete the user page for master vijay singh

vijay15:05, 29 September 2015 (UTC)Dispuralive (talk)

Thanks for contributions minor-edit filter

Thank you for working on "Allow minor edits to be filtered out of Special:Contributions"! I'm looking forward to it going live. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 08:58, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks... but I should point out that the code hasn't been reviewed yet. Unfortunately, changes like this normally take at least a month to be approved, quite often longer. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

User:This, that and the other/transclude

May I ask what purpose this page serves? —Skyllfully ^(talk | _contribs) 02:30, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Skyllfully: I was probably trying to debug some problem with the MediaWiki software or something like that. Is the page showing up in some database report or backlog? — This, that and the other (talk) 02:33, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, I found it in Main Page's WhatLinksHere maintenance report. —Skyllfully ^(talk | _contribs) 02:35, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability 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, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

TTOBot request re minor league affiliates navboxes

Hey, after a (brief) discussion at WT:BASEBALL, I'd like to nominate all the templates at Category:Minor league baseball affiliates navigational boxes for deletion, as they are redundant to the main Major League Baseball teams' navboxes (which already include links to all of an MLB team's MiLB affiliates, with a more correct breakdown of classifications). As I've never done a mass XFD nomination before, and I really don't relish dong it all manually, I'd appreciate a pass through with the bot for tagging and some advice on the setting up of the appropriate discussion. If you can, ping me to let me know. Thanks. oknazevad (talk) 03:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'll get TTObot to perform the tagging once the TFD nomination is set up. See Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_September_11#BTCC.2FPTR_season_templates for an example of how to format a multiple template discussion: simply give it a descriptive heading, and write out one :{{Tfd links|...}} line for each template, like this:

:{{Tfd links|MLB Team}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Blue Jays franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Braves franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Brewers franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Cardinals franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Chicago Cubs franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Indians franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Nationals franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Orioles franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Phillies franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Pirates franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Rays franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Reds franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Royals franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Arizona Diamondbacks}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Boston Red Sox}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Colorado Rockies}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Houston Astros}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Los Angeles Angels}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Los Angeles Dodgers}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Miami Marlins}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Minnesota Twins}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team New York Mets}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team New York Yankees}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Oakland Athletics}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team San Diego Padres}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team San Francisco Giants}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Seattle Mariners}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Team Texas Rangers}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB Tigers franchise}}
:{{Tfd links|MLB White Sox franchise}}

Let me know once the TFD nomination has been started. Thanks, — This, that and the other (talk) 03:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I made the nominations. It's at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 December 3#Minor league affiliates navboxes. oknazevad (talk) 20:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Done. You may like to notify the following users, who created the templates:

Gateman1997
Vikreykja
SportsMaster
Dale Arnett
Enkrates
JB82
Evill72
Tommie91
NClark128

— This, that and the other (talk) 22:50, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Editors cannot break the site, only (sys)admins can do that

In regards to this edit, I feel that the intended word was sysadmins, not admins. It seems like the gist of that section is that there is nothing that an editor can do (admin or otherwise, with the occasional but negligible odd occurrence where an admin really screws up) that can break Wikipedia. In order to truly cause permanent damage, you'd need to be a sysadmin — ie. with access to the actual backend/databases/servers/whathaveyou. Discant X 13:42, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I removed "sys" is because the text of the section seemed to be talking about admins (as in local users with sysop rights). The first sentence is "In a few cases, there are things sysops can do that will slow down or crash the site". It's clearly talking about sysops on the wiki, not system administrators in the back rooms; it even links to WP:Administrators. Then: "If you get chastised for trying to delete Wikipedia:Sandbox and crashing the site, don't try to delete the same page again". Again talking about sysops. I don't think I agree with the message of the section, but that is beside the point; I think my edit was correct. — This, that and the other (talk) 13:46, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't particularly agree with the tone of the message but the two lines "although there are a few things admins can do maliciously which are very difficult to clean up, it shouldn't ever be possible to do something which will result in permanent data loss or unfixable breakage" and "If you're unsure about something, you can ask a sysadmin on IRC if it makes you feel better, but generally it's not necessary," plus that the preceding sections reference sysadmins rather than admins seems to suggest that the message of the article in whole is not to worry about edits, because non-employees can't break the site in an irreversible fashion — having the section title say admins can break the site and then go on to say that they can't do any serious damage so "don't be afraid to do similar things... This damages Wikipedia far more than a minor temporary slowdown" seems contradictory.

The whole section is a bit vague, but regardless of what the original author intended to say, I think it is true that only a sysadmin could truly break the site, not an admin (you may be a bit more familiar with the backend, but I imagine that even if every admin were to start acting maliciously it could be reversed by a sysadmin by a manual change outside of the normal tools). Discant X 14:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seasons' greetings!

Steel1943 (talk) is wishing you Happy Holidays! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user Happy Holidays, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Steel1943/HappyHolidays}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

This, that and the other, hope your holidays are happy, and a happy new year! Steel1943 (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

TB

Hello, This, that and the other. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Question_about_DIFF_pages.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Category:Tennis name templates

Hi. After discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Tn template and a "successful" TfD for Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 February 22#Template:Tn Yuki Bhambri, where decision was taken that these articles are not needed, I want to nominate all templates in Category:Tennis name templates for deletion. Is this something you and your bot, User:TTObot, can help with? The templates where only used on a handful articles and I removed them so they are not currently used anywhere and I follow all related pages at my sandbox and watchlist. I would not ask if I would not think a nomination would be successful. Qed237 (talk) 21:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Qed237: Thanks. If you start the TFD discussion, then I can provide a link to that discussion from the edit summary. Otherwise I will just provide a generic deletion summary, like "Nominated for deletion". — This, that and the other (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@This, that and the other: Discussion opened at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 March 4#Tn templates. Thank you. Qed237 (talk) 00:26, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Qed237: Done (I had to do it in 2 passes because some of the accents in the names of the players played havoc with my script). — This, that and the other (talk) 08:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Thank you very much. Qed237 (talk) 10:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle. An second opinion?

Thank you for answering my question on Twinkle. That helped and I have been thinking about reporting it. This is not for a second opinion on content or to have the content in the article.This is because I think Twinkle was misused with false summary edits. I just want an second opinion by someone that knows Twinkle and Wikipedia policies better. Just too much to read and take in at one time. The situation is solved but I still question some things. In short what happen, I edited some nonconstructive edits that was half accurate (unknown to me they were in the wrong place) and my edits were done in verified accuracy when I corrected them. Instead of looking at the original edit it was reverted back to them twice by different editors, however, in both summaries did not fit my edits, twinkle was used both times. In the first one the summary had nothing to do with my edits. The second was a little better but still did not match the situation. This whole thing could had been avoided if the original edits were read than being revert back to them or changed when they were made. Also, maybe realize I was correcting what was there and then explain what the original edits should not been there and not made my edits to be the ones in the wrong place like nothing was there before. So, is reverting my good-faith verified accuracy edits back to nonconstructive edits in the wrong place with summaries that did not match my edits and using twinkle abuse? I have felt like my edits were being called vandalism because Twinkle is used for vandalism and nonconstructive. And to me, my edits were to fix nonconstructive edits. Also, When the first editor that reverted my edits, I had wrote on their talk page. no answer. The second editor that reverted my edits, we had a confusing conversation until I understand the original edits I corrected were in the wrong place. That editor did remove most and corrected the rest. The situation is over. If I knew about Twinkle before hand I would had reported it because I feel it is against Twinkle but is it? Truthseeker1022 (talk) 03:33, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle question

Where should I go to request a uw template be added to Twinkle? The template in question is {{uw-afcaddition}}. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:05, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Filtering minor edits from user contributions

[posted to User talk:Jeffq#Filtering minor edits from user contributions]: Hi Jeff. Back in October last year, you asked whether there is a way to hide minor edits from user contributions pages. This feature has finally been implemented in MediaWiki software, and will be available here on 16 June. You can try it out at Wikipedia Beta. — This, that and the other (talk) 01:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:50, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

...meow...

Mountebank1 (talk) 00:28, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, This, that and the other. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New Page Reviewer - RfC

Hi This, that and the other. You are invited to comment at a further discussion on the implementation of this user right to patrol and review new pages that is taking place at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/RfC on patrolling without user right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:12, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Db-meta

There is an (apparent) problem with the addition of the "help=off" parameter that you added to Template:Db-meta in this edit. The problem is that sometimes editors use the "help=off" parameter even without notifying the article author of the speedy delete nomination. Thus, as an administrator, when I am reviewing articles up for speedy deletion, and I find that the author has not been notified, I don't get the help section to provide notice to the author automatically. As I commented at [1], using the "help=off" parameter is like saying, "I didn't notify the article creator that I nominated this page for speedy deletion, and I want to make it more difficult than normal for anyone else to do so, too." If it was your intention that the help=off parameter should only be used or activated once the author has been given notice, it doesn't seem to be working that way. I don't know enough about template parameters to fix the template myself. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:38, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Metropolitan90: As you identified, the parameter was added so that the help section is not shown when the creator has been notified. Twinkle, as far as I can see, only adds |help=off when the creator is about to be notified by the tool. If Twinkle has been asked not to notify the page creator, it will not add help=off. However, in the very rare case that the posting to user talk fails (such as because the user talk page is fully protected), the help=off parameter will be added regardless. I suspect (and hope) this is a vanishingly rare scenario.

If people are misusing the parameter, the solution is not to remove the parameter; it might be to change the template documentation, engage with individual users, or identify if any tools, gadgets or scripts are to blame. If you can provide some diffs of users who have been using the parameter incorrectly, it would help to identify the source of the problem. However, at the end of the day, I can't control what other users are doing with the parameter I added. — This, that and the other (talk) 06:59, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will follow up when I have diffs to provide. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

CSS styling in templates

Hello everyone, and sincere apologies if you're getting this message more than once. Just a heads-up that there is currently work on an extension in order to enable CSS styling in templates. Please check the document on mediawiki.org to discuss best storage methods and what we need to avoid with implementation. Thanks, m:User:Melamrawy (WMF), 09:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Addition of un-redirected pages to Special:NewPages and Special:NewPagesFeed

I'm contacting you because you participated in this proposal discussion. While the proposal was approved, it has not received developer action. The request is now under consideration as part of the 2017 Developer Wishlist, with voting open through the end of day on Tuesday (23:59 UTC). The latter link describes the voting process, if you are interested. —swpb^T 18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Greetings!

The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

Arbcom

Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include:

Community encouraged to review common fixes
Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits
Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface
Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope
Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis

BRFAs

We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular:

RFC on COSMETICBOT
Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes
Requested move for the Bot Owners' Noticeboard
A phabricator ticket T162685 has been made to have a "bots" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked

New things

Several new things are around:

A BAG Guide has been created (WP:BAGG, discussion).
Users now have the option to hide AWB from their watchlists via a script (WP:HIDEAWB, discussion)
The guidance on how to deal with bot issues has been overhauled (WP:BOTISSUE, discussion)
The bot policy has been updated to clarify that bot operators are required to register accounts. (WP:BOTACCOUNT, discussion)

Wikimania

Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know!

Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

JavaScript RegExp problem

I noticed you have experience in JavaScript. I'm hoping you can help me with a problem I've run into writing a userscript.

Please see my post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject JavaScript#Nested RegExp.

Thank you. The Transhumanist 12:27, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Twinkle help deployment

I notice that you pushed the code for this to GitHub, but it's not reflected on my Twinkle yet, and it's been a few weeks. Can you deploy from there to here, or does @MusikAnimal: have to do it? – Train2104 (t • c) 22:37, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Train2104: I'm not an administrator, so no, I can't. MusikAnimal can though. I've been waiting for mw:Gadgets 2.0 for about 6 years - hopefully one day we will get it, and then non-admins will be able to manage gadgets. — This, that and the other (talk) 23:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done Just ping me whenever it needs to be synced, only takes a few minutes :) I don't think there's a way to get notifications about commits to select repos on GitHub, or else I'd just go by that — MusikAnimal ^talk 23:49, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings!

Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

BAG

BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG!

BRFAs

We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing.
The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live.
The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion)
The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion).

New things

A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion).
WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots.
The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked.
Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion).
21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes.
WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion).

Upcoming

HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Wikimania

Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know!

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Category:Wikipedia bots running on the Wikimedia Labs cluster has been nominated for discussion

Category:Wikipedia bots running on the Wikimedia Labs cluster, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- MarcoAurelio (talk) 10:34, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Marvel Comics characters

Hello. I would like to nominate a number of templates for discussion, and I noticed that your bot TTObot may help with it. The problematic templates are:

All those navboxes are linking articles by a trivial theme (the first character of their names). There are several templates already that group Marvel characters by more reasonable criteria, such as those that appear in a same publication (like {{Fantastic Four}}), so those ones are not really needed. Cambalachero (talk) 15:09, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Cambalachero: With only 27 templates it's probably easier to do it by hand. If you had, say, 50 or 100 templates to tag, then TTObot might be a good choice. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:49, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Users who do not wish to receive talkbacks

I have proposed renaming of Category:Users who do not wish to receive talkbacks to "Wikipedians...". – Fayenatic London 10:09, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, This, that and the other. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New Page Reviewer granted

Hello This, that and the other. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group, allowing you to review new pages and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or in some cases, tag them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is a vital function for policing the quality of the encylopedia, if you have not already done so, you must read the new tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the various deletion criteria. If you need more help or wish to discuss the process, please join or start a thread at page reviewer talk.

