User talk:SHB2000/Archive 2024

Currency conversion tables for Singapore
China and Japan are both major sources of tourism to Singapore, and there's also heavy business traffic to Singapore from China and Japan, so to me, it is not unreasonable to list their currencies in the Singapore article. In fact, I would argue that the Chinese yuan should be listed in the currency conversion tables for all Southeast Asian countries because China is the largest source of international tourists for most of them.

As for New Zealand, many New Zealanders change flights in Singapore on their way to Europe. Singapore Airlines in fact operates a direct flight to Christchurch (and Auckland too of course) to cater to this market. And by the way, the New Zealand dollar is not an obscure currency. It is a major world currency and one of the "big eight".

Hong Kong sees very heavy business traffic to Singapore, and there's more than 10 flights a day in each direction. So that's why I think it's not unreasonable to have the Hong Kong dollar in the currency table for Singapore.

I haven't added back the Thai baht and Vietnamese dong, but I think it's worth considering given that they're actually quite easy to exchange them in Singapore. Just go to any money changer and they will be readily accepted. And if you are heading to those countries, you can also obtain those currencies easily at any money changer.

I haven't added the Canadian dollar, but it is a major world currency. And Air Canada is starting a nonstop fight from Vancouver to Singapore in the spring, so I would presume there is substantial business traffic for Air Canada to start operating this route. The dog2 (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The problem with adding more currencies is that it takes longer to update. Sincex2018, I've been updating more than 160 pages every January so that we don't have rates that are up to 7 years out of date anymore. That was just embarrassing. SHB2000 has been helping out thus year, which I very much appreciate. It's a big job.
 * The dog 2: adding more currencies to a page without updating the others, as you did on China, and perhaps other pages, leaves a mess -- some rates are from December 2022, and others from a year or more later. I will leave that for you to sort out. If I have to fix it, I'l just start fresh with a new table of the standard, internationally traded currencies. Ground Zero (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, the "big eight" internationally traded currencies are the U.S. dollar, Euro, pound Sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar. At least that's what people who invest in forex have told me. Of course, whether or not a currency is easy to exchange depends a lot on where you are. For instance, it is easier to exchange Singapore dollars than Thai baht in Japan, but the reverse is true in Canada. I think that it is warranted to include currencies that are regionally important in the exchange tables. Taking Singapore dollars for instance, including them in the exchange table for Malaysia would be warranted, but not in the one for Costa Rica. The dog2 (talk) 19:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Since you have a keen interest in East Asia, and in expanding the list of currencies displayed there, I'll leave that region for you to update. Ground Zero (talk) 19:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I was going to say what mentioned, but they beat me to it. Flights from CHC–SIN are still quite rare (I think only 1 per day) – I only remember seeing one for the entire day when I was at the airport last week. Far more travellers transit via SYD or AKL when getting to Europe from those who I talked to. AKL, sure, but how different is this from any other country? You could apply the same rationale for a lot of currencies and it becomes one giant chunky list. The reason we list AUD for SEA/Oceania articles, CAD for Caribbean articles, ZAR for Southern African articles, or SAR for Arabian/Gulf state articles, is because they are widely traded locally and have far, far, more visitors than people from NZ to Singapore. It does, however, make sense to add NZD to many Pacific countries for this very same reason – but not Singapore. The same goes for adding CAD in Singapore. A single flight isn't enough to justify it.
 * I'll leave you to the rest for East Asia and SEA articles, but it's worth considering this in mind – basically this and what GZ mentioned. Cheers, -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 02:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, CHC-SIN is one flight a day. I think there are 3 flights a day for AKL-SIN, 2 on SQ and 1 on NZ. These flights are actually timed to connect to SQ's flights to Europe, but of course, both are premium airlines and charge accordingly. Even if you transit at SYD or AKL to connect on to Europe, you still need another stop somewhere in Asia, which would typically be in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok or the Middle East. And of course, there's quite heavy business and diplomatic traffic between Singapore and NZ too.


 * But anyway, NZD is easily traded in Singapore too. Any bank or money changer will accept it. I can bet you will get a better rate for NZD in Singapore than in Australia. CAD is certainly more niche than NZD in the Singaporean context given that Canada is much farther away, but it too is easy to exchange at any bank or money changer. In fact, I can get better rates for CAD in Singapore than in the U.S. Travelex in both the U.S. and Australia is a rip off. The dog2 (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I can definitely concur with Travelex in the US and Aus – when I asked how much US$500 they were going to give me at SYD, it was something like NZ$600 (I wasn't actually intending to convert there since I'd already exchanged prior but asked them out of curiosity). Normally if I'm transiting through Singapore, then it'd exchange there but otherwise I've mostly just exchanged my currency at Flight Centre. SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:10, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Although the rates at Changi Airport are not very good. You'll get much better rates at a money changer in the city or in a neighbourhood shopping centre. Unlike in Western countries, in Singapore money changers usually give you better rates than banks. That's why for me, the idea of going to an ATM in a foreign country to withdraw the local currency was a completely foreign concept. I get a much better rate by exchanging cash at a money changer in Singapore before leaving on my trip. The dog2 (talk) 07:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Airport rates in general are less than ideal, though. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 07:34, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * By the way, do you know how to update the currency exchange table for Japan? I think there should be more currencies than what is listed. At the very least, we should also have Chinese yuan, South Korean won and Hong Kong dollar, and probably the Singapore dollar too since it appears to be the most widely accepted Asian currency at Japanese money changers. I'm a bit on the fence for Taiwan dollars though, because it is kind of obscure, but Japan is without a doubt the most popular holiday destination for the Taiwanese, and also the largest source of foreign tourists for Taiwan. But during my trips to Japan, I did not see any money changers displaying Taiwan dollars on their boards. The dog2 (talk) 15:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For JP, you can edit it on Template:exchange rate JPY. I don't hold any strong opinions for JP so I'll leave you to update it :-). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:50, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-02
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * mediawiki2latex is a tool that converts wiki content into the formats of LaTeX, PDF, ODT, and EPUB. The code now runs many times faster due to recent improvements. There is also an optional Docker container you can install on your local machine.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The way that Random pages are selected has been updated. This will slowly reduce the problem of some pages having a lower chance of appearing.

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

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2024
 News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * From the editor: NINETEEN MORE YEARS! NINETEEN MORE YEARS!