URGENT: Please consider helping get the huge backlog down to a manageable number of pages as soon as possible.
Be nice to new users - they are often not aware of doing anything wrong.
You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted - be formal and polite in your approach to them too, even if they are not.
Don't review a page if you are not sure what to do. Just leave it for another reviewer.
Remember that quality is quintessential to good patrolling. Take your time to patrol each article, there is no rush. Use the message feature and offer basic advice.

The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In case of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, the right can be revoked at any time by an administrator. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to be on the NPP mailing list, sign up at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Newsletter list. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:54, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like I conflicted @Alex Shih:, but same message. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:55, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Same message. Thank you! Alex Shih (talk) 04:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Offing

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Offing, requesting that it be deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under two or more of the criteria for speedy deletion, by which pages can be deleted at any time, without discussion. If the page meets any of these strictly-defined criteria, then it may soon be deleted by an administrator. The reasons it has been tagged are:

It is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. (See section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion.) Wikipedia has standards for the minimum necessary information to be included in short articles; you can see these at Wikipedia:Stub. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.
It consists of a dictionary definition or other article that has been transwikied to another project and the author information recorded. (See section A5 of the criteria for speedy deletion.)

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Matuko 09:19, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Offing

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.
You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Offing, requesting that it be deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under two or more of the criteria for speedy deletion, by which pages can be deleted at any time, without discussion. If the page meets any of these strictly-defined criteria, then it may soon be deleted by an administrator. The reasons it has been tagged are:

It is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. (See section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion.) Wikipedia has standards for the minimum necessary information to be included in short articles; you can see these at Wikipedia:Stub. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.
It consists of a dictionary definition or other article that has been transwikied to another project and the author information recorded. (See section A5 of the criteria for speedy deletion.)

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Matuko 09:19, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@Matuko: I think {{wi}} articles ought to be considered more as soft redirects, so that the article CSD criteria do not apply. Let's see what an admin thinks. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:23, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary).
Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision).
A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion).

BAG

Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity.

BRFAs

We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.

New things

WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion).
6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well.
Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical)
The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently.

Upcoming

HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Upcoming changes to wikitext parsing

Hello,

There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.

There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).

If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions.

Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List is of South Australian organisations providing support to people with disability listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect List is of South Australian organisations providing support to people with disability. Since you had some involvement with the List is of South Australian organisations providing support to people with disability redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Subst and such

Hi TTO. I've been trying to get a basic grasp on subst and safsubst recently, and I see you have had it for years. Why, do you think, Special:Diff/849795156 ended up looking like that? Did you enter "revisionuser" manually in {{RMassist/core}} instead of using {{RMassist}} that includes a safesubst of REVISIONUSER? Sam Sailor 12:40, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did enter that manually. No idea why it didn't work. Perhaps I had a good grasp of subst and safesubst in 2011 when I wrote that page, but I have evidently lost touch with template substitution since then. — This, that and the other (talk) 23:51, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think you dropped something

Is this yours? Primefac (talk) 13:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac: Yeah, sorry about that. I thought I'd pitch in and enact a non-admin closure, but I was unaware that the destination title was salted, so I ended up having to ask for a requested move. It did get moved eventually. — This, that and the other (talk) 23:50, 11 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, no worries. Primefac (talk) 00:07, 12 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves.

BAG

There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active.
In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog.

BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

24 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status).
54 approved bot tasks since the start of 2018. Of note, Community Tech bot 5 (the #10 Wish on the 2017 Community Survey) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from Wikimedia Commons.

Also

If you're a bot operator that can help with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see discussion, discussion), please file a BRFA!
8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion, discussion, discussion).

Discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

Use of tags by bots – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag.
Mass page moves – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves.
Creation of redirects – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects.
Guidance on disruptive use of semi–automated tools? – Related to meatbots (see also MOS discussion, which resulted in small addition to MOS:VAR).
Discussion concerning WP:BOTFLAG/WP:RC – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also VPT discussion and CREATEBOT update).
Out of curiosity... (to all bot operators) – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators.
Introducing Toolhub – Toolhub is looking for feedback.

New things

{{Automated tools}}, a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. {{Draft article}}) to provide convenient links to editors.
AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the changelog for what's new. Note that the next version will require .NET Framework 4.5. Many thanks to Reedy and the AWB team.
BotWatch, "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute [without] a bot flag", is being developed by SQL (see discussion).
Massive updates and improvements have been made to Citation bot in the past few months (see discussions, discussions, discussions). You can activate the bot here, amongst other methods.
HTML Tidy has been phased out (see Tech News #28).
{{Newbot}} has been reorganized a bit (diff). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see discussion).
Wikipedia:Bots#See also has been reorganized a bit (diff).
The bot dictionary has two new entries, context bot and context-sensitive edit.
The bot request header has been updated to include better guidance (see discussion).
The subcategories of Category:Wikipedia bot requests for approval have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Some TfD tagging for TTOBot

Hi. I have a mass Tfd nomination at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 October 7 which consists of 48 pages. Can your bot please tag all the template for deletion. Thanks. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:04, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Pkbwcgs: I may not have time to do this in the coming few days, as I am extremely busy IRL right now. It's not an enormous task, so you might be able to find a taker at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. — This, that and the other (talk) 10:09, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am doing it right now with AWB. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:11, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, This, that and the other. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mass deletion nomination of templates

Hey, I was wondering if your bot User:TTObot could help me nominate all templates in Category:Elementbox templates. Template:Elementbox was converted into Template:Infobox element which uses a different syntax and does not use any of these templates which are marked as deprecated. --Gonnym (talk) 12:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings!

Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it.

BAG

Several (1 + 12 = 13) users have been retired/resigned from the BAG due to inactivity, per our new activity requirements (discussion).

BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG.

Two BAG members retired
- Madman (talk · contribs) retired.
- BU Rob13 (talk · contribs) vanished and retired.
Three new BAG members have been voted in, welcome to the BAG!
- Primefac (talk · contribs) joined on 2018-12-12 (RfBAG). Primefac operates PrimeBOT (talk · contribs) which does a plethora of tasks.
- TheSandDoctor (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-01-21 (RfBAG). TheSandDoctor operates several bots including DeprecatedFixerBot (talk · contribs).
- Enterprisey (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-08-07 (RfBAG). Enterprisey operates EnterpriseyBot (talk · contribs), which does a plethora of tasks, RemindMeBot (talk · contribs) which posts reminders, and codes several scripts.

We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.

BOTDICT

Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary

Editor-hostile wikitext – describes wikitext structuring that is editor hostile, even if it renders correctly
Spectrum of usefulness – describes how tasks are deemed useful or not

BOTPOL

Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC).
Copyvio flag: Bot accounts may be additionally marked by a bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Wikipedia. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1 bot using this functionality.
Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Wikipedia namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION.

BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status).
In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied.
Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied.
10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion).

New things

All bot-related discussion pages now have a centralized and searchable archive box (see discussion). Discussions are searchable per noticeboard, or globally.
{{Bot}} now supports |status=expired (see discussion). This led to the deletion of Category:Indefinitely blocked Wikipedia bots as useless (see discussion).
WP:BOTREQ now mentions WP:SCRIPTREQ and WP:AWBTASKS as alternatives to bot requests.
The bot creation guide now mentions bot flags, and two new languages Awk and MATLAB. Other minor tweaks have been made.
AAlertBot has received major code updates. In particular, WP:AALERTS will now report splits, mergers, and AFC submissions.
Citation bot has received several updates (User talk:Citation bot/Archive 10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17). In particular, the bot stopped the automated removal of |publisher= from {{cite journal}}, and stopped the automated addition of CiteSeerX links, and now uses OAuth to authenticate those who make requests of the bot.

Other discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Mass TfD nomination

Greetings,

the instructions of User:TTObot say that I should request a mass-tagging task here. Is it possible to tag all the templates on Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 September 7 with a tag for Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 September 14#Template:Venezuela Squad 1990 FIBA World Championship? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:39, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Frietjes got in before me :) This, that and the other (talk) 01:59, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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.

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Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Invalid dinosaur concern

Hi there, I'm HasteurBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Invalid dinosaur, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

You may request Userfication of the content if it meets requirements.

If the deletion has already occured, instructions on how you may be able to retrieve it are available at WP:REFUND/G13.

Thank you for your attention. HasteurBot (talk) 01:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for December 30

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited The Offbeat of Avenues, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Michael McDonald (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) 09:28, 30 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:No talkback

Template:No talkback has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:36, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Category:Scribunto modules with errors has been nominated for deletion

Category:Scribunto modules with errors has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Gonnym (talk) 10:11, 19 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Jade Thompson

I created an article for a Jade Thompson, about 10 years ago. I just read your message today. Michuk (talk) 23:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots.

Overall

Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

September 2019

Y Monkbot 16, DannyS712 bot 60, Ahechtbot 6, PearBOT 3, Qbugbot 3 · N2 DannyS712 bot 5, PkbwcgsBot 24 · ? DannyS712 bot 61, TheSandBot 4
TParis goes away, UTRSBot goes kaput: Beeblebrox noted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot [...] but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019.
Article-measuring contest resumed: The list of Wikipedians by article count, which had lain dead for several years, was triumphantly resurrected by GreenC following a bot request.

October 2019

Y OAbot 3, DannyS712 bot 47, Pathbot 2, PearBOT 2, DannyS712 bot 59, DannyS712 bot 62, HasteurBot 14, PearBOT 4, WOSlinkerBot 4, MilHistBot 5
Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthony pointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Wikipedia, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"

November 2019

Y BHGbot 4, YiFeiBot 2, DannyS712 bot III 64 · ? PearBOT
Old bots do new tricks: DannyS712 bot III 64 prowled redirects, YiFeiBot 2 archived GoCE requests, and BHGbot 4 removed links to portals deleted at MfD (until its authorization was revoked in January at operator BrownHairedGirl's request).

December 2019

Y DemonDays64 Bot, DannyS712 bot III 66, Bot1058 6, Monkbot 15, MilHistBot 6, PearBOT 5, DannyS712 bot IV 65 · N2 SportsStatsBot · Xinbenlv bot, SteveBot 8
Redirects to be autopatrolled: A RfC took place at WP:NPP, closing with unanimous consensus that new redirects should be automatically marked as patrolled by bot. DannyS712 wasted no time, and submitted DannyS712 bot III 66 the next day; it passed two days after that.
200,000 bios get short descs: Along a similar vein, Bot1058 6 was approved to remove disambiguation pages from Category:Monitored short pages and a new bot (DemonDays64 Bot) changed lots of http links to https using JavaScript Wiki Browser. One particularly neat task, PearBOT 5, automatically generated short descriptions for more than 200,000 biographies.

In the next issue of Bots Newsletter:
What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

What happens when two bots want to clerk the same page?
What happens when an adminbot goes hog wild?
Will reFill ever get fixed?
What's up with ListeriaBot, anyway?
Python 3.4 deprecation? In my PyWikiBot? (It's more likely than you think!)

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Listing of Template:Circle at templates for discussion

Template:Circle has been listed at templates for discussion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 12:14, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Concern regarding Draft:Invalid dinosaur

Hello, This, that and the other. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:Invalid dinosaur, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 23:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 January 2022

Special report: WikiEd course leads to Twitter harassment

Education, deletion and social media can be a volatile mix.

News and notes: Feedback for Board of Trustees election

Plus, the incredible shrinking admin cadre.

Interview: CEO Maryana Iskander "four weeks in"

"Impossible ideas can be created, not just imagined."

Black History Month: What are you doing for Black History Month?

Over 1,700 U.S. congressmen owned slaves. You can help document this.

Deletion report: Ringing in the new year: Subject notability guideline under discussion

More than you wanted to know about the massive NSPORTS RfC.

WikiProject report: The Forgotten Featured

Interview with volunteers at the Unreviewed featured articles 2020 working group.

Arbitration report: New arbitrators look at new case and antediluvian sanctions

The spirit of 2006 is going strong.

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2021

Royals, Freddy and movies.

Gallery: No Spanish municipality without a photograph

How many more photos are needed?

Obituary: Twofingered Typist

Rest in peace.

Op-Ed: Identifying and rooting out climate change denial

Will this method apply to other sensitive topics?

Essay: The prime directive

Just imagine!

Opinion: Should the Wikimedia Foundation continue to accept cryptocurrency donations?

One editor doesn't think so.

In the media: Fuzzy-headed government editing

Get down and party! But no COI editing!

Recent research: Articles with higher quality ratings have fewer "knowledge gaps"

And other research results.

Serendipity: Pooh entered the Public Domain – but Tigger has to wait two more years

Copyright is almost always complicated, but we break it down for you.

Crossword: Cross swords with a crossword

Featuring an experimental on-wiki entry box.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.

Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.

Overall
In the first half of 2020, there were 71 BRFAs. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

January 2020

Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.

Y ST47Bot, Seppi333Bot, Qbugbot 4 · N2 PkbwcgsBot 25, PkbwcgsBot 26
A new Pywikibot release dropped support for Python 3.4, and it was expected that support for Python 2.7 would be removed in coming updates. Toolforge itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022.
Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ST47Bot, the successor to STBot, and Seppi333Bot, whose task was to perform a weekly update of four "massive" wikitables for WikiProject Molecular Biology.
Cydebot, an adminbot operated by Cyde since 2006, was blocked after going berserk on categories that hadn't yet been CfD'd.

February 2020

Y AnomieBOT 78, Cewbot 2, DannyS712 bot 67, DannyS712 bot III 63, PearBOT 6, DemonDays64 Bot 2 · N2 PearBOT
On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
On February 18, ST47Bot got into a tussle with Amalthea (bot), and had to be partially-blocked from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview.