 * Special report: Public Domain Day 2024


 * Technology report: Wikipedia: A Multigenerational Pursuit


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


 * In focus: The long road of a featured article candidate


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


 * WikiProject report: WikiProjects Israel and Palestine


 * Obituary: Anthony Bradbury


 * Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2023


 * Crossword: everybody gangsta till the style sheets start cascading


 * Comix: Conflict resolution

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 12:52, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: December 2023
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-03
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg Pages that use the JSON contentmodel will now use tabs instead of spaces for auto-indentation. This will significantly reduce the page size.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets and personal user scripts may now use JavaScript syntax introduced in ES6 (also known as "ES2015") and ES7 ("ES2016"). MediaWiki validates the source code to protect other site functionality from syntax errors, and to ensure scripts are valid in all supported browsers. Previously, Gadgets could use the  option. This option is no longer needed and will be removed in the future.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Bot passwords and owner-only OAuth consumers can now be restricted to allow editing only specific pages.
 * You can now thank edits made by bots.
 * An update on the status of the Community Wishlist Survey for 2024 has been published. Please read and give your feedback.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Starting on January 17, it will not be possible to login to Wikimedia wikis from some specific old versions of the Chrome browser (versions 51–66, released between 2016 and 2018). Additionally, users of iOS 12, or Safari on Mac OS 10.14, may need to login to each wiki separately.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The  module was deprecated and replaced with the  module last year. A script has now been run to replace any remaining uses, and this week the temporary alias will be removed.

Future changes
 * Wikimedia Deutschland is working to make reusing references easier. They are looking for people who are interested in participating in individual video calls for user research in January and February.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:13, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your help
with the New Jersey vandal. What a piece of work. Ground Zero (talk) 10:56, 17 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Hey, not a problem at all! Glad that user is blocked for good. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 11:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Reverts
FYI, 168.8.214.228 is reverting your previously reverted edits. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know :-). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:40, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I've put one-day blocks on the unregistered accounts. If it happens again, I think we should protect the articles for 7 days to start. That should be enough to get them to give up. Ground Zero (talk) 20:59, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Given they are block evading (I blocked them for a month due to incivility), we may as well start protecting the articles. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 21:21, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-04
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * A bug in UploadWizard prevented linking to the userpage of the uploader when uploading. It has now been fixed.

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

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:04, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Just excited to inform you
That Microsoft Translator added Meitei language in both Meitei script and Latin script today. I hope all the Microsoft software services will get its usage. :-) Haoreima (talk) 16:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh, that's great to hear! Another milestone for the Meitei language today. SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 21:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

How to word the Taiwan lede
I'm going to steer clear of the debate on whether or not Taiwan should be an independent country, but I don't think we should take a stand on this here on WV. I know that it is de facto a separate country, and we have in fact stated that in the disclaimer box, but I think we should try to use more politically neutral wording in the lede. The dog2 (talk) 00:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Same here; I just think we should write what's the reality on the ground for travellers whenever we can, though. We do this for Kosovo for similar reasons, too. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:40, 29 January 2024 (UTC)


 * OK, I've made some minor changes, so see if it's fine. It's a bit different in the case of Taiwan because at it now stands, Taiwan has not declared independence, and the Taiwanese constitution considers Taiwan to be a province of China. Kinmen and Matsu are still legally part of Fujian, and the residents of those islands actually don't identify as Taiwanese. Someone from Kinmen will usually say "I am not from Taiwan. I am from Kinmen." if you ask. The dog2 (talk) 00:49, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that's also true; thanks for bringing that (I completely forgot). I'll leave it to you and others. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:50, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The first sentence of the current lede is problematic. We should say it's a set of islands that rules itself, I think, not a "de facto country." Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:53, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What about a set of self-governing islands? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:54, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a better phrasing. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, that works for me. The dog2 (talk) 01:13, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Glad we were able to quickly resolve this one :-). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 01:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think we should avoid legalistic terminology like "de facto" and "self-governing" in the first sentence of the article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 04:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * IMO self-governing isn't really a legalistic term given it's self-explanatory. I agree with you on de facto, though. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 04:10, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But if we say that Taiwan is a country, then we are effectively taking sides in the political dispute. KMT supporters in Taiwan will say that the Republic of China is a country, and Taiwan is not a country but a province of the ROC. Of course DPP supporters will say that Taiwan is a country, but as of now they haven't amended the Taiwanese constitution to declare an independent "Republic of Taiwan", so it's the ROC constitution that is still in force. For that reason, I think we should stick to deliberately ambiguous wording that covers the situation on the ground accurately. The dog2 (talk) 04:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What was wrong with "Taiwan is an island off the coast of China"? (Yes, there are other islands, but this is a normal way to introduce an entity that consists of one main island plus a bunch of much smaller associated islands.) The current first sentence with its focus on self-governance reads like the beginning of a geopolitical briefing rather than a travel guide. —Granger (talk · contribs) 04:21, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * If we just use the word "island" then I think it's probably fine. I'm just trying to avoid controversy here by steering clear of declaring Taiwan a country. The disclaimer box already says that it functions as a country in practice. The dog2 (talk) 04:30, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that "self-governing" is purely and clearly descriptive, not legalistic. Taiwan is one island. How do you think the other islands ruled by the same government should be described in the article? Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Maybe island chain? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Island chain isn't exactly accurate. Kinmen and Matsu are located quite some distance from the main island of Taiwan. And Kinmen is in fact close enough to Xiamen for you to be able to see the Xiamen skyline. The dog2 (talk) 21:20, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I always forget about Kinmen but in that case, I'd go with what Ikan mentioned. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:00, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

CEE Newsletter - January 2024 Issue Now Available!
Good evening,

We're excited to announce the release of the January 2024 issue of the CEE Newsletter! This edition is filled with captivating stories, community highlights, and collaborative achievements from across Central and Eastern Europe region in the Wikimedia movement.

In This Issue:
 * CEE Hub and WMF Updates: Explore the latest from the Wikimedia Foundation with the Talking 2024 series and insights into the impacts on children participating in Wikimedia projects. Additionally, discover CEE Hub's plans for 2024 as outlined in the recently approved grant proposal named Stronger CEE Hub
 * Highlights from CEE Communities: From the Georgian Wikipedia's 20th birthday celebration to the Wiki Loves EuroPride event in Albania, delve into the vibrant activities of our diverse communities. Journey through time with the celebration of Czech Wikipedia's founder and the resilience of Ukrainian Wikipedia editors. Explore the outcomes of Wiki Loves Earth 2023 and Wikimedia Czech Republic's presence at the Archives, Libraries, Museums in the Digital World 2023 conference.
 * Community Initiatives and Beyond: Read about the unique efforts of the CEE Youth Group and the unification of GLAM Macedonia and Shared Knowledge into Wikimedia MKD.
 * Looking Ahead: Anticipate the 2024 Wikimedia Hackathon in Tallinn, Estonia, and gain insights from Marija Mihajlova's report on the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023.