March 2020

Y MajavahBot, SDZeroBot, TheSandBot 6, TheSandBot 7, Bitbotje, FACBot 6, TheSandBot 8, Qbugbot 5, Cewbot 3, SDZeroBot 2, PrimeBOT 31, WikiCleanerBot 12 · AntiCompositeBot
In March, a long discussion was started at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy by Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were TheSandBot 6 (removing blocked users from Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues), and TheSandBot 7 (removing unblocked users from Category:Wikipedians who are indefinitely blocked for promotional user names). SDZeroBot 2 was approved to refine geographic stub tags. New bots approved this month were MajavahBot (to patrol WP:EFFPR), SDZeroBot (to merge stub tags), and Bitbotje (fixing DISPLAYTITLE modifications, DEFAULTSORT errors and broken behavior switches in draftspace).

April 2020

Y TheSandBot 9, BHGbot 5, DannyS712 bot 69, SDZeroBot 3, ST47ProxyBot, WugBot 4, SDZeroBot 4, DatBot 10, WikiCleanerBot 11, WikiCleanerBot 13, WikiCleanerBot 14, AntiCompositeBot 2, Cewbot 4 · N2 DaedanBot 1 · Creffbot
A discussion on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by Barkeep49, who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
ST47ProxyBot joined the stable in April, after a BRFA started in December was finally completed. As an adminbot, it was authorized to block IP addresses belonging to open proxies, public VPN services, and web hosts. New tasks approved for existing bots included BHGbot 5 (diffusing categories), TheSandBot 9 (taking over some tasks from the inactive RonBot), and WugBot 4 (updating data at {{Interactive COVID-19 maps}}). Also, DatBot 10 was approved to scale down non-free SVGs — I didn't even know that was a thing.
A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy was started by Thryduulf about whether WP:BOTCOMM should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Wikipedia specifically (as opposed to Phabricator, SourceForge, Toolforge, et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its current form:

Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Wikipedia. Pages reachable via unified login, like a talk page at Commons or at Italian Wikipedia could also be acceptable [...] External sites like Phabricator or GitHub (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise anonymity) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.

May 2020

Y MajavahBot 3, DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, Dreamy Jazz Bot 4, QEDKbot, William Avery Bot 2, DannyS712 bot 68, PrimeBOT 32, TheSandBot 10, Bot1058 7, BHGbot 6, EaglesBot 2, Cewbot 5, WikiCleanerBot 17 · N2 MDanielsBot, PhuzBot 3, Gedimon · ? PearBOT 7
MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Wikipedia. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
Other approvals for this month were William Avery Bot 2 (processing redirects in {{R from scientific name}}), DannyS712 bot 68 (allowing users to schedule bot reminders for themselves), TheSandBot 10 (removing blocked/locked users from Category:User talk pages with conflict of interest notices), Bot1058 7 (updating Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests/Permalink), Dreamy Jazz Bot 4 (adding {{WikiProject Biography|living=no}} to talk pages where their associated article is in a year of death category), and QEDKbot (deleting and nominating empty categories).
General syntax fixing tasks were approved for DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, PrimeBOT 32, BHGbot 6, Cewbot 5, and EaglesBot 2, as well as WikiCleanerBot 15, 16, and 17.
Seven bots who fell below activity requirements (with neither the bots nor their operators having any edits or logged actions in two years) had their bot flags removed. They were NekoBot, Robert SkyBot, DASHBotAV, VoxelBot, JackieBot, ReferenceBot, and CensusBot.
On May 12, EmausBot was blocked.

June 2020

Y QEDKbot 2, AnomieBOT 79, WOSlinkerBot 6, Yapperbot 2, Yapperbot, AnomieBOT 80, Dreamy Jazz Bot 5, WikiCleanerBot 18, HasteurBot 15, MusikBot II 4, NoSandboxesHere · N2 RedWarn · ? Seppi333Bot 2
In July 2017, Headbomb made a proposal that a section of the Wikipedia:Dashboard be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, Lua code was written superseding Legobot's tasks on that page, and operator Legoktm was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a partial-block of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues [...] Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
On June 7, RexxS blocked Citation bot for disruptive editing, saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a discussion on the bots noticeboard was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Wikipedia". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and AntiCompositeNumber requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer AManWithNoPlan responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper test suite), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a June 2019 incident in which a LTA had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on [the bot]". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
Two new bots had their first BRFAs approved: Yapperbot, to replace Legobot for handling the Feedback Request Service, and NoSandboxesHere, to remove {{user sandbox}} from articles in draftspace using Category:Non-userspace pages using User sandbox.

Conclusion

What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

Will Citation bot ever be set free to roam the project?
What's the deal with all those book links that InternetArchiveBot is adding to articles?
Should we keep using Gerrit for MediaWiki?
What if we had a day for bots to make cosmetic edits?

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the February 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 23:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The Signpost: 27 February 2022

From the team: Selection of a new Signpost Editor-in-Chief

Bye-bye 'bones!

News and notes: Impacts of Russian invasion of Ukraine

Plus, the Steward Elections, Leadership Development Task Force and a contest.

Opinion: Why student editors are good for Wikipedia

Who are the students and how do we assure quality?

Special report: A presidential candidate's team takes on Wikipedia

Vive l'encyclopédie libre!

In the media: Wiki-drama in the UK House of Commons

Plus, Wiki Unseen, the "Sports Wars", and much more.

Serendipity: War photographers: from Crimea (1850s) to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022)

"The first casualty when war comes is truth".

Technology report: Community Wishlist Survey results

Plus, DiscussionTools and dark mode.

WikiProject report: 10 years of tea

Coffee in Teahouse and other secrets revealed in this interview with volunteers.

Featured content: Featured Content returns

A fantastic diverse mix of a record-breaking amount of content.

Deletion report: The 10 most SHOCKING deletion discussions of February

You WON'T believe #8!

Recent research: How editors and readers may be emotionally affected by disasters and terrorist attacks

And other recent research publications.

Arbitration report: Parties remonstrate, arbs contemplate, skeptics coordinate

The report on lengthy litigation.

By the numbers: Does birthplace affect the frequency of Wikipedia biography articles?

Some evidence from people born in France.

Gallery: The vintage exhibit

Some good-ol' posters, restored to its former glory.

Traffic report: Euphoria, Pamela Anderson, lies and Netflix

Plus quarterbacks, half-timers, Olympians, and Hulu!

News from Diff: The Wikimania 2022 Core Organizing Team

Meet the folks in charge!

Crossword: A Crossword, featuring Featured Articles

Can you fill in the boxes with Wikipedia's best content?

Humour: Notability of mailboxes

Does yours pass?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 March 2022

From the Signpost team: How The Signpost is documenting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

We stand in solidarity with free knowledge.

News and notes: Of safety and anonymity

The diff that resulted in arrest and jail time in Belarus.

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Kharkiv, Ukraine: Countering Russian aggression with a camera

A Ukrainian Wikipedian volunteers to document the war.

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary

Reporting from on the ground in Ukraine.

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Western Ukraine: Working with Wikipedia helps

Holding up the elephants!

Disinformation report: The oligarchs' socks

For whom do the Bells toil?

In the media: Ukraine, Russia, and even some other stuff

Lenin did not say "Wow, check out those yachts"!

Recent research: Top scholarly citers, lack of open access references, predicting editor departures

And other research publications.

Wikimedian perspective: My heroes from Russia, Ukraine & beyond

The thought of cities being destroyed is unbearable.

Discussion report: Athletes are less notable now

The Discussion Report returns with a diverse mix of community proposals.

Technology report: 2022 Wikimedia Hackathon

Plus, Desktop Improvements and a new uploading tool for Commons.

Arbitration report: Skeptics given heavenly judgement, whirlwind of Discord drama begins to spin for tropical cyclone editors

Unclear whether storm will make landfall.

Traffic report: War, what is it good for?

Ukraine, Russia and Anna Sorokin.

Deletion report: Ukraine, werewolves, Ukraine, YouTube pundits, and Ukraine

Things that go "boom" in the night.

Gallery: "All we are saying is, give peace a chance..."

The once-seen beauty of Ukraine, in high quality.

From the archives: Burn, baby burn

A look at when early backups of Wikipedia were recovered.

Essay: Yes, the sky is blue

There is such thing as over-citing.

Tips and tricks: Become a keyboard ninja

And other useful Tips of the Day.

On the bright side: The bright side of news

Happy-er current events.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:52, 27 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 April 2022

News and notes: Double trouble

The second case of Wikipedian persecution.

In the media: The battlegrounds outside and inside Wikipedia

What's hot in the media this month.

Special report: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

Writing Wikipedia, joining the armed forces, and volunteering.

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (Part 2)

"Our proud Sparta bleeds too."

Technology report: 8-year-old attribution issues in Media Viewer

Plus, a new status page and Desktop Improvements.

Featured content: Wikipedia's best content from March

We showcase the best content that Wikipedians offered this past month.

In focus: Editing difficulties on Russian Wikipedia

A multi-national encyclopedia tries to move forward.

Gallery: A voyage around the world with WLM winners

Wiki Loves Monuments 2021 winners announced.

Interview: On a war and a map

How a war map predated Wikimedia's map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Serendipity: Wikipedia loves photographs, but hates photographers

Why not just link to an article to attribute famous photographers?

Traffic report: Justice Jackson, the Smiths, and an invasion

Plus deaths, films, and the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification.

Recent research: Student edits as "civic engagement"; how Wikipedia readers interact with images

And other new research findings

News from the WMF: How Smart is the SMART Copyright Act?

The deceptively simple Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022.

Essay: The problem with elegant variation

An elegant Wikipedia essay.

Humour: Really huge message boxes

A serious statement of Wikipedia policy.

From the archives: Wales resigned WMF board chair in 2006 reorganization

A look at when the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees was reorganized.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:43, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Bigredbox

Template:Bigredbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 29 May 2022

From the team: A changing of the guard

Your two new Signpost Editors in Chief.

News and notes: 2022 Wikimedia Board elections

Plus, Form 990, fundraising, RfA and UCoC.

Community view: Have your say in the 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board elections

Community shortlisting in an affiliate-based process, and a poll for you to speak your mind.

Opinion: The Wikimedia Endowment – a lack of transparency

A little more information, please.

In the media: Putin, Jimbo, Musk and more

A varied collection of "special operations", and interviews.

Special report: Three stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war

Tales of hope, perseverance and even a little humor.

In focus: Measuring gender diversity in Wikipedia articles

A new approach at the article level.

Discussion report: Portals, April Fools, admin activity requirements and more

We summarize the drama for you.

WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19 revisited

March 2020 WikiProject report interviewees return discussing project's evolution and future.

Technology report: A new video player for Wikimedia wikis

Plus, Growth Features configuration, the Hackathon, and more.

Featured content: Featured content of April

Showcasing the very best articles, pictures, videos, and other contributions from Wikipedians last month.

Interview: Wikipedia's pride

An interview with queer Wikimedians.

Serendipity: Those thieving image farms

Stopping them from taking your photos from Commons.

Recent research: 35 million Twitter links analysed

And other recent research findings.

Tips and tricks: The reference desks of Wikipedia

Helpful advice from Tips of the Day.

Traffic report: Strange highs and strange lows

Were Johnny and Amber exchanging blows?

News from Diff: Winners of the Human rights and Environment special nomination by Wiki Loves Earth announced

Photos raise awareness for nature protection and human impact on nature.

News from the WMF: The EU Digital Services Act: What’s the Deal with the Deal?

New regulations governing online censorship.

Video: How the entire country of Qatar was blocked from editing

A lighthearted video recalling the 2006 incident.

Gallery: Diving under the sea for World Oceans Day

Exploring Featured Pictures of the world's oceans.

From the archives: The Onion and Wikipedia

A look at when The Onion published an humorous article regarding Wikipedia.

Essay: How not to write a Wikipedia article

On creative works.

Humour: A new crossword

Test your word-puzzle skills!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 26 June 2022

News and notes: WMF inks new rules on government-ordered takedowns, blasts Russian feds' censor demands, spends big bucks

Office actions to secretly delete stuff when told to? Well, at least not if they're Putin's.

In the media: Editor given three-year sentence, big RfA makes news, Guy Standing takes it sitting down

Belarusian Mark Bernstein to serve 36 months of "home chemistry" for unapproved posting, Slate covers historically large adminship bid, UBI economist with goofy infobox caption thinks it's funny.

Special report: "Wikipedia's independence" or "Wikimedia's pile of dosh"?

A review of Wikipedia's fundraising messages and financial status.

Discussion report: MoS rules on CCP name mulled, XRV axe plea nulled, BLPPROD drafting bid pulled

Just three for the history books this month (or not).

Opinion: Picture of the Day – how Adam plans to ru(i)n it

Famed FP ace steps up to run main page outfit. Millions tremble in fear, or something.

Featured content: Articles on Scots' clash, Yank's tux, Austrian's action flick deemed brilliant prose

And who can forget the black-breasted buttonquail.

Essay: RfA trend line haruspicy: fact or fancy?

Don't be dumb, says math whiz: avoid the gambler's fallacy. Illustrated for your pleasure.

Recent research: Wikipedia versus academia (again), tables' "immortality" probed

Tables "like to socialize" and "share genes": ooh la la!

Serendipity: Was she really a Swiss lesbian automobile racer?

What's the deal with Anita Forrer, redlinked woman of mystery who saved Schwarzenbach archives?

News from the WMF: Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals

Google and Internet Archive sold on new product, more customers hoped to follow.

Traffic report: Top view counts for shows, movies, and celeb lawsuit that keeps on giving

Plus editing stampedes for cheery subjects: shootings, deaths, and virus.

Gallery: Celebration of summer, winter

Lest Southern Hemisphere be forgotten.