You can read the full newsletter here. We hope you enjoy the inspiring stories and achievements showcased by our vibrant CEE communities.

Happy reading and here's to another year of Wikimedia excellence in the CEE region!

Best regards,

Jan Beránek

Editor-in-chief

Wikimedia CEE Newsletter

15:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-05
<section begin="technews-2024-W05"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Starting Monday January 29, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they are looking for, even if this comment was moved elsewhere. This will affect all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. You can read more about this change on Diff or on Mediawiki.org.
 * There are some improvements to the CAPTCHA to make it harder for spam bots and scripts to bypass it. If you have feedback on this change, please comment on the task. Staff are monitoring metrics related to the CAPTCHA, as well as secondary metrics such as account creations and edit counts.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-gift.svg On February 1, a link will be added to the "Tools" menu to download a QR code that links to the page you are viewing. There will also be a new page to create QR codes for any Wikimedia URL. This addresses the #19 most-voted wish from the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets which only work in some skins have sometimes used the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> option to limit where you can use them. This will stop working this week. You should use the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> option instead.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W05"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 19:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Bureaucrat
You're a bureaucrat now. Don't add too much red tape to the site. :-)

Seriously, thanks for volunteering to do these tasks.

Best,

Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:11, 30 January 2024 (UTC) Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:11, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the swift response, ! Glad I could help. One more thing: if I can't add too much red tape, can I add more sticky tape with a tint of red? You didn't say anything about that! /s -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:22, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Be my guest. :-) Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * News and notes: Wikipedian Osama Khalid celebrated his 30th birthday in jail


 * Opinion: Until it happens to you


 * Disinformation report: How paid editors squeeze you dry


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


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


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


 * Comix: We've all got to start somewhere


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

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 15:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks
I had never heard of Cormac McCarthy, but today I learned a new word, Polysyndeton, and I wanted to thank you for expanding my vocabulary, and for introducing me to this author, and his unusual style of writing, which, to be frank, will probably give me nightmares because I am fond of punctuation, as I find it to be an effective way of letting the reader know where they are in the exposition, and therefore conveys the writer's meaning more effectively. Ground Zero (talk) 11:53, 2 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm glad I was able to help as his style of writing is really something else which is rather unusual for today's age but it's really evident especially in The Road, a post-apocalyptic novel (okay, seriously, I suck at writing polysyndetons). But yeah, I fully agree with you. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Archive
Could you please archive the talk page on England? Thanks! 2A00:23C7:69B1:501:ACCD:5712:7C99:666F 00:37, 3 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'll do so right in a moment. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:42, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:43, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! 2A00:23C7:69B1:501:ACCD:5712:7C99:666F 00:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Glad I was able to help. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:46, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-06
<section begin="technews-2024-W06"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. If you hear of any problems relating to mobile history usage please point them to the phabricator task.
 * On most wikis, admins can now block users from making specific actions. These actions are: uploading files, creating new pages, moving (renaming) pages, and sending thanks. The goal of this feature is to allow admins to apply blocks that are adequate to the blocked users' activity. Learn more about "action blocks".

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Talk pages permalinks that included diacritics and non-Latin script were malfunctioning. This issue is fixed.

Future changes
 * 24 Wikipedias with Reference Tooltips as a default gadget are encouraged to remove that default flag. This would make Reference Previews the new default for reference popups, leading to a more consistent experience across wikis. For 46 Wikipedias with less than 4 interface admins, the change is already scheduled for mid-February, unless there are concerns. The older Reference Tooltips gadget will still remain usable and will override this feature, if it is available on your wiki and you have enabled it in your settings.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W06"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 19:22, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: January 2024
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 02:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

This Month in Education: January 2024
<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:2.9em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This Month in Education

<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:1.4em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> Volume 13 • Issue 1 • January 2024

<div style="border-top:1px solid #a2a9b1; border-bottom:1px solid #a2a9b1; padding:0.5em; font-size:larger; margin-bottom:0.2em">Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue
 * Cross-Continental Wikimedia Activities: A Dialogue between Malaysia and Estonia
 * Czech programme SWW in 2023 – how have we managed to engage students
 * Extending Updates on Wikipedia in Education – Elbasan, Albania
 * Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Teacher’s guide – now available in Bulgarian language
 * Summer students at Auckland Museum
 * WikiDunong: EduWiki Initiatives in the Philippines Project
 * Wikimedia Armenia's Educational Workshops
 * Wikimedia Foundation publishes its first Child Rights Impact Assessment

<div style="margin-top:10px; text-align: center; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 10:02, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 February 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * News and notes: Wikimedia Russia director declared "foreign agent" by Russian gov; EU prepares to pile on the papers


 * Disinformation report: How low can the scammers go?


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


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


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


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


 * Crossword: Our crossword to bear


 * Comix: Strongly

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 04:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-07
<section begin="technews-2024-W07"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The WDQS Graph Split experiment is working and loaded onto 3 test servers. The team in charge is testing the split's impact and requires feedback from WDQS users through the UI or programmatically in different channels. Users' feedback will validate the impact of various use cases and workflows around the Wikidata Query service.