Humour: Shortcuts, screwballers, Simon & Garfunkel

Can we offer you a nice crossword in this trying time?

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

From the editors: Rise of the machines, or something

The future of stuff? Who knows, but two articles were written by a computer this month.

News and notes: Information considered harmful

Wikipedia and human rights, publishers and the Internet Archive, Russia and Wikipedia.

In the media: Censorship, medieval hoaxes, "pathetic supervillains", FB-WMF AI TL bid, dirty duchess deeds done dirt cheap

Real news or silly season?

Op-Ed: The "recession" affair

IGNORANCE IS NOT STRENGTH.

Eyewitness Wikimedian, Vinnytsia, Ukraine: War diary (part 3)

"This year's victory was sad and dull."

Election guide: The chosen six: 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections

Candidate op-eds, open question spaces, and more.

Community view: Youth culture and notability

Was Minecraft YouTuber a GNG pass in life, or only in death?

Opinion: Criminals among us

Mass murderers, sex criminals, Ponzi schemers, insider traders, and business people.

Arbitration report: Winds of change blow for cyclone editors, deletion dustup draws toward denouement

The last three months of arbitration through the eyes of a GPT-3

Deletion report: This is Gonzo Country

GPT-3 whips it out.

Discussion report: Notability for train stations, notices for mobile editors, noticeboards for the rest of us

And when is 'today'?

Traffic report: US TV, JP ex-PM, outer space, and politics of IN, US, UK top charts for July

The world shows its messy complexity.

Featured content: A little list with surprisingly few lists

More lists expected next month.

Tips and tricks: Cleaning up awful citations with Citation bot

It doesn't have to be a pain in the butt!

In focus: Wikidata insights from a handy little tool

PAC2 explains the item documentation template.

On the bright side: Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war — three (more) stories

Education, climate change, and journalism.

Essay: How to research an image

Zoom and enhance.

Recent research: A century of rulemaking on Wikipedia analyzed

And other new research findings.

Serendipity: Don't cite Wikipedia

But Commons is a treasure trove.

Gallery: A backstage pass

All the things about theatre that the general public misses out on.

From the archives: 2012 Russian Wikipedia shutdown as it happened

Ten years ago, Russian Wikipedia went dark in protest of new Russian laws. Today...

Humour: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Strange mysteries of our animal world.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:40, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

News and notes: Admins wanted on English Wikipedia, IP editors not wanted on Farsi Wiki, donations wanted everywhere

jimmy@wikipedia.org donate@wikimedia.org (not a typo?) wants a moment of your time.

Special report: Wikimania 2022: no show, no show up?

Why the 'Festival Edition' was less than perfect, and what we can do better.

In the media: Truth or consequences? A tough month for truth

But Annie Rauwerda is the real thing!

Discussion report: Boarding the Trustees

2022 elections, new page patrol, Fox News, Vector 2022, Royal Central and external links

News from Wiki Education: 18 years a Wikipedian: what it means to me

Change and stability.

In focus: Thinking inside the box

All there is to know about userboxen.

Tips and tricks: The unexpected rabbit hole of typo fixing in citations...

Sometimes Citation bot is not enough.

Technology report: Vector (2022) deployment discussions happening now

Plus, the Private Incident Reporting System, and new bots & user scripts!

Serendipity: Two photos of every library on earth

One exterior, one interior.

Featured content: Our man drills are safe for work, but our Labia is Fausta.

Also includes a campaign to "Suck for Luck".

Recent research: The dollar value of "official" external links

And other new research

Traffic report: What dreams (and heavily trafficked articles) may come

Because there really is no real theme this month you can grab onto to give a catchy title.

Essay: Delete the junk!

Some articles aren't worth saving

Gallery: A Fringe Affair (but not the show by Edward W. Feery that was on this year)

Edinburgh in August.

Humour: CommonsComix No. 1

Because the Signpost needs a cartoon.

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago

The Signpost looks back on The Signpost: New reports, conceived in a spirit of collaboration, and dedicated to the proposition of information and, uh, more information for all.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

News and notes: Board vote results, bot's big GET, crat chat gives new mop, WMF seeks "sound logo" and "organizer lab"

Candidates sign off and peel out – Sigalov is on and Peel is in.

In focus: NPP: Still heaven or hell for new users – and for the reviewers

Just what is NPP? Why does it need the WMF? Why does it need YOU?

In the media: A few complaints and mild disagreements

Was Katherine Maher a former encyclopedia salesperson?

Special report: Decentralized Fundraising, Centralized Distribution

The latest from the Wikimedia Deutschland Movement Strategy & Global Relations Team.

Discussion report: Much ado about Fox News

Source reliability, NPP, and appearance discussions.

Interview: ScottishFinnishRadish's Request for Adminship

Find out firsthand what our newest admin, ScottishFinnishRadish, does with a chainsaw.

Opinion: Are we ever going to reach consensus?

Some Articles for Deletion just drag on.

Serendipity: Removing watermarks, copyright signs and cigarettes from photos

Suggestion: promote removal of visible copyright signs of images under a CC-BY license.

Recent research: How readers assess Wikipedia's trustworthiness, and how they could in the future

And other research news.

Traffic report: Kings and queens and VIPs

Repeat after me: I solemnly swear not to put "oh my!" in a headline.

Featured content: Farm-fresh content

This month: A FACBot upgrade, a completed list of lists.

Gallery: A Festival Descends on the City: The Edinburgh Fringe, Pt. 2

Lo!

CommonsComix: CommonsComix 2: Paulus Moreelse

When Commons gives you a blank space...

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 Years ago: September 2022

Yes, again.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 31 October 2022

From the team: A new goose on the roost

Or maybe the spit -- only time will tell.

News and notes: Wikipedians question Wikimedia fundraising ethics after "somewhat-viral" tweet

News from Twitter, Commons and the WMF C-Suite.

News from the WMF: Governance updates from, and for, the Wikimedia Endowment

501(c)(3) application approved, Amazon donates another million.

In the media: Scribing, searching, soliciting, spying, and systemic bias

Wading into several controversies.

Disinformation report: From Russia with WikiLove

I can has Kremlin sockfarms?

Recent research: Disinformatsiya: Much research, but what will actually help Wikipedia editors?

And other new research publications.

Interview: Isabelle Belato on their Request for Adminship

The newest sysop speaks on the process that got them there.

Featured content: Topics, lists, submarines and Gurl.com

The Signpost: 28 November 2022

News and notes: English Wikipedia editors: "We don't need no stinking banners"

Joe Roe's close sows dough woes, manifestos... vetoes? overthrows?

In the media: "The most beautiful story on the Internet"

Ineffective altruism, return of the toaster, Jess Wade keeps wading through it, Russia censors searches, schools embrace Wikipedia.

Interview: Lisa Seitz-Gruwell on WMF fundraising in the wake of big banner ad RfC

An interview with Wikimedia's Chief Advancement Officer.

Opinion: Privacy on Wikipedia in the cyberpunk future

Oh, just one more thing... AI couldn't help but notice you use that punctuation a little bit more than most people...

Disinformation report: Missed and Dissed

Are government goons prowling our fair encyclopedia?

Op-Ed: Diminishing returns for article quality

Have we gotten past the point where better articles makes us a better encyclopedia? And what comes next?

Book review: Writing the Revolution

Heather Ford's new volume on Wikipedia, knowledge and power in the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Technology report: Galactic dreams, encyclopedic reality

Facebook's Galactica demo provides a case study in large language models for text generation at scale: this one was silly, but we cannot ignore them forever.

Essay: The Six Million FP Man

Okay, six hundred, but either way, the bionic editor speaks.

Tips and tricks: (Wiki)break stuff

Productively doing nothing

Recent research: Study deems COVID-19 editors smart and cool, questions of clarity and utility for WMF's proposed "Knowledge Integrity Risk Observatory"

And other research findings.

Featured content: A great month for featured articles

Do consider joining FPC, though: we need you.

Obituary: A tribute to Michael Gäbler

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

Concept: The relevance of legal certainty to the English Wikipedia

A lost article from our deep annals

Traffic report: Musical deaths, murders, Princess Di's nominative determinism, and sports

The weeks and weeks, as reviewed by Wikipedia's readers.

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

Search upgrades, lawsuits, paid editing, and personal reflection.

CommonsComix: Joker's trick

A toast to good health, a health to good hoax, a hoax to good toast.

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ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. 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.

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The Signpost: 1 January 2023

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation ousts, bans quarter of Arabic Wikipedia admins

Plus admin update and cool tools for the new year.

In the media: Odd bedfellows, Elon and Jimbo, reliable sources for divorces, and more

Sometimes you need to read more than just the headlines!

Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief

Interview of ComplexRational about their recent request for adminship.

Technology report: Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"

Wikifunctions might drag it down.

Essay: Mobile editing

Frustrations and successes.

Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022

Congratulations.

Recent research: Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes

And other new research findings.

Serendipity: Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical

How Iranian press agencies help Wikipedia to reflect football in a better way.

Featured content: Would you like to swing on a star?

You head into the featured content report. Amongst the features you see astronauts, both Gilbert and Sullivan, Ursula K. Le Guin's incredibly talented mother, and Billboard charts. It is pitch black, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Traffic report: Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!

It is mostly about football!

CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire

In which a couple sentences of text recontextualises an image.

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

Photographers, Sandy Hook, the shocking use of Nazi symbols in articles about Nazis, and "You wouldn't recognise a fact if it bit you in the ass".

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The Signpost: 16 January 2023

From the team: We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again

It's not just a phase! Well, maybe it is.

Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020

Long-time contributors imprisoned for 32 and 8 years after "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals".

News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion

UCoC draws nearer, alongside the rise of the machines, in mainspace this time.

In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again

Wikipedia's birthday, a cute dog, and nipplefruit.

Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery

The depths of Commons, at your fingertips. Or eyetips.

In focus: Busting into Grand Central

Debunking widely-told myths about New York's grandest and centralest railway station.

Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100

The economics of Wikipedia.

Gallery: What is our responsibility when it comes to images?

When notability conflicts with what it might be used for.

Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced

7,000,000-year Landmasses for Subduction discussions considered "too long".

Opinion: Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany

Allow us to bring you back, back, back, to days of Wikifun rampant.

Featured content: Flip your lid

...and your ambigram. Also: Boring lava fields, birds of Tuvalu, and commelinid family names with etymologies.

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022

War, sports, and all types of chaos.

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

The editor with five million edits, the death of Aaron Swartz, and rollback.

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Your draft article, Draft:Invalid dinosaur

Hello, This, that and the other. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Invalid dinosaur".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:18, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

sandbox/redirect tags

Hey! Would you mind changing User:This, that and the other/sandbox/redirect tags so that it won't be categorized in Pages with templates in the wrong namespace? Thanks! ~ Eejit43 (talk) 03:32, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Eejit43 I have no idea what that page was for, so I marked it for speedy deletion. Thanks! This, that and the other (talk) 03:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 4 February 2023

From the editor: New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function

Last issue's vow for "something to show for these efforts" revisited.

News and notes: Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan

As well as the continued rise of the machines, and Amanda Keton's WMF departure.

Section 230: Twenty-six words that created the internet, and the future of an encyclopedia

Section 230 before the Supreme Court in two cases, with broad implications for the web.

Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos

Or Santos on Wikipedia?

Special report: Legal status of Wikimedia projects "unclear" under potential European legislation

WMF issues salvo in latest battles of the Posting Wars

In the media: Furor over new Wikipedia skin, followup on Saudi bans, and legislative debate

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Op-Ed: Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter

Isamaa party sponsor Parvel Pruunsild files claim in Tartu County Court against WMEE head Ivo Kruusamägi and Reform Party politicians.

Opinion: Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage

English Wikipedia among most "global" and Thai Wikipedia's among most "Western", but non-Western works neglected overall.

Recent research: Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias

And other new research publications.

WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour

An interview with those who pitch in together

Tips and tricks: XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles

Letting you find out about yourself (and others).

Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea

An exceptionally good period for featured articles.

Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT

Can we have a chat?

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The Signpost: 20 February 2023

News and notes: Terms of Use update, Steward elections, and Wikipedia back in Pakistan

UCoC Enforcement Guidelines pass, Wikimedia Enterprise financials, GPTs gone wild, and a speedy deletion criterion removed.

In the media: Arbitrators open case after article alleges Wikipedia "intentionally distorts" Holocaust coverage

Also: Russ Baker's BLP, the digital commons, the NSA, and more on Pakistan.

Disinformation report: The "largest con in corporate history"?

Gautam Adani and his companies possibly behind scheme featuring scores of socks, infiltration of articles for creation process.

Essay: Machine-written articles: a new challenge for Wikipedia

GPT: friend or foe?

Tips and tricks: All about writing at DYK

Your one-stop hooker's handbook.

Featured content: Eden, lost.

But much else to be found.

Gallery: Love is in the air

Lovey-dovey stuff for Valentine's.

Traffic report: Superbowl? Pfft. Give me some Bollywood! Yours sincerely, the world

And maybe a side of AI.

From the archives: 5, 10, and 15 years ago: Let's (not) delete the Main Page!

Also: let's delete images of Muhammed! Let's delete portals!

Cobwebs: Editorial: The loss of the moral high ground

Yesterday's controversies, reported on today.

Humour: The RfA Candidate's Song

A musical interlude.

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The Signpost: 9 March 2023

News and notes: What's going on with the Wikimedia Endowment?

A lack of transparency.

Technology report: Second flight of the Soviet space bears: Testing ChatGPT's accuracy

Using failed AI Galactica's worst mistakes to test a new AI.

In the media: What should Wikipedia do? Publish Russian propaganda? Be less woke? Cover the Holocaust in Poland differently?

Probable answers: No, no, maybe?

Featured content: In which over two-thirds of the featured articles section needs to be copied over to WikiProject Military History's newsletter

Seriously, even the chef has a major military history connection.

Recent research: "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the Holocaust" in Poland and "self-focus bias" in coverage of global events

And other new research publications.

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago

Wikizine, Wikipedia Zero, Single User Login, and Wales allegedly editing his girlfriend's article.

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The Signpost: 20 March 2023

News and notes: Wikimania submissions deadline looms, Russian government after our lucky charms, AI woes nix CNET from RS slate

Be part of the Wikimania 2023 program!

Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians

One year in: volunteering, science, art, and candlelight.

In the media: Paid editing, plagiarism payouts, proponents of a ploy, and people peeved at perceived preferences

Everything is broken, again.

Featured content: Way too many featured articles

Seriously, it's only a fortnight's worth!

Interview: 228/2/1: the inside scoop on Aoidh's RfA

An interview with Wikipedia's newest admin.

Traffic report: Who died? Who won? Who lost?

All the pop culture that's fit to print, with a sprinkling of cocaine (bear).

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The Signpost: 03 April 2023

From the editor: Some long-overdue retractions

Errata regretted.

News and notes: Sounding out, a universal code of conduct, and dealing with AI

Skynet believed to be in violation of the new Universal Code of Conduct.

In the media: Twiddling Wikipedia during an online contest, and other news

Taking the phrase "gaming the system" to the next level.

Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" case is ongoing

Desysop case request still in accept/decline phase.

Featured content: Hail, poetry! Thou heav'n-born maid

Thou gildest e'en the Signpost's trade.

Recent research: Language bias: Wikipedia captures at least the "silhouette of the elephant", unlike ChatGPT

And a dataset of article revisions to provide a corpus for promotional content.

From the archives: April Fools' through the ages

A retrospective of the best and worst pranks.

Disinformation report: Sus socks support suits, seems systemic

Do important banks sock? Maybe – but don't grab your money and run just yet!

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The Signpost: 26 April 2023

News and notes: Staff departures at Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo hands in the bits, and graphs' zeppelin burns

Plus: Wikipedians get own Mastodon account, and Wikiprojects move to uniform quality assessment.

In the media: Contested truth claims in Wikipedia

Covering Russia, Poland, the Vatican, the U.S., and the "perilously thin" boundary between real life and Wikipedia.

Obituary: Remembering David "DGG" Goodman

The prolific editor, former Arbitration Committee member and co-founder of Wikimedia New York City died in April.

Arbitration report: Holocaust in Poland, Jimbo in the hot seat, and a desysopping

No news is good news, and this isn't no news.

Opinion: What Jimbo's question revealed about scamming

The problem we haven't solved.

Op-Ed: Wikipedia as an anchor of truth

Can Wikipedia help keep AI agents honest?

Special report: Signpost statistics between years 2005 and 2022

In this article, we will look at The Signpost statistics. More precisely: Signpost article statistics by year, TOP 20 titles of Signpost articles, TOP 20 article authors, and the home wikis of article authors.

News from the WMF: Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation

First of a two part series summarising the priorities for the Wikimedia Foundation's next fiscal year (July 2022–June 2023) including staffing, budget and other changes, and how to provide your feedback.

Featured content: In which we described the featured articles in rhyme again

And somehow made it more readable than when it's not rhyming.

From the archives: April Fools' through the ages, part two

2011 and on.

Humour: The law of hats

The Selfish Hatnote, the Disambiguation Singularity, and other information-theoretic conundra of encyclopedic note.

Traffic report: Long live machine, the future supreme

Wrestling bumps world-changing technology from the #1 spot, imagine that.

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The Signpost: 8 May 2023

News and notes: New legal "deVLOPments" in the EU

... and at WP:Mastodon.

In the media: Vivek's smelly socks, online safety, and politics

Fake fines, false alarms and faux headlines!

Recent research: Gender, race and notability in deletion discussions

And other new research publications.

Featured content: I wrote a poem for each article, I found rhymes for all the lists; My first featured picture of this year now finally exists!

...Layout lovers will hate this featured content's title.

Arbitration report: "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" approaches conclusion

There will likely be more to say next issue.

News from the WMF: Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation

The second article in a series describing the priorities and work of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article invites Wikimedians to collaborate with the Foundation.

Special report: There Shall Be Seasons Refreshing – Stories from WikiConference India 2023

First national-level conference in the Indian subcontinent in seven years.

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The Signpost: 22 May 2023

News and notes: Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation

... and a referendum on Jimmy Wales' traditional role as a final court of appeal in arbitration policy.

In the media: History, propaganda and censorship

Opposing scholars on ArbCom case.

Arbitration report: Final decision in "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland"

Includes stronger sourcing restriction, and a nod to the UCoC.

Recent research: Create or curate, cooperate or compete? Game theory for Wikipedia editors

And other new research results.

Featured content: A very musical week for featured articles

Bird is the word for featured pictures.

Traffic report: Coronation, chatbot, celebs

Celebs and Bollywood film dominated reader interest, as usual, but with a new persistent presence on the lists of a certain AI.

WikiProject report: Wikipedians Convene for Queering Wikipedia 2023: The First International LGBT+ Wikipedia Conference

An online conference with 12 distributed trans-local in-person meetup "Nodes" on 5 continents.

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The Signpost: 5 June 2023

News and notes: WMRU director forks new 'pedia, birds flap in top '22 piccy, WMF weighs in on Indian gov's map axe plea

Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Building Committee Commences Command By Convening.

In the media: Section 230 stands tall, WP vs. UK bill, Miss Information dissed again

Also: Goog gets delist ask for en-wp yt-dl ar-ticle, wacky football fails.

Featured content: Poetry under pressure

Now is not this ridiculous, and is not this preposterous? A thorough-paced absurdity - explain it if you can.

Traffic report: Celebs, controversies and a chatbot in the public eye

Plus mortalities, and movies about mermaids.

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The Signpost: 19 June 2023

News and notes: WMF Terms of Use now in force, new Creative Commons licensing

Problems with emergency emails sent to WMF.

In the media: English WP editor glocked after BLP row on Italian 'pedia

... and an AI writer explains why he just bought a paper encyc.

Featured content: Content, featured

Poetry still present.

Recent research: Hoaxers prefer currently-popular topics

And other new research findings.

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Tutorial sandbox header VE

Template:Tutorial sandbox header VE has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 3 July 2023

News and notes: Online Safety Bill: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK launch open letter

... and a new Elections Committee.

Disinformation report: Imploded submersible outfit foiled trying to sing own praises on Wikipedia

A few editors who fought many times to keep advertisements out.

In the media: Journo proposes mass Wiki dox, sponsored articles on Fandom, Section 230 discussed

Are you now, or have you ever been, a Wikipedia editor?

Featured content: Incensed

In which featured pictures have a pleasing orange/blue colour scheme for some reason.

Traffic report: Are you afraid of spiders? Arnold? The Idol? ChatGPT?

Don't worry, they are mostly harmless.

Humour: United Nations dispatches peacekeeping force to Wikipedia policy discussions

Mission to ensure stability in conflict-ridden area.

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The Signpost: 17 July 2023

News and notes: Big bux hidden beneath wine-dark sea as we wait for the Tides to go out?

Gitz666 unglocked, Wikimania scholarships given and a new admin anointed.

In the media: Tentacles of Emirates plot attempt to ensnare Wikipedia

Ruwiki on the Ruinternet, Rauwerda on TEDx, and Jimbo on Fridman.

Obituary: David Thomsen (Dthomsen8) and Ingo Koll (Kipala)

Philadelphians and Tanzanians say goodbye.

News from the WMF: ABC for Fundraising: Advancing Banner Collaboration for fundraising campaigns

The collaboration process for the 2023 English fundraising campaign is kicking off now, right from the start of the fiscal year.

In focus: Are the children of celebrities over-represented in French cinema?

Wikidata queries investigate nepo babies.

Tips and tricks: What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject)

A summary of various tools designed over the years.

Recent research: Wikipedia-grounded chatbot "outperforms all baselines" on factual accuracy

And various other research on large language models and Wikipedia.

Humour: New fringe theories to be introduced

Bold move intended to "get some variety" into Wikipedia arguments.

Cobwebs: If you're reading this, you're probably on a desktop

The annual report that tries to understand the Signpost through data, written in 2020, which never saw the light of day until now.

Featured content: Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin', keep those readers scrollin', got to keep on scrollin', Rawhide!

In which choices have been made™.

Traffic report: The Idol becomes the Master

Sex, drugs and violence, English, math and science.

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The Signpost: 1 August 2023

News and notes: City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians, Ruwiki founder banned, WMF launches Mastodon server

And French gov't proposes legislation to slam Wikipedia, others.

In the media: Truth, AI, bull from politicians, and climate change

Or just another brouhaha?

Disinformation report: Hot climate, hot hit, hot money, hot news hot off the presses!

Hot damn, it's damned hot!

Obituary: Donald Cram, Peter McCawley, and Eagleash

Three editors have departed.

Tips and tricks: Citation tools for dummies!

You don't really want to do this stuff by yourself, do you?

Humour: Does Wikipedia present neutral perspectives?

A serious visual investigation.

In focus: Journals cited by Wikipedia

A compilation of over 3M citations.

Opinion: Are global bans the last step?

Possible solutions after being re-harassed.

Featured content: Featured Content, 1 to 15 July

Due to unfortunate events, this issue is published as is, in its unfinished state.

Traffic report: Come on Oppie, let's go party

Oppenheimer, Barbie, and a couple other scandals.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 August 2023

News and notes: Dude, Where's My Donations? Wikimedia Foundation announces another million in grants for non-Wikimedia-related projects

Jimbo promises more transparency, Wikimania in Singapore, move away from Tides still planned, and Wikifunctions rolls out.

In the media: An accusation of bias from Brazil, a lawsuit from Portugal, plagiarism from Florida

Harsh words from problematic fave Glenn Greenwald.

In focus: 2023 Good Article Nomination drive is underway: get your barnstars here!

Rigorous Review of Content for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Wikipedia.

Special report: Thirteen years later, why are most administrators still from 2005?

Damn kids need to get off our lawn and onto RfA.

Tips and tricks: How to find images for your articles, check their copyright, upload them, and restore them

Because one gets some secondary skills when one has 645 featured pictures.

Cobwebs: Getting serious about writing

The innards of the Signpost received a major overhaul in March/April 2019. Here's how we reduced behind-the-scenes busywork and improved writers resources.

Opinion: Copyright trolls, or the last beautiful free souls on this planet?

For whom does the Creative Commons enforcement clause toll?

Serendipity: Why I stopped taking photographs almost altogether

An announcement of 335,000 new images on Wikimedia Commons.

Featured content: Barbenheimer confirmed

Some improvement on last week.

Humour: Arbitration Committee to accept case against Right Honorable Frimbley Cantingham, 15th Viscount Bellington-upon-Porkshire

Case request cited misuse of tools by administrator who last used tools in 1661.

Traffic report: 'Cause today it just goes with the fashion

Barbenheimer, Pee-Wee Herman and the Women's World Cup.

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The Signpost: 31 August 2023

From the editor: Beta version of signpost.news now online

News for the editoriat. Stuff that matters.

News and notes: You like RecentChanges?

Wikipedia really comes into its own, editorially and artistically.

In the media: Taking it sleazy

"Poli", which means "many", and "tics", which means "under-the-table Wikipedia article whitewashing campaigns".

Recent research: The five barriers that impede "stitching" collaboration between Commons and Wikipedia

And other recent research publications.

Draftspace: Bad Jokes and Other Draftspace Novelties

The good, the bad, and the nonsense.

Humour: The Dehumourification Plan

A message from the Counter-Fun Unit.

Traffic report: Raise your drinking glass, here's to yesterday

I just poured HOT GRITS down my pants ohh yeah

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The Signpost: 16 September 2023

News and notes: Wikimedia power sharing – just an advisory role for the volunteer community?

Plus: Africa news, funding report, U4C draft, roads fork and another ChatGPT block.

In the media: "Just flirting", going Dutch and Shapps for the defence?

Plus a new judge, an "unimportant" record, and staying in the swim!

Obituary: Nosebagbear

A Wikipedian and a friend.

Serendipity: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no paywall, for thou, Wikipedia Library, art with me

Non-flammable, BPA-free, and really whips the llama's ass.

Featured content: Catching up

Covering all of August. Pretty much.

Concept: Strange portal opened by CERN researchers brings Wikipedia articles from "other worlds"

The Signpost brings you the latest from the source.

Traffic report: Some of it's magic, some of it's tragic

Sports, film and singers. We've got it all!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Mediazilla" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mediazilla has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Mediazilla until a consensus is reached. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:01, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 3 October 2023

News and notes: Wikimedia Endowment financial statement published

Finances during Tides Foundation management of the endowment are shown for the first time.

In the media: History is written by whoever can harness the most editors

Plus Harvard, Yale, Lords and Commons, partners and trolls!

Recent research: Readers prefer ChatGPT over Wikipedia; concerns about limiting "anyone can edit" principle "may be overstated"

And other new research publications

Featured content: By your logic,

The first issue to feature two poetry article

Concept: Wikipedia policies from other worlds: WP:NOANTLERS

Material must be written with the greatest care and attention; the level of detail and commentary regarding the antlers of living persons is to be kept to a minimum.

Poetry: "The Sight"

Tamzin reflects on the hunt.

Traffic report: There shall be no slaves in the land of lands, it's a Bollywood jam

Taylor Swift with an NFL tight end and Lauren Boebert with a Democrat?

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The Signpost: 23 October 2023

News and notes: Where have all the administrators gone?