Problems
 * There was a bug that affected the appearance of visited links when using mobile device to access wiki sites. It made the links appear black; this issue is fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg As work continues on the grid engine deprecation, tools on the grid engine will be stopped starting on February 14th, 2024. If you have tools actively migrating you can ask for an extension so they are not stopped.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W07"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 05:49, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Reverting of Brycehughes WarningBox removals
Apologies - I did not mean to edit war. Can you please clarify where the right place to discuss @Brycehughes edits would be? It seems a little unreasonable that they can casually revert WarningBoxes on dozens of pages without meaningfully explaining their decisions but I would have to start a discussion for each individual page. I feel that there is a need to revisit what the actual WV guidance should be moving forward on WarningBoxes. I have tried to bring this up in Travellers'_pub and I even requested comment - to no avail. Cyali (talk) 08:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hey, you're all good. I think for a lot of these it should apply on a case-by-case basis since a one-size-fits-all policy rarely works – would be best to bring up the individual warningboxes on the relevant talk pages (e.g. Talk:Socotra, etc.). Hope that clarifies! (cc ). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick response. Also just want to clarify that my original edit to Venezuela was a mistake - I tried to revert it back to add a reason but you beat me to it. (small addition) Is it reasonable to ask that the other user provide their justification as well - or is the onus entirely on me to prove that the WarningBox is necessary? A lot of these edit summaries are not constructive. Is there a policy or set of guidelines to determine if an edit is constructive or useful? I have been relying on the The traveller comes first and assume good faith but it ultimately is quite ambiguous in these circumstances.
 * It would be helpful to have these edits explained on a case-by-case basis rather than me just echoing travel advisories and saying "travel bad". There's no way I can meaningfully address the below concerns without them meaningfully engaging.
 * 01:11, 14 February 2024 diff hist −731‎  Socotra ‎ this is way too dramatic / missing your flight is not a threat to your life / moving to get in thank
 * 13 February 2024
 * 02:17, 13 February 2024 diff hist −133‎  Venezuela ‎ ah yes, don't visit this country, it's poor and its government disagreeable thank Tag: Reverted
 * 02:09, 13 February 2024 diff hist −719‎  Russia ‎ Russia is stable, perhaps unfortunately / not accessing money is not a threat to your life / Russia is not a warzone / you are not going to get blown up if you visit Russia thank
 * 02:05, 13 February 2024 diff hist −219‎  Belarus ‎ belarus is not a warzone, you are not going to get hit with a projectile in belarus thank Tag: Reverted
 * Cyali (talk) 08:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think they are reasonable reasons for removal which is why I mentioned they should be brought up on the talk page for further discussion. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 09:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I can appreciate that, and I'm aware that I'll have to write up reasons for disagreeing. I am not trying to put you on the spot (and thank you for responding - I know you certainly don't have to answer my questions), but it would be helpful to understand how you would suggest approaching this conversation constructively in your opinion, as I'm aware that you share a similar position to the user. What would it take to build a meaningful consensus? If there is not a one sized fits all policy, what points should I clearly address from the get-go - especially when the edit summaries appear very subjective? I guess I'm just finding it really difficult to understand how to build this consensus and try and find a neutral compromise when the issue is so charged and heavily influenced by one's experience traveling (I.e. my travel wisdom is contrary to a government travel advisory). I also am not really sure why the original travellers pub thread that led the user to remove these Warning boxes from many pages in WV in the first place isn't a relevant place to obtain consensus after the fact. Once I write up the issues on their respective talk pages, can I also ask you to provide input and to constructively contribute to the conversations as well? Cyali (talk) 09:41, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't have answers to all the questions since I was overseas when the discussion happened and wasn't following it, but I'll be happy to provide input to the discussions on their respective talk pages. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 09:48, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the consensus was that some cautionboxes are too alarmist and that many stay long after the situation has improved. The other user tried to get some policy changes to address the issues, but did not get support for those exact measures.
 * Mostly their edits make sense (such as in the Venezuela case, they kept most of the info in a cautionbox in Stay safe), but they are sometimes too radical. Tweaking the edit to reinsert some important issues can work, as can reinstating the warningbox but removing some lesser issues from it, perhaps adding to the running text instead. Among established users, plain reverts should be rare and plain reverts with no edit summary should not be used, other than in special cases.
 * –LPfi (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To add, plain reverts in general should be rare, not just among established users. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * They can still be used on vandalism and graffiti, or repeated edits which were already reverted with an explanation, i.e. cases where it should be obvious to the other party why the edit was reverted (erring on the side of caution).
 * Established users should not do edits that obviously should be reverted, so admitting the possibility that the edit was actually good (and therefore explaining the revert) is good manners. The edit summary may be something like "mistake?" or "see talk". The cases should be rare enough that using some extra time on the summary is no burden.
 * –LPfi (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * But usually they are rollbacks which I consider different to a plain revert. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Kind of, but I don't see why you could rollback something that reverting without explanation would be wrong. I see the two as equivalent, only that rollback can be a convenient shorthand that more or less explicitly says that the revert isn't worth a comment. –LPfi (talk) 14:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it's nonsense to say that Russia is not at war. Targets in Russia have been repeatedly hit by Ukrainian drones or Special Forces or others. You should be careful if you plan on walking past military-related factories, power plants, military induction offices, cars belonging to Russian online war propagandists, etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to finding ways to reduce the alarmism and to keep them concise, factual and up to date. I just find it challenging to keep up when a user can casually revert my contributions with little explanation (a sarky edit summary), all with a similar goal in mind, without being held to the same standard of explaining their decisions individually. I have not opposed most of the other user's edits because they are so numerous and in some cases, I agreed with them. However, the inability to discuss a thematic grouping of edits, many of whom have limited context, puts other editors at a disadvantage in these conversations when trying to get to the root of an issue, and discourages newer editors like me to meaningfully engage and work towards consensus. I'm not saying that individual page discussions are out of the question - but it feels like there's a larger conversation to be had first.
 * I'd really either like to resolve this constructively with compromise or I'd like to see consensus that the community wants for it to be easier to remove WarningBox than it is to add them.
 * But I don't think it's ultimately reasonable to proclaim that traveling to Russia and Socotra is totally safe - everyone's just overblowing it, or to reject the assessments of national governments telling you not to go there as being hysterical. Cyali (talk) 16:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Any edits done en masse are problematic, for the reason you bring up, unless they are obviously good, with no urgent need for checking or tweaking.
 * For Russia: yes Russia is at war and the government is cracking down on any critics, the latter an issue for anybody interested in politics. Regarding the war, a warning is needed, for those who may be interested in affected installations – but an average tourist is very unlikely to be hit by a drone in Moscow, let alone in some random other city. The mobilisation issue is severe for dual citizens, but it affects a limited group. Thus I would be fine with confining the warning box to Stay safe.
 * –LPfi (talk) 16:54, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-08
<section begin="technews-2024-W08"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * If you have the "" option enabled, edits by bot accounts no longer trigger notification emails. Previously, only minor edits would not trigger the notification emails.
 * There are changes to how user and site scripts load for Vector 2022 on specific wikis. The changes impacted the following Wikis: all projects with Vector legacy as the default skin, Wikivoyage, and Wikibooks. Other wikis will be affected over the course of the next three months. Gadgets are not impacted. If you have been affected or want to minimize the impact on your project, see  this ticket. Please coordinate and take action proactively.
 * Newly auto-created accounts (the accounts you get when you visit a new wiki) now have the same local notification preferences as users who freshly register on that wiki. It is effected in four notification types listed in the task's description.
 * The maximum file size when using Upload Wizard is now 5 GiB.

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


 * Octicons-tools.svg Selected tools on the grid engine have been stopped as we prepare to shut down the grid on March 14th, 2024. The tool's code and data have not been deleted. If you are a maintainer and you want your tool re-enabled reach out to the team. Only tools that have asked for extension are still running on the grid.
 * The CSS <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> property can now be used in HTML <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> attributes in wikitext.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W08"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 15:37, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Reversion
Why this reversion? Text looks good to me.