Long time passing

In the media: Thirst traps, the fastest loading sites on the web, and the original collaborative writing

Also: High fives, Wikipedia as a guide for counterfeiters and crossword makers, and Iskander at the UN.

Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to know how to restore images to make massive improvements

The benefits of research.

Featured content: Yo, ho! Blow the man down!

These titles never make much sense even at the best of times, so why not be random?

Traffic report: The calm and the storm

They are still fighting.

News from Diff: Sawtpedia: Giving a Voice to Wikipedia Using QR Codes

Sounds good!

Humour: New citation template introduced for divine revelations, drug use, and really thinking about it

"Cite altered state" to join the distinguished ranks of CS1 templates

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

November Articles for creation backlog drive

Hello This, that and the other:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to reduce the backlog of unreviewed drafts to less than 2 months outstanding reviews from the current 4+ months. Bonus points will be given for reviewing drafts that have been waiting more than 30 days. The drive is running from 1 November 2023 through 30 November 2023.

You may find Category:AfC pending submissions by age or other categories and sorting helpful.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.

There is a backlog of over 2900 pages, so start reviewing drafts. We're looking forward to your help! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:25, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 6 November 2023

Arbitration report: Admin bewilderingly unmasks self as sockpuppet of other admin who was extremely banned in 2015

"Is this an ArbCom case request or an M. Night Shyamalan movie?"

In the media: UK shadow chancellor accused of ripping off WP articles for book, Wikipedians accused of being dicks by a rich man

Plus Gaza bias, Speaker Johnson, Maher, the music of websites, and antisemitism.

News and notes: Board candidacy process posted, editors protest WMF privacy measure, sweet meetups

And three new admins!

Opinion: An open letter to Elon Musk

You should learn some of our rules!

WikiCup report: The WikiCup 2023

The winner is...

News from Wiki Ed: Equity lists on Wikipedia

Do you ever wonder where Wikipedia articles come from?

Recent research: How English Wikipedia drove out fringe editors over two decades

And other new research findings.

Featured content: Like putting a golf course in a historic site.

Only literally.

Wikidata: Evaluating qualitative systemic bias in large article sets on Wikipedia

A systematic approach.

Traffic report: Cricket jumpscare

Plus Kollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon, and ongoing war.

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The Signpost: 20 November 2023

In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

Comic-con, Media summit, and a classic!

News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health

Plus: Sockpuppet investigators asking for help.

Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads

Or if it's Indian sport or cinema.

Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom

And other new research findings.

Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships

Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2024 are now open!

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ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

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The Signpost: 4 December 2023

News and notes: Beeblebrox ejected from Arbitration Committee following posts on Wikipediocracy

Just as his term was ending!

In the media: Turmoil on Hebrew Wikipedia, grave dancing, Olga's impact and inspiring Bhutanese nuns

Plus Apple Pay, fiction, registration, expulsion, and elimination!

Disinformation report: "Wikipedia and the assault on history"

An analysis of a literary mystery.

In focus: Tens of thousands of freely available sources flagged

Continuing years of efforts to improve free-to-read access.

Comix: Bold comics for a new age

"I think we ought to read only the kind of comics that wound or stab us. If the comic we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?" — Franz Kafka

Essay: I am going to die

And so are you.

Featured content: Real gangsters move in silence

Quite literally, and other fascinating featured articles, pictures and lists

Traffic report: And it's hard to watch some cricket, in the cold November Rain

If you don't fancy the sport that occupies over 25% of the slots in these lists, there's always movies, celebrities, and political follies to fall back on – or an unusual fired-for-the-weekend CEO.

Humour: Mandy Rice-Davies Applies

This page in a nutshell: Whether or not someone has denied unsavory allegations — though such a denial may not merit being given equal weight in an article — a worthless shitpost should still be included.

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The Signpost: 24 December 2023

Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article?

Wikipedia article histories are public records that can be easily examined, so unlike other websites, we can answer this question thoroughly.

News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023

Not the best of times for Wikipedians across the world, but there are still glimpses of hope...

In the media: Consider the humble fork

Forky on forky on forky, plus a strange donation scheme and other interesting bits of news.

Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI

Wiki goes dark and adopts Palestine flag logo; intellectual property rumblings from the bowels of the law.

In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU

Wikimedia Russia closes after founder is declared a "foreign agent".

Technology report: Dark mode is coming

No more must Wikipedia always be a lightbulb in the dark — except metaphorically of course.

Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata

And other new research publications.

Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

Peace on earth, goodwill to all!

Comix: Lollus lmaois 200C tincture

the dilution makes it stronger.

Crossword: when the crossword is sus

The Signpost Crossword is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game that takes place in space-themed settings where players are colorful, armless cartoon astronauts.

Traffic report: What's the big deal? I'm an animal!

Bollywood, Hollywood, and both kinds of football to close out December.

From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^

The debugging will continue until performance improves.

Apocrypha: Local editor discovered 1,380 lost subheadings in ancient Signpost scrolls. And what he found was shocking.

Heartwarming — MUST READ — You Won't BELIEVE #4!!!!!

Humour: Guess the joke contest

Winner receives a special prize!

BJAODN: Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense

Edit summary: "Only need this page for about 30 minutes to demonstrate to a friend how easy it is to create a Wikipedia page. Then it will be deleted."

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The Signpost: 10 January 2024

From the editor: NINETEEN MORE YEARS! NINETEEN MORE YEARS!

The Signpost can now drink beer and chant slogans in Canada. What slogans should we chant for the next nineteen years?

Special report: Public Domain Day 2024

Mickey & You: What can you do?

Technology report: Wikipedia: A Multigenerational Pursuit

A techie looks at the big questions.

News and notes: In other news ... see ya in court!

Let the games begin! The 2024 WikiCup is off to a strong start. With copyright enforcement, AI training and freedom of expression, it's another typical week in the wiki-sphere!

In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate

The first of two installments, regarding a process of many installments.

In the media: What is plagiarism? Oklahoma Disneyland? Reaching a human being at Wikipedia?

Watch out for those space ships!

WikiProject report: WikiProjects Israel and Palestine

What are the editorial processes behind covering some of the most politically polarizing and contentious topics on English Wikipedia?

Obituary: Anthony Bradbury

Rest in peace.

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2023

Around the world in 365 days (with many stops in India).

Crossword: everybody gangsta till the style sheets start cascading

The good news is that I've perfected the templates that allow other people to make actually good crosswords.

Comix: Conflict resolution

Getting down to brass tacks &c.

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The Signpost: 31 January 2024

News and notes: Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail

Plus WMF child rights impact assessment, Chinese Wikipedia changes admin rules

Opinion: Until it happens to you

A stream of consciousness about plagiarism on Wikipedia from the perspective of a user who directly witnessed it.

Disinformation report: How paid editors squeeze you dry

And how you can stop them!

In the media: Katherine Maher new NPR CEO, go check Wikipedia, race in the race

Another wobble, more Ackman, our usual pathological optimist, and football in dirty pants!

In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate, part 2

Everything you really wanted to know about writing featured articles.

Recent research: Croatian takeover was enabled by "lack of bureaucratic openness and rules constraining [admins]"

And other new research publications.

Comix: We've all got to start somewhere

Writing a good subheading for a one-sentence joke is basically like writing an entire second joke so I'm not going to do it.

Traffic report: DJ, gonna burn this goddamn house right down

Job changes, death, sex, murder, suicide and a vacation!

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The Signpost: 13 February 2024

News and notes: Wikimedia Russia director declared "foreign agent" by Russian gov; EU prepares to pile on the papers

"the exact extent of the obligations" unclear... many such cases!

Disinformation report: How low can the scammers go?

Lower, trust me!

Gallery: Before and After: Why you don't need to touch grass to dramatically improve images of flora and fauna

Finding the right bumblebee among all the bumblebees!

In the media: Speaking in tongues, toeing the line, and dressing the part

The usual odd articles about Wikipedia.

Serendipity: Is this guy the same as the one who was a Nazi?

The hunt for Bertil Ragnar Anzén.

Traffic report: Griselda, Nikki, Carl, Jannik and two types of football

Plus films, Grammys and a rumble!

Crossword: Our crossword to bear

&c.

Comix: Strongly

That's more than weakly!

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The Signpost: 2 March 2024

News and notes: Wikimedia enters US Supreme court hearings as "the dolphin inadvertently caught in the net"

Plus, the U4C Charter keeps planting seeds, the RfA process is set to become more sustainable, and more news from the Wikimedia ecosystem.

Recent research: Images on Wikipedia "amplify gender bias"

And other new findings

In the media: The Scottish Parliament gets involved, a wikirace on live TV, and the Foundation's CTO goes on record

Plus, naughty politicians, Federal judge not a fan, UFOs and beavers.

Obituary: Vami_IV

Rest in peace.

Traffic report: Supervalentinefilmbowlday

If you say it loud enough the views will come your way!

WikiCup report: High-scoring WikiCup first round comes to a close

135 battle it out; 67 advance

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The Signpost: 29 March 2024

Technology report: Millions of readers still seeing broken pages as "temporary" disabling of graph extension nears its second year

Much effort was spent drafting a movement charter about becoming "essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge". How much is spent maintaining it?

Interview: Interview on Wikimedia Foundation fundraising and finance strategy

Signpost interviews Wikimedia Foundation leadership on fundraising banners

Special report: 19-page PDF accuses Wikipedia of bias against Israel, suggests editors be forced to reveal their real names, and demands a new feature allowing people to view the history of Wikipedia articles

And does it have anything to do with the unusual decision to let a zero-edit user open an arbitration request?

Op-Ed: Wikipedia in the age of personality-driven knowledge

Can we compete with social media? Will aoomers forget Wikipedia?

Recent research: "Newcomer Homepage" feature mostly fails to boost new editors

And several papers look at climate change on Wikipedia

News and notes: Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee Charter ratified

WLM winners announced, Wikimania 2024, a new Wikimedia movement affiliate, and active enwp admins reach a record low.

In the media: "For me it’s the autism": AARoad editors on the fork more traveled

Worldwide women turned blue and controversies on Serbian & French Wikipedia.

Traffic report: He rules over everything, on the land called planet Dune

Let me take you to the movies.

Humour: Letters from the editors

The only worthwhile grievance is the one that prompts satire.

Comix: Layout issue

margin: 0 auto !important;

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The Signpost: 25 April 2024

In the media: Censorship and wikiwashing looming over RuWiki, edit wars over San Francisco politics, and another wikirace on live TV

Plus, tribute songs and shout-outs outweighing vandalism and hoaxes, a dispute about the real king of the platform and other bits of news.

News and notes: A sigh of relief for open access as Italy makes a slight U-turn on their cultural heritage reproduction law

Plus, new updates on the privacy and research ethics whitepaper and the graphs outage situation, and an Iranian former steward is globally banned from Wikimedia projects

WikiConference report: WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto recap

Outcomes of the event including newly published videos and photos, the archived conference website and program, and some attendee reflections on its significance.

WikiProject report: WikiProject Newspapers (Not WP:NOTNEWS)

A WikiProject report on the 📰🌍 globe's finest news source!

Recent research: New survey of over 100,000 Wikipedia users

And other recent research publications

Traffic report: O.J., cricket and a three body problem

Plus Godzilla meets Francis Scott Key!

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The Signpost: 16 May 2024

News and notes: Democracy in action: multiple elections

WMF trustee elections, U4C results, Italian ArbCom, WMF and Endowment annual reports.

Special report: Will the new RfA reform come to the rescue of administrators?

We don't know yet, but there is some encouraging news, nevertheless.

Arbitration report: Ruined temples for posterity to ponder over – arbitration from '22 to '24

Some go out with a bang, some with a whimper, few with much of a comprehensible explanation.

In the media: Deadnames on the French Wikipedia, and a duel between Russian wikis

Plus, the WMF joins the Unicode Consortium, Chris Albon talks about AI tools on Wikipedia, communities address under-representation on the site.

Op-Ed: Wikidata to split as sheer volume of information overloads infrastructure

More queries are failing, and more frequently, so what is to be done?

Comix: Generations

It do be like that sometimes.

Traffic report: Crawl out through the fallout, baby

With cricket and some cute baby reindeer!

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The Signpost: 8 June 2024

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its Form 990 for fiscal year 2022-2023

The Form 990, as well as highlights and FAQs, are now available for review.

Technology report: New Page Patrol receives a much-needed software upgrade

A new model for collaboration between the WMF and the community?

Deletion report: The lore of Kalloor

Hoaxes and the genesis of information.

In the media: National cable networks get in on the action arguing about what the first sentence of a Wikipedia article ought to say

First line, sixth paragraph, body text or unified Reich?

News from the WMF: Progress on the plan — how the Wikimedia Foundation advanced on its Annual Plan goals during the first half of fiscal year 2023-2024

Outlining progress against the four key goals

Opinion: Public response to the editors of Settler Colonial Studies

A letter.

Recent research: ChatGPT did not kill Wikipedia, but might have reduced its growth

And various research findings about Wikidata and knowledge graphs.

Featured content: We didn't start the wiki

No we didn't write it, but we tried to cite it

Essay: No queerphobia

An essay.

Special report: RetractionBot is back to life!

... and flagging your articles with big ugly red notices! (This is a good thing.)

Traffic report: Chimps, Eurovision, and the return of the Baby Reindeer

Movies, deaths, elections (but no cricket).

Comix: The Wikipediholic Family

Some stuff's only okay in the privacy of the home.

Humour: Wikipedia rattled by sophisticated cyberattack of schoolboy typing "balls" in infobox

Project in shambles – "it had never occurred to us that this was possible".

Concept: Palimpsestuous

Hypertext.

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The Signpost: 4 July 2024

News and notes: WMF board elections and fundraising updates

Three new admins, but overall numbers still shrinking.

Special report: Wikimedia Movement Charter ratification vote underway, new Council may surpass power of Board

Will we weather the storm?

In focus: How the Russian Wikipedia keeps it clean despite having just a couple dozen administrators

Unbundling, automation, fighting spirit, and a bot named Reimu Hakurei.

Discussion report: Wikipedians are hung up on the meaning of Madonna

Debate unsettled after seventeen years.

In the media: War and information in war and politics

Advocacy organizations, a journalist, mycophobes, conservatives, leftists, photographers, and a disinformation task force imagine themselves in Wikipedia.

Sister projects: On editing Wikisource

A journey to a sister project.

Obituary: Hanif Al Husaini, Salazarov, Hyacinth, and PirjanovNurlan

Rest in peace.

Opinion: Etika: a Pop Culture Champion

An article about Etika's appeal and legacy in pop culture.

Gallery: Spokane Willy's photos

A virtual visit to the Inland Northwest.

Op-Ed: Why you should not vote in the 2024 WMF BoT elections

"Simply not good enough".

Crossword: On a day of independence, beat crosswords into crossploughshares

How well do you know the main page (no peeking)?

Humour: A joke

...!

Cobwebs: Counting to a billion — manuscripts don't burn

Special:Diff/1 and related techno-trivia more complicated than you'd think.

Recent research: Is Wikipedia Politically Biased? Perhaps

And other new publications on systemic bias and other topics.

Traffic report: Talking about you and me, and the games people play

Elections, movies, sports.

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The Signpost: 22 July 2024

Discussion report: Internet users flock to Wikipedia to debate its image policy over Trump raised-fist photo

Iconic photograph, invalid fair use exemption criterion #3a claimant, or both?

News and notes: Wikimedia community votes to ratify Movement Charter; Wikimedia Foundation opposes ratification

Establishment of power-sharing agreement between WMF corporation and volunteer user community in limbo.

News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation Board resolution and vote on the proposed Movement Charter

Natalia Tymkiv, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, on the Charter vote results, the resolution, meeting minutes, and proposed next steps.

Essay: Reflections on editing and obsession

A lost Signpost submission from fifteen years ago brought into the light, as good and true now as it was then.

In the media: What's on Putin's fork, the court's docket, and in Harrison's book?

Failing forks, smart and well-researched stories, LGBT rights, and oral sex!

Obituary: JamesR

Rest in peace.

Crossword: Vaguely bird-shaped crossword

Do you know these Wikipedia quotes?

Humour: Joe Biden withdraws RfA, Donald Trump selects co-nom

Dems in disarray, GOP in chaos — analysts say news expected, but few can predict how race will shape up from here.

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The Signpost: 14 August 2024

In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse

A STORM over an AI that writes articles. And other notes of interest.

Recent research: STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems

And other findings.

In focus: Twitter marks the spot

Musk's Twitter acquisition and rebranding have caused long debates on Wikipedia.

News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded.

And Movement Charter ratification vote comments have been published

Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?

Possibly paid articles.

Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing

HouseBlaster's reflections on his RfA. In particular, do not ask superlative questions.

Traffic report: Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really weird

Just normally weird!

Humour: I'm proud to be a template

Come in, you whippersnapper, have a cup of tea.

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The Signpost: 4 September 2024

News and notes: WikiCup enters final round, MCDC wraps up activities, 17-year-old hoax article unmasked

JCW compilation now tracks free DOIs, Wiki Loves Monuments getting started, WMF's status as UN observer stymied by China for fourth time.

In the media: AI is not playing games anymore. Is Wikipedia ready?

Updates from the Portland pol's case, the war in Gaza, and other Wiki-related reports.

Recent research: Simulated Wikipedia seen as less credible than ChatGPT and Alexa in experiment

And other new research findings

News from the WMF: Meet the 12 candidates running in the WMF Board of Trustees election

Who are they, why are they running and what are they bringing to the Board?

Wikimania: A month after Wikimania 2024

What all happened in Katowice?

Serendipity: What it's like to be Wikimedian of the Year

Hannah Clover shares her fondest memories of her first Wikimania.

Traffic report: After the gold rush

The Olympics (yay!) and the American election (oh no).

Humour: Local man halfway through rude reply no longer able to recall why he hates other editor

"I can't remember whether he is an incompetent moron, or an incorrigible POV warrior, or some other thing, but either way, to hell with him."

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The Signpost: 26 September 2024

In the media: Courts order Wikipedia to give up names of editors, legal strain anticipated from "online safety laws"

ANI (but probably not the one you're thinking of), bias and bans, crisis and Clover, Engelhorn's euros, and will the zoomers inherit the project?

Community view: Indian courts order Wikipedia to take down name of crime victim, editors strive towards consensus

In response to a takedown request, Wikipedia editors reached a consensus on how to handle it appropriately.

Serendipity: A Wikipedian at the 2024 Paralympics

User Hawkeye7 opens up on his experience as a media representative following the Australian team at the latest Summer Paralympics in Paris.

Opinion: asilvering's RfA debriefing

User asilvering reflects on their recent successful request for adminship.

News and notes: Are you ready for admin elections?

More changes to RfA on the way in October, final results for the U4C elections revealed, and other news from the Wikimedia world.

Gallery: Are Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia?

Picture this: medicine, drugs, JFK, Cleopatra, anachronism, and global catastrophe.

Recent research: Article-writing AI is less "prone to reasoning errors (or hallucinations)" than human Wikipedia editors

And other recent research publications.

Traffic report: Jump in the line, rock your body in time

Band reunions and Beetlejuice!

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The Signpost: 19 October 2024

News and notes: One election's end, another election's beginning

Find more about the new Trustees, the first election cycle for admins, and other news from the Wikimedia world.

Recent research: "As many as 5%" of new English Wikipedia articles "contain significant AI-generated content", says paper

And other searchings and findings.

In the media: Off to the races! Wikipedia wins!

Perplexing persistence, pay to play, potential president's possible plagiarism, crossword crossover to culture, and a wish come true!

Contest: A WikiCup for the Global South

Can it be fun to address systemic bias? Eighty participants say yes, it can!

Traffic report: A scream breaks the still of the night

Help me make it through the night!

Book review: The Editors

A novel about us, from the point of view of three of us.

Humour: The Newspaper Editors

Where do I even start?

Crossword: Spilled Coffee Mug

Pasta, acronyms, and one computer-crashing talk page.

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The Signpost: 6 November 2024

From the editors: Editing Wikipedia should not be a crime

But not everybody is able to legally read Wikipedia, and not everybody is able to legally edit Wikipedia.

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation shares ANI lawsuit updates; first admin elections appoint eleven sysops; first admin recalls opened; temporary accounts coming soon?

Defamation, privacy, censorship, and elections.

In the media: An old scrimmage, politics and purported libel

Plus human knowledge and Ozzie places!

Special report: Wikipedia editors face litigation, censorship

Asian News International, the Delhi High Court, and the encyclopedia.

Gallery: Why you should take more photos and upload them

Your photos are more valuable than you may realize.

In focus: Questions and answers about the court case

What is going on?

Traffic report: Twisted tricks or tempting treats?

And Tata too!

Technology report: Wikimedia tech, the Asian News International case, and the ultra-rare BLACKLOCK

IP address privacy tools, and mysterious archive sites.

Humour: Man quietly slinks away from talk page argument after realizing his argument dumb, wrong

Many such cases.

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The Signpost: 18 November 2024

News and notes: Open letter to WMF about court case breaks one thousand signatures, big arb case declined, U4C begins accepting cases

Many cases: many such cases.

In the media: Summons issued for Wikipedia editors by Indian court, "Gaza genocide" RfC close in news, old admin Gwern now big AI guy, and a "spectrum of reluctance" over Australian place names

Publisher versus intermediary, bias versus verifiability, and probing questions about Gwern's personal finances.

Recent research: SPINACH: AI help for asking Wikidata "challenging real-world questions"

And other recent publications.

News from the WMF: Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Endowment audit reports: FY 2023–2024

An overview of the finances and an explanation of what the numbers mean.

Traffic report: Well, let us share with you our knowledge, about the electoral college

It's so over.

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ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. 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 2024 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) 00:14, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 12 December 2024

News and notes: Arbitrator election concludes

New arbs to be seated in January.

Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5

Will the fifth try at achieving peace be a mudfight, or something better?

Disinformation report: Sex, power, and money revisited

Should old acquaintance be forgot?

Op-ed: On the backrooms

An editor's reflection on social capital and their changing relationship with Wikipedia culture.

by Tamzin

In focus: Are Wikipedia articles representative of Western or world knowledge?

Wikipedia aims to represent the sum of all knowledge. Is there an imbalance between Western countries and the rest of the world.

In the media: Like the BBC, often useful but not impartial

Ballooning British bias bombast!

Traffic report: Something Wicked for almost everybody

Fighting and killing – on screen, in politics, and in the ring – competes for attention with Disney.

Opinion: Worm That Turned's reconfirmation RfA debriefing

The importance of feedback.

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The Signpost: 24 December 2024

News and notes: Responsibilities and liabilities as a "Very Large Online Platform"

What the VLOP – findings of an outside auditor for "responsibilization" of Wikipedia. Plus, new EU Commissioners for tech policy, WLE 2024 winners, and a few other bits of news from the Wikipedia world.

Op-ed: Beeblebrox on Wikipediocracy, the Committee, and everything

A personal essay.

Opinion: Graham87 on being the first-ever administrator recall subject

Explanations for what led to it and what it was like to undergo it.

In the media: Delhi High Court considers Caravan and Ken for evaluating the ANI vs. WMF case

Plus, the dangers of editing, Morrissey's page gets marred, COVID coverage critique, Kimchi consultation, kids' connectivity curtailed, centenarian Claudia, Christmas cramming, and more.

From the archives: Where to draw the line in reporting?

Who's news?

Recent research: "Wikipedia editors are quite prosocial", but those motivated by "social image" may put quantity over quality

And other new research findings.

Humour: Backlash over Santa Claus' Wikipedia article intensifies

Good faith edits REVERTED and accounts BLOCKED.

Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols

Peace on earth, goodwill to all!

Traffic report: Was a long and dark December

Wicked war, martial law, killing, death and an Indian movie with a new chess champ!

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The Signpost: 15 January 2025

From the editors: Looking back, looking forward

The 20th anniversary of The Signpost.

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2024

A lot of psephology!

In the media: Will you be targeted?

HUMINT or humbug?

Technology report: New Calculator template brings interactivity at last

Hallelujah!

Essay: Meet the Canadian who holds the longest editing streak on Wikipedia

Johnny Au has edited for 17 years straight without missing a day.

Opinion: Reflections one score hence

Some thoughts from the original editor-in-chief.

News and notes: It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... and I'm feeling free

Public Domain Day 2025, Women in Red hits 20% biography milestone, Spanish Wikipedia reaches two million articles, and other news from the Wikimedia world.

Serendipity: What we've left behind, and where we want to go next

The Signpost staff on achievements of '24 and hopes for '25.

Op-ed: Elon Musk and the right on Wikipedia

The latest crusade?

In focus: Twenty years of The Signpost: What did it take?

Our alumni speak!

Arbitration report: Analyzing commonalities of some contentious topics

Applying the scientific method to a model of conflict that leads to arbitration.

Humour: How to make friends on Wikipedia

This post fact-checked by real Wikipedian patriots.

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The Signpost: 7 February 2025

Recent research: GPT-4 writes better edit summaries than human Wikipedians

But an open language model is ready to help.

News and notes: Let's talk!

The WMF executive team delivers a new update; plus, the latest EU policy report, good-bye to the German Wikipedia's Café, and other news from the Wikimedia world.

Opinion: Fathoms Below, but over the moon

Editor Fathoms Below reminisces over their successful RfA from February 2024.

In the media: Wikipedia is an extension of legacy media propaganda, says Elon Musk

Plus, reports on the ARBPIA5 case, new concerns over projects targeting Wikipedia editors, John Green gets his sponsor flowers, and other news.

Community view: 24th Wikipedia Day in New York City

Wikimedians and newbies celebrate 24 years of Wikipedia in the Brooklyn Central Library. Special guests Stephen Harrison and Clay Shirky joined in conversation.

Arbitration report: Palestine-Israel articles 5 has closed

Ending with some bans, and a new set of editing sanctions.

Traffic report: A wild drive

The start of the year was filled with a few unfortunate losses, tragic disasters, emerging tech forces and A LOT of politics.

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The Signpost: 27 February 2025

News and notes: Administrator elections up for reapproval and 1bil GET snagged on Commons

French Wikipedia defends a user against public threats, steward elections, and other news from the Wikimedia world.

Serendipity: Guinea-Bissau Heritage from Commons to the World

"The only time I ever took photos in my entire life".

Technology report: Hear that? The wikis go silent twice a year

From patrolling new edits to uploading photos or joining a campaign, you can count on the Wikimedia platform to be up and running — in your language, anywhere in the world. That is, except for a couple of minutes during the equinoctes.

In the media: The end of the world

Or just the end of Wikipedia as we know it?

Recent research: What's known about how readers navigate Wikipedia; Italian Wikipedia hardest to read

Of "hunters", "busybodies" and "dancers".

Opinion: Sennecaster's RfA debriefing

User Sennecaster shares her thoughts on her recent RfA and the aspects that might have played a role in making it successful.

Tips and tricks: One year after this article is posted, will every single article on Wikipedia have a short description?

What are they? Why are they important? How can we make them better? And what can you do to help?

Community view: Open letter from French Wikipedians says "no" to intimidation of volunteer contributors

Liberté, liberté chérie.