Is it Brendan? Pashley (talk) 09:22, 24 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sadly. Text resembles his, ISP is Telstra and IP geolocates to Brisbane. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 09:38, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-09
<section begin="technews-2024-W09"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The mobile visual editor is now the default editor for users who never edited before, at a small group of wikis. Research  shows that users using this editor are slightly more successful publishing the edits they started, and slightly less successful publishing non-reverted edits. Users who defined the wikitext editor as their default on desktop will get the wikitext editor on mobile for their first edit on mobile as well.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The mw.config value  now only contains groups that are active in the wiki. Scripts no longer have to check whether the group is active on the wiki via an API request. A code example of the above is: <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">.

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

Future changes Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W09"/>
 * The right to change edit tags (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ) will be removed from users in Wikimedia sites, keeping it by default for admins and bots only. Your community can ask to retain the old configuration on your wiki before this change happens. Please indicate in this ticket to keep it for your community before the end of March 2024.

MediaWiki message delivery 19:23, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

San Diego International Airport Page Banner
Hello, Its been about a week since there has been any progress on the talk page for the San Diego International Airport for a custom page banner. Do you think you can help achieve a consensus?
 * Hi, individual users hold no bearing over general consensus. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 11:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I know you dont just choose a conensus. But you think you can say which page banners you prefer? Someonehere12345 (talk) 17:02, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 March 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * News and notes: Wikimedia enters US Supreme court hearings as "the dolphin inadvertently caught in the net"


 * Recent research: Images on Wikipedia "amplify gender bias"


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


 * Obituary: Vami_IV


 * Traffic report: Supervalentinefilmbowlday


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

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 11:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-10
<section begin="technews-2024-W10"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> page (as well as the associated "Create a book" functionality) provided by the old Collection extension has been removed from all Wikisource wikis, as it was broken. This does not affect the ability to download normal books, which is provided by the Wikisource extension.
 * Wikitech now uses the next-generation Parsoid wikitext parser by default to generate all pages in the Talk namespace. Report any problems on the Known Issues discussion page. You can use the ParserMigration extension to control the use of Parsoid; see the ParserMigration help documentation for more details.
 * Maintenance on etherpad is completed. If you encounter any issues, please indicate in this ticket.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Gadgets allow interface admins to create custom features with CSS and JavaScript. The <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> namespaces and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> user right were reserved for an experiment in 2015, but were never used. These were visible on Special:Search and Special:ListGroupRights. The unused namespaces and user rights are now removed. No pages are moved, and no changes need to be made.
 * A usability improvement to the "Add a citation" in Wikipedia workflow has been made, the insert button was moved to the popup header.

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

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
 * The HTML markup of headings and section edit links will be changed later this year to improve accessibility. See Heading HTML changes for details. The new markup will be the same as in the new Parsoid wikitext parser. You can test your gadget or stylesheet with the new markup if you add <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> to your URL (more info) or turn on Parsoid read views in your user options (more info).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W10"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 19:47, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: February 2024
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 13:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-11
<section begin="technews-2024-W11"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * After consulting with various communities, the line height of the text on the Minerva skin will be increased to its previous value of 1.65. Different options for typography can also be set using the options in the menu, as needed.
 * The active link color in Minerva will be changed to provide more consistency with our other platforms and best practices.
 * Structured data on Commons will no longer ask whether you want to leave the page without saving. This will prevent the “information you’ve entered may not be saved” popups from appearing when no information have been entered. It will also make file pages on Commons load faster in certain cases. However, the popups will be hidden even if information has indeed been entered. If you accidentally close the page before saving the structured data you entered, that data will be lost.

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W11"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi
Hello @SHB2000, Can I have autopatroller rights? :) Lionel Cristiano (talk) 19:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * not yet. You must familiarize yourself with our policies and our Manual of Style, and demonstrate the acquired familiarity on your edits. Thanks for contributing to Wikivoyage. Ibaman (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, autopatroller on this rights are only given after a few months of constructive editing. Do read the links linked by, though! -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand, thank you, can I write to you again in a few months? Lionel Cristiano (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Up to you. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * See you in a few months, I will miss you, have a nice day :-) Lionel Cristiano (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Do note that it's also generally only given out to active editors too; taking a break and coming back after a few months with few to no edits won't change anything. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 05:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You are right, I will try to be active. Lionel Cristiano (talk) 08:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Cool and happy editing! -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

User relations
Please leave Andrewssi2 alone. You can see that they don't appreciate your interaction, so anything you tell them won't help the situation. I don't know what's going on between you, but I sincerely hope you can get over it. Just try to let things calm down for now. –LPfi (talk) 11:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Not when there are six instances of them misusing their admin tools in the last 50 minutes (as of this message's timestamp). Asking to be "left alone" is a snarky tactic to dodge the problem at-hand. On the other hand, I will respect this request once the admin tool misuse issues have been resolved; not before. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 11:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * When somebody clearly shows that they have no intension to read or answer messages, adding more messages for them to read helps little. I am all for getting your complaints sorted out in due time, but them wanting a respite from this is reasonable (I don't know what reasons they have, but real-life troubles could be a good one, and overload with the issue here is quite enough). I might not think that rollbacks are a particularly elegant way of handling this, but in the situation where one doesn't want to handle the conflict, one might also not want to think hard about the best way to avoid it.
 * I left you this message before seeing the nomination page thread and hoped the situation would cool down enough to be handled amicably. There is no abuse that needs to be stopped now, so waiting a few days, several days if needed, would be no problem. I think you should ponder overnight about what is best for the project, and whether you personally need to walk the path to its end.
 * My impression is that you generally want rules to be followed. However, in most projects there are situations where it is better to ignore the rules in some situations. When a rule is broken, is the situation one that the rule on enforcement was written for, or one that could be better handled in some other way? If rules were broken, were they broken in unforgivable ways?
 * Enough here. If you still really feel treated badly, you have my compassion, but I hope you can get over it without this issue deteriorating.
 * –LPfi (talk) 12:42, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi,, thank you for the detailed explanation. I'll consider this after a break tomorrow; I now agree with you about the urgentness given that Andrewssi2 / Asretired has retired (per their username). I'm sorry if my messages to you came out a bit hasty. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To minimise drama, I'll bring it up here and with you (since your stance mostly seems to be neutral), but we don't allow Special:Redirect/logid/3824876, right? I thought that user talk pages were to never be deleted (but maybe that is a Commons policy). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 05:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Could you also take a stab at "This individual is very unpleasant, unhinged and quite possibly a violent person in real life. This is now a safety issue." on their user page? Aren't attack statements on user pages explicitly banned? I'll leave it to you to interpret Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct: "Threats: Explicitly or implicitly suggesting the possibility of physical violence, unfair embarrassment, unfair and unjustified reputational harm, or intimidation by suggesting gratuitous legal action to win an argument or force someone to behave the way you want." (I italicised possibility). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I am neutral in the original conflict and the question on who is responsible for the drama, but I didn't see any reason for desysoping him. I think the rollbacks and the action you cite above are non-aggressive self-defence (as I have explained above and elsewhere), possibly excess in self-defence, but as no real harm has been caused (you shouldn't contact him in this situation, and those who need to can reach him anyway), there is no hurry discussing, reverting or taking measures about them. –LPfi (talk) 08:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That is fair; sorry for repeating this but users aren't allowed to delete their own talk pages, right (I thought user talk pages should never be deleted)? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have such a policy here (we use common sense a lot more than en-wp). If deleting the talk page makes him feel more comfortable, I wouldn't interfere with it for a reasonable cool-down period. At some point it should be restored, probably as an archive, unless he does something along those lines himself. Also the talk page protection should be removed at the same time, if not before. –LPfi (talk) 08:49, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Understandable (3+3 days as you suggested?) – though doesn't the protection automatically get removed once a page is deleted? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 08:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but as page creation can be disabled, I guess the protection entries aren't affected by page deletion (deletion can easily be implemented with a flag in the database, and any action on the page could check or ignore that flag). –LPfi (talk) 09:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * (Thankfully) Asretired has not enabled page protection on their talk page, so I think that is one fewer thing to worry about. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 09:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To my understanding, people have the right to delete the contents of their user talk pages. I wouldn't support restoring content against his will. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * OK. If there are neither guidelines nor consensus on this, we should let the user decide, unless there are reasons not to. –LPfi (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I'm wrong – I might be mixing this up with Commons policy – but I thought we let users blank content on their user talk pages because they can still be accessed via the page history. However, by deleting a user talk page, the page history will no longer be accessible hence why user talk pages aren't deleted. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 10:51, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The other issue I see with the page deleted is that oppose voters cannot see what exactly I posted on their user talk page which has (unfortunately) led to some users automatically assuming it is harassment. I presume a screenshot will do, but it is more ideal if all users can see what I wrote instead of being thrown frivolous accusations by 5 different individuals (though not all of it had to do with the talk page messages). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That could be a reason for undeleting, yes. However, the issue isn't really what you wrote, only that you wrote there after him having asked you to let him alone, and that he removed what you had written. I think that is well established, nobody has contested that part and nobody has suggested that you wrote something otherwise offensive. –LPfi (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I see the point about deleting the entire page, yes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Tomorrow will be 3 days (UTC+11) since the discussion was initiated, which I think is enough time for Asretired to cool down. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 19:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll mention it while I can, but I feel very uneasy about their userpage, but I trust that Ikan and LPfi are in a much better position to judge than I am, so apologies if I seem quite impatient with the userpage issue. SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 19:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The nature of Pashley's comment suggests that I did (keep in mind that this user is in denial of Asretired doing anything wrong, which tells a lot). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 19:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * So I think you're right that the userpage should eventually be undeleted, but we shouldn't restore the content we know he wanted deleted. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree. It's fine for my messages to not be restored given that they can still be found using the page history. SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 02:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It can be restored as a blank page. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Given it has been 3 days since the dispute, could one of you undelete the page and blank it? (and I presume we're giving 3 more days for Asretired to edit out the personal safety issues?) -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 21:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I am sorry you think we don't care about you. My intension was to eventually take care of that bit, but I believe it needed to wait and I didn't see much harm in letting this take the time it needs. Perhaps I was wrong, but if I cannot – or you cannot – trust my judgement, then the best I can do is probably to keep away. I am sorry for that too and sincerely hope somebody else can make the best out of this. –LPfi (talk) 21:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Don't feel the need to apologise; at this point Asretired has left Wikivoyage, so there's nothing much to be said. None of this was your fault, you're a separate individual and cannot control what Asretired/Andrewssi2 does. All I wanted is for all references about me, direct or indirect, to be removed from their page ASAP. None of this would have ever been a problem had they never written those statements in the first place (and the few users that enabled their behaviour). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 05:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-12
<section begin="technews-2024-W12"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The notice "Language links are at the top of the page" that appears in the Vector 2022 skin main menu has been removed now that users have learned the new location of the Language switcher.
 * Octicons-tools.svg IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes.
 * Communities can now customize the default reasons for undeleting a page by creating MediaWiki:Undelete-comment-dropdown.

Problems
 * RevisionSlider is an interface to interactively browse a page's history. Users in right-to-left languages reported RevisionSlider reacting wrong to mouse clicks. This should be fixed now.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W12"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 17:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

This Month in Education: February 2024
<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:2.9em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This Month in Education

<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:1.4em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> Volume 13 • Issue 2 • February 2024

<div style="border-top:1px solid #a2a9b1; border-bottom:1px solid #a2a9b1; padding:0.5em; font-size:larger; margin-bottom:0.2em">Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue <div style="margin-top:10px; text-align: center; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 18:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 2 new courses in Students Write Wikipedia Starting this February
 * More two wiki-education partnerships
 * Open Education Week 2024 in Mexico
 * Reading Wikipedia in Bolivia, the community grows
 * Wiki Education Philippines promotes OERs utilization
 * Wiki Loves Librarians, Kaduna
 * Wiki Workshop 2024 CfP – Call for Papers Research track

Tech News: 2024-13
<section begin="technews-2024-W13"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Octicons-tools.svg An update was made on March 18th 2024 to how various projects load site, user JavaScript and CSS in Vector 2022 skin. A checklist is provided for site admins to follow.

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W13"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 18:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 March 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * Technology report: Millions of readers still seeing broken pages as "temporary" disabling of graph extension nears its second year


 * Interview: Interview on Wikimedia Foundation fundraising and finance strategy


 * 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


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


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


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


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


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


 * Humour: Letters from the editors


 * Comix: Layout issue

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 22:43, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-14
<section begin="technews-2024-W14"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed.

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

Future changes
 * The Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment on the talk page.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W14"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 03:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Edits on WP that need removal
First of all, thanks for everything you do! You’re doing great work by creating new page banners, and I do not oppose your efforts in that area at all even if I have some slight differences of opinion regarding what constitutes a good banner.