Traffic report: Temporary scars, February stars

Grammys, politics and the Super Bowl.

Essay: The source, the whole source, and nothing but the source

Straight from the source's mouth. A source is a source, of course, of course!

Obituary: Ümüt Çınar (Kmoksy) and Vinícius Medina Kern (Vmkern)

Turkish linguist wrote about languages and plants; Brazilian informaticist studied Wikimedia projects and education.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:30, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 March 2025

From the editor: Hanami

It's an ecstasy, my spring.

Opinion: Talking about governments editing Wikipedia

Let them know what you think!

News and notes: Deeper look at takedowns targeting Wikipedia

Read this, then forget all about it.

In the media: The good, the bad, and the unusual

Life on the Wiki as usual!

Recent research: Explaining the disappointing history of Flagged Revisions; and what's the impact of ChatGPT on Wikipedia so far?

And WMF invites multi-year research fund proposals

Traffic report: All the world's a stage, we are merely players...

The Oscars, politics, and death elbow for the most attention.

Gallery: WikiPortraits rule!

The photographers are the celebrities!

Essay: Unusual biographical images

And very unusual biographical images.

Obituary: Rest in peace

Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:07, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 April 2025

Special report: Wikipedian and physician Ziyad al-Sufiani reportedly released from Saudi prison

Fellow doctor Osama Khalid remains behind bars for "violating public morals" by editing.

In focus: WMF to explore "common standards" for NPOV policies; implications for project autonomy remain unclear

Major changes to core content policy, or still-developing plan for new initiative?

In the media: Indian judges demand removal of content critical of Asian News International

Defeat, or just a setback?

News and notes: 35,000 user accounts compromised, locked in attempted credential-stuffing attack

Plus: 30-year anniversary of wiki software commemorated.

Op-ed: How crawlers impact the operations of the Wikimedia projects

Our content is free, our infrastructure is not!

Opinion: Crawlers, hogs and gorillas

What is to be done?

Debriefing: Giraffer's RfA debriefing

Advice to aspirants: "Read RfA debriefs", including this one.

Obituary: RHaworth, TomCat4680 and PawełMM

Rest in peace.

Traffic report: Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, off to report we go...

Snow White sinking, Adolescence soaring, spacefarers stranded, this list has it all!

News from Diff: Strengthening Wikipedia’s neutral point of view

The Wikimedia Foundation's announcement from Diff.

Comix: Thirteen

Gadzooks!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 May 2025

News and notes: India cut off from Wiki money; WMF annual plan and Wikimedia programs seek comment

As always, Wikimedia community governance relies on user participation; plus, more updates from the Wikimedia world

In the media: Feds aiming for WMF's nonprofit status

Scrapers, an Indian lawsuit, and a crash-or-not-crash?

Recent research: How readers use Wikipedia health content; Scholars generally happy with how their papers are cited on Wikipedia

And other new research findings.

Arbitration report: Sysop Tinucherian removed and admonished by the ArbCom

And don't bite those newbies!

Discussion report: Latest news from Centralized discussions

And don't bite those newbies!

Traffic report: Of Wolf and Man

Television dramas, televised sports, film, the Pope, and ... bioengineering at the top of the list?

Disinformation report: At WikiCredCon, Wikipedia editors and Internet Archive discuss threats to trust in media

Community volunteers network among themselves and use technology to counter attacks on information sharing.

News from the WMF: Product & Tech Progress on the Annual Plan

A look at some product and tech highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan (July–December 2024).

Humour: Crisis erupts as furious admins, functionaries complain about crappy t-shirts

Hey! At least it is something!

Comix: By territory

Zounds!

In focus: Using AI on the Russian Wikipedia: opportunities or challenges?

Would a billion articles be a good idea?

Community view: A deep dive into Wikimedia

There's a lot more to this than you think.

Debriefing: Barkeep49's RfB debriefing

I wonder about having crats, but decided to become one anyway.

Gallery: Meet the winners of Wiki Loves Monuments 2024

Just beautiful photos!

Obituary: JarrahTree, JohnClarknew and Yashthepunisher

Rest in Paradise.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 May 2025

News and notes: WMF to kick off new-CEO quest as Iskander preps to move on — Supreme Court nixes gag of Wiki page for other India court row on ANI — code-heads give fix-up date for Charts in lieu of long-dead Graph gizmo

And comment is requested on a privacy whitepaper.

In the media: Wikimedia Foundation sues over UK government decision that might require identity verification of editors worldwide

And other courtroom drama.

Disinformation report: What does Jay-Z know about Wikipedia?

And how he knows it: all about lawyer letters and editing logs.

In focus: On the hunt for sources: Swedish AfD discussions

Why the language barrier is not the only impediment to navigating sources from another culture.

Technology report: WMF introduces unique but privacy-preserving browser cookie

And QR codes for every page!

Debriefing: Goldsztajn's RfA debriefing

When an editor is ready to become staff at a public library (not a brother in a fraternity).

Obituary: Max Lum (User:ICOHBuzz)

Rest in peace.

Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 2)

The technology behind it, and the other stuff.

Comix: Collection

Gadzooks!

From the archives: Humor from the Archives

And more.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 June 2025

News and notes: Happy 7 millionth!

Admins arrested in Belarus.

In the media: Playing professor pong with prosecutorial discretion

Pardon our alliteration!

Disinformation report: Pardon me, Mr. President, have you seen my socks?

A get-out-of-jail card!

Recent research: Wikipedia's political bias; "Ethical" LLMs accede to copyright owners' demands but ignore those of Wikipedians

And other new research publications.

Traffic report: All Sinners, a future, all Saints, a past

Holy men and not-as-holy movies.

News from Diff: Call for candidates is now open: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Get your self-nomination in by July 2nd!

Opinion: Russian Wiki-fork flails, failing readers and editors

After two years RuWiki fails to thrive.

Debriefing: EggRoll97's RfA² debriefing

With some sweet-and-sour sauce!

Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 3)

Every thing you need to know about the Wikimedia Foundation?

Comix: Hamburgers

Egad!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:29, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 18 July 2025

News and notes: Is no WikiNews good WikiNews? — Election season returns!

Endowment tax form, Wikimania, elections, U4C, fundraising and a duck!

In the media: How bad (or good) is Wikipedia?

And how do we know?

WikiProject report: WikiProject Medicine reaches milestone of zero unreferenced articles

Five-year journey comes to healthy fruition.

In focus: Wikimania 2025: Connecting Wikimedians across the world for 20 years

Wikimedians from around the world will gather in person and online at the twentieth annual meeting of Wikimania.

Recent research: Knowledge manipulation on Russia's Wikipedia fork; Marxist critique of Wikidata license; call to analyze power relations of Wikipedia

As well as "hermeneutic excursions" and other scientific research findings.

News from the WMF: Form 990 released for the Wikimedia Foundation’s fiscal year 2023-2024

The report covers the Foundation's operations from July 2023 - June 2024

Discussion report: Six thousand noticeboard discussions in 2025 electrically winnowed down to a hundred

A step towards objective and comprehensive coverage of a project nearly too big to follow.

Comix: Divorce

Drawn this century!

Opinion: Women are somewhat under-represented on the English-language Wikipedia, and other observations from analysis

How data from the Wikipedia "necessary articles" lists can shed new light on the gender gap

Community view: A Deep Dive Into Wikimedia (part 4): The Future Of Wikimedia and Conclusion

Annual plans, external trends, infrastructure, equity, safety, and effectiveness. What does it all mean?

Obituary: Pvmoutside, Atomicjohn, Rdmoore6, Jaknouse, Morven, Martin of Sheffield, MarnetteD, Herewhy, BabelStone

Rest in peace.

Traffic report: God only knows

Wouldn't it be nice without billionaires, scandals, deaths, and wars?

Humour: New forum created for people who don't care about Wikipedia

If you are too blasé for Mr. Blasé and don't give a FAC.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:51, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 August 2025

News and notes: Court order snips out part of Wikipedia article, editors debate whether to frame shreds or pulp them

Plus a mysterious CheckUser incident, and the news with Wikinews.

Discussion report: News from ANI, AN, RSN, BLPN, ELN, FTN, and NPOVN

A review of June, July and August.

Disinformation report: The article in the most languages

Who is this guy?

Community view: News from the Villages Pump

Threads since June.

In the media: Disgrace, dive bars, deceased despots, and diverse dispatches

And slop.

Crossword: Accidental typography

It's not a conlang, it's a crossword puzzle.

Comix: best-laid schemes o' wikis an' men

gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promis'd joy!

Traffic report: I'm not the antichrist or the Superman

Everybody's Somebody's Fool.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:25, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for August 29

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Shire of Murrindindi, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Lake Mountain.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 20:01, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 September 2025

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation loses a round in court

UK Online Safety Act remains undefeated.

In the media: Congress probes, mayor whitewashed, AI stinks

Plus Wiki rules, Wiki Spin, and physicists get street cred!

Disinformation report: A guide for Congress

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.

Recent research: Minority-language Wikipedias, and Wikidata for botanists

And other new research findings.

Technology report: A new way to read Wikisource

Tis true: there's magic in the web of it.

Traffic report: Check out some new Weapons, weapon of choice

With the usual mix of war, death, super heroes, a belt, and Wednesday.

Essay: The one question

It's an easy one.

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your additions of local map captions

Hi there! I see you're adding the |local_map_caption= parameter to many articles, but I don't understand why you're explicitly adding a link to the Category:Pages which use a template in place of a magic word. Could you please clean up the articles in this category? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:59, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GoingBatty I was accidentally writing {{subst:pagename}} instead of {{subst:PAGENAME}}, thinking they were synonymous. Our {{pagename}} template is somewhat smart, but evidently not smart enough to subst itself properly! I caught myself after a while, but I'll clean up the articles with the lingering error. Thanks for the message. This, that and the other (talk) 03:42, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One more local_map_captions request

Hey, thanks for adding the captions to Template:Infobox Australian place. Could you also please add "local_map_captions" to the "Check for unknown parameters" module at the bottom of the template wikitext? This will clear out Category:Pages using infobox Australian place with unknown parameters. Thanks! Phuzion (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Phuzion

Done. On Wiktionary, which is my home wiki these days, our equivalent module (wikt:module:checkparams) can parse the template code to check which parameters are utilised, so no manual intervention is needed when adding a new one. I guess that isn't really feasible on Wikipedia though. This, that and the other (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Map of Delatite Shire

Hiya, I've noticed a number of your excellent maps showing the pre vs post-amalgamated makeups of councils in Victoria, such as on Shire of Strathbogie and Shire of Northern Grampians. I totally understand if you don't wish to do this for whatever reason, but I've been working on improving the Delatite Shire article lately. It currently includes a fairly detailed description of how the borders of the shire came to be. I was wondering if you would be able to make an illustrative map of the pre vs post-amalgamation boundaries for the Delatite Shire? LivelyRatification (talk) 12:38, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LivelyRatification thanks for your message. And what an excellent article you've written about this fascinating subject!

That's a great suggestion. I hadn't thought of making a map for Delatite, but it of course makes perfect sense. And I was just sitting down wondering which map to do next when I saw your message.

I've added a map to the article.

You may be surprised to see the Shires of Wangaratta, Oxley and Euroa turning up on the map. Wangaratta is there because one property (26 Boilerwood Track, Taminick) was transferred from Wangaratta to Delatite, while Euroa and Oxley contributed small sections of forest. The piece from Euroa is so small (only about 1 km²) that I was on the fence about whether Euroa needs to be highlighted and labelled at all. I left Alexandra off the map because it only contributed a section of water on the remote Big River arm of Lake Eildon. If you think it's worth kicking Euroa off the map too, I can do it.

Another interesting footnote is that the modern Benalla–Mansfield boundary is not the same as the historic boundary, although the changes are inconsequential, affecting (from left to right) State forest, the surface of Lake Nillahcootie, and a VPC plantation. This, that and the other (talk) 02:37, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the kind words! I really appreciate your map contribution. The Euroa section is tiny, but I reckon it makes sense to go there as it is at least perceptible, whereas the small bit of water that went from Alexandra Shire to Delatite more or less makes no difference. I also didn't know that about the Mansfield-Benalla boundary -- in my readings about the shire, I had wondered if Mansfield managed to join Queenscliffe as the one other local government area with identical pre-1994 borders. LivelyRatification (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for September 26

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited City of Wyndham, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Seabrook.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 2 October 2025

News and notes: Larry Sanger returns with "Nine Theses on Wikipedia"; WMF publishes transparency report

This time "not merely negative".

In the media: Extraordinary eruption of "EVIL" explained

Wickedpedia wrangles post-truth politics.

Disinformation report: Emails from a paid editing client

Unexpected news!

Discussion report: Sourcing, conduct, policy and LLMs: another 1,339 threads analyzed

Fifty hot topics from fourteen noticeboards.

Community view: The pressing questions of the modern WWW, as seen from the Village Pump

Policy, politics, icons, captchas, and LLMs.

Recent research: Is Wikipedia a merchant of (non-)doubt for glyphosate?; eight projects awarded Wikimedia Research Fund grants

And other recent publications.

Opinion: Some disputes aren't worth it

When to walk away.

Obituary: Michael Q. Schmidt

Rest in peace.

Traffic report: Death, hear me call your name

Celebrities, deaths and software.

Comix: A grand spectacle

All invited!

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:53, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A Twinkle coding question

Hi! I'm currently working on twinklewarn.js, and noticed that some Twinkle templates seem to have space for an extra parameter (pushing the "extra message" field to be {{{3}}}), but that this extra parameter isn't accessible via the warning menu. Since you wrote a good part of that code, I'm curious if this was a design choice, or if I could look into adding support for extra parameters? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:01, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]