I contribute on WP but don’t know any administrators over there. Today I was editing and stumbled into some borderline defamatory edits on the history of a page. I was wondering if you know any administrators of that website who could delete some old revisions? I can link to the revisions in an email if you like, with further explanation of the background and why they should not be publicly viewable. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 03:54, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Haha, no worries. Regarding enwiki admins, unfortunately I don't edit enwiki that frequently to interact with admins, but I do know that are also admins on enwiki. I'd give you a better answer if it were Commons, but I'm afraid I don't have a better answer. --  SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Or you could get a response by contacting . SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:15, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Awesome! Thank you. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 11:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi - if you need help just let me know where and which revisions. Happy to help. Antandrus (talk) 14:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello Antandrus, I greatly appreciate that. Another administrator covered most of the edits, but there are still four revisions by Rupertlover123 to the Jeff Rupert article that should probably be deleted. Three of these edits by that account in particular need to be deleted as they are identifying someone who was a minor at the time of the edit (and the statements made in the vandalism are false).
 * Let me know if you need more information or clarification, and I can email and also explain why I raised this in particular. Thanks again! --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 20:12, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok - I got rid of two more (there are no more un-revdelled edits by "Rupertlover123" now as far as I can see). Antandrus (talk) 21:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello, thanks! However there are still https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Rupert&oldid=1063582809 and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jeff_Rupert&oldid=1063586679 which are viewable to me. Those are the main ones that were of concern to me. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 22:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hm, sorry about that. I have no idea why those didn't appear when I scrolled through. Anyway done now. :) (SHB2000, sorry about all the pings!) Antandrus (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Haha, don't worry – I don't mind the pings the slightest. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 22:16, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

User from IP #107.9.140.157
I noticed that this user at IP 107.9.140.157 had changed the I-90 article to indicate it begins/ends in Portland, Oregon in the west coast going through Pocatello, Idaho. Which is not true. It begins in Seattle and goes through Spokane and Missoula, towards Boston. At the same time he/she created an Interstate 33 article.That Interstate does NOT exist. I believe he/she may of created the I-90 article initially and I made multiple edits to get the information correct. You can always look it up to see who's right and who's wrong. My concern is what other additional articles has he/she created of places or roads that don't exist or which other existing articles may of been changed/edited with misinformation aka vandalism by this user? And to what extent? I am telling you this because based on your interaction with this user regarding the I-33 article, I presumed you are one of the moderators for the board. Anyone150 (talk) 16:56, 3 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have blocked them for 3 days; will delete the I-33 article accordingly. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 20:12, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Summer of WikiVoyage 2024, Albania and Kosovo
Greetings SHB2000. I am Vyolltsa from the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group. Just wanted to give you heads-up about our Summer of Wikivoyage Edit-a-thon in 2024. This year, we are focusing on the North-Central Albania to write about different travel destinations of Albania and Kosovo in English.This is happening from May 3-rd to May 5-th. And, we are inviting everyone to join us online here Saturday from 10:00-17:00 (GMT+2) Time Zone. Could you please update the Albania and Kosovo Expedition pages for 2024? Thank you in advance. --Vyolltsa (talk) 12:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 21:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks @SHB2000! Vyolltsa (talk) 06:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Glad I could help! -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:54, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:User_ban_nominations#70.68.168.129
(redacted)
 * Hey, thanks for your AI-generated complements. Have a lovely day! -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-15
<section begin="technews-2024-W15"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
 * Octicons-gift.svg A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
 * Initial results of Edit check experiments have been published. Edit Check is now deployed as a default feature at the wikis that tested it. Let us know if you want your wiki to be part of the next deployment of Edit check.
 * Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W15"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Taking liberties
I've taken liberties with your draft of a Jökulsárgljúfur article. Ground Zero (talk) 12:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for that! I was away on a camping trip (we were very rained out, unfortunately) so sorry for the late response. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 07:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Not to worry. I was very slow in responding to your request for comments on your draft.
 * While you were being rained out, I drove 2½ hours to get to the path of the eclipse totality so I could gaze up at the clouds. We saw the beginning of the eclipse, and the sudden darkening of the sky followed by an equally rapid brightening was really cool. And the temperature dropped about 5°C in a mater of minutes.
 * Also, I started writing a response to CW's ignorant comment, but decided against it as it would just inflame the culture war that I think we should avoid. The anti-non-binary mantra that they know better about non-binary people than non-binary people do is an obviously ridiculous claim. Ground Zero (talk) 11:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, agreed about the culture war – honestly, I've given up on enforcing civility on this wiki (same goes for the comment claiming "anyone who announces 'My pronouns are ...' should be laughed at", which is ignorant of the many who suffer from gender dysphoria). The eclipse must've been cool to see! I've yet to see a full eclipse (only seen a partial before), but it's interesting (but not surprising) to hear about the temperature drop. If you don't mind me asking, where'd you to see the eclipse? -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:06, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This is the closest point I can find to where we were standing. I did want to go to the beach, but even in this small town, there were hordes of people. Ground Zero (talk) 12:25, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm not surprised by the large swathes of people. After all, it's not a common occurrence that you see. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:28, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm not surprised by the large swathes of people. After all, it's not a common occurrence that you see. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:28, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: March 2024
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 01:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-16
<section begin="technews-2024-W16"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked).
 * A new variable <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made.

Future changes
 * Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> tables. Some queries might need to be updated.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W16"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-17
<section begin="technews-2024-W17"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Starting this week, newcomers editing Wikipedia will be encouraged to try structured tasks. Structured tasks have been shown to improve newcomer activation and retention.
 * You can nominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.

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

Future changes
 * This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents of /vector.js to /vector-2022.js. There are more technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W17"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 20:28, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Growth News, April 2024


The Growth team will now send quarterly reports to keep you in the loop. Growth team weekly updates are available on wiki (in English) if you want to know more about our day-to-day work.

If you want to receive more general updates about technical activity happening across the Wikimedia movement (including Growth work), we encourage you to subscribe to Tech News.

Community Configuration
Growth features are currently configurable at. This quarter we are working on making Community Configuration accessible for other MediaWiki developers while also moving Growth feature configuration to the new CommunityConfiguration extension.

An early version of Community Configuration can be tested at Spanish Beta Wikipedia. We plan to release the new Community Configuration extension to pilot wikis (Arabic and Spanish Wikipedia) in early May, 2024. The first non-Growth team feature to utilize Community Configuration will be Automoderator.

In parallel with the development, the Growth team will propose Community Configuration usage guidelines, Community Configuration design guidelines, and provide technical documentation.

Experiment Results
Add a Image experiment analysis results

The Growth team conducted an experiment to assess the impact of the “Add an Image” structured task on the Newcomer Homepage's "Suggested Edits" module. This analysis finds that the Add an Image structured task leads to an increase in newcomer participation on the mobile web platform, particularly by making constructive (non-reverted) article edits:


 * The likelihood that mobile web newcomers make their first article edit (+17.0% over baseline)
 * The likelihood that they are retained as newcomers (+24.3% over baseline)
 * The number of edits they make during their first two weeks on the wiki (+21.8% over baseline)
 * A lower probability of the newcomers' edits will be reverted (-3.3% over baseline).

Personalized praise experiment results

This feature was developed for Mentors as part of the Growth team's Positive Reinforcement project. When A/B testing on Spanish Wikipedia, we found no significant impact on retention, but we found a significant positive impact on newcomer productivity. However, we concluded that the results weren’t positive enough to justify the time investment from Mentors. We plan to discuss this feature with our pilot wikis, and consider further improvements before scaling this feature further. Meanwhile, communities willing to test the feature can ask to have it deployed. (T361763)

English donors encouraged to try editing

As in previous years, donors were directed to a Thank you page after donation (example). However, this year we tested a new “Try editing Wikipedia,” call to action on the Thank You page. This call to action linked to a unique account creation page. From this account creation page we were able to track Registrations and Activation (editing for the first time). During the English banner campaign, the Donor Thank you page led to 4,398 new accounts, and 441 of those accounts went on to constructively edit within 24 hours. (T352900)

Future work
Annual Plan

The Growth team and the Editing team will work on the WE1.2 Key Result in the coming fiscal year. We will start initial discussions with communities soon to help finalize our plans. (T361657)

Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module

We plan to A/B test adding a new Community Configurable module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We are early in the planning phase of this project that will take place first at our pilot wikis and wikis volunteering. We welcome community feedback on initial designs and plans, in any language at our project talk page.

'' Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. '' 18:55, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * In the media: Censorship and wikiwashing looming over RuWiki, edit wars over San Francisco politics and another wikirace on live TV


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


 * WikiConference report: WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto recap


 * WikiProject report: WikiProject Newspapers (Not WP:NOTNEWS)


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


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

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 11:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Newbie
This newbie seemed particularly slow to get the nessafe. I think that Ibaman made the case, but the heavier kept pushing. Then IK made the point indirectly, but the newbie still didn't get it. I agree with not biting newbies, but this one didn't seem to want to listen. Ground Zero (talk) 02:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * That's very true; some people are slower than others to learn, but at least we eventually got there. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 02:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I will say, though, if I were a newbie, having a bunch of links thrown at me isn't a very good approach for getting me to stay, at least per . SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 02:56, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

This Month in Education: March 2024
<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:2.9em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This Month in Education

<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:1.4em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> Volume 13 • Issue 3 • March 2024

<div style="border-top:1px solid #a2a9b1; border-bottom:1px solid #a2a9b1; padding:0.5em; font-size:larger; margin-bottom:0.2em">Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue <div style="margin-top:10px; text-align: center; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 07:28, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Reading Wikipedia in the classroom, Kaduna
 * Reading Wikipedia in Ukraine – the course for educators is now available on demand
 * Wiki Movement Brazil will once again support the Brazilian Linguistics Olympiad
 * Wikipedia within the Education Setting in Albania

Tech News: 2024-18
<section begin="technews-2024-W18"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes


 * The appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: . These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this test gave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences (""). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks.
 * Seven new wikis have been created:
 * a in Betawi
 * a in Kusaal
 * a in Igala
 * a in Karakalpak
 * a in Burmese
 * a in Malay
 * a in Georgian
 * You can now watch message groups/projects on Translatewiki.net. Initially, this feature will notify you of added or deleted messages in these groups.
 * Dark mode is now available on all wikis, on mobile web for logged-in users who opt into the advanced mode. This is the early release of the feature. Technical editors are invited to check for accessibility issues on wikis. See more detailed guidelines.

Problems
 * Kartographer maps can use an alternative visual style without labels, by using <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed.

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

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W18"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 03:34, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

French national parks
Thanks for creating articles on French national parks. However, I notice that several of them (by you or others) were marked as usable, although they lacked info on fees and permits and on getting around, and had no advice on getting in other than by private vehicle (mostly just mentioning what roads lead there).

In some other park articles:
 * "As always with National or Regional Parks in France, there are no entrance fees, and in fact the entrance itself will not be easily located along the road. Only a small signpost generally marks it."
 * "Permits can be found at the park administration website." – the link is to the department website, where I didn't find any mention of permits for the park, but my French is lacking, so something could be hiding there.
 * "As with all other French national parks, going off a marked road or travel via your vehicle is prohibited in order to preserve the landscape."
 * "The code of conduct, Code de Bonne Conduite, can be obtained at the tourist office" – might that be true also for other parks? Is there a general Code de Bonne Conduite covering them all?

If the fees and permits are mostly uniform across all parks, they could be handled in one place, linked from the park articles. I still assume that there are local peculiarities, and without checking for those we shouldn't think an article is usable.

Getting in by bus should be covered and, if bikes are mentioned, some characterisation of the entry route from the perspective of bikers. Also, if one cannot reach the sights by car/bus/bike, that should be mentioned either in Get around or the individual listings, with directions ("a 5-km hike along a marked trail from [bus stop]" or the like). Also, the Camping and Backcountry sections are mostly empty. Are there usually camping sites? Is backcountry camping allowed? I assume you should stay on marked trails, but whether or not should be covered.

–LPfi (talk) 10:29, 30 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed regarding the Fees and permits – I will slowly add them once I get the motivation to do so. About the accommodation, it isn't required for usable articles to have all of those filled in – only a minimum of one listing is required per Park article status (that page isn't clear, but it's naturally assumed from City article status – otherwise we'd be demoting hundreds of park articles if this weren't the case). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 10:57, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I won't be very active on this site next month (draining in uni work :-, but I'll try to slowly fix them. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 11:51, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No problem, this is long-term work and I just happened to notice that you had created some of them. Get around isn't needed for usable, but I think it should be there for high-quality usable articles, which should be aimed for. For Sleep, I think "information on accommodation" means general information rather than one listing.
 * For a Finnish national park, saying that there are wilderness huts mostly as needed along the marked or otherwise popular routes is much more useful than creating a listing for one of them – which I would think of as gaming the system.
 * If you can access most sites by car and there's a car-accessible lodging, that might suffice, but if you are supposed to do overnight hikes in other parts of the park, then it is woefully inadequate. Most of those park articles don't tell.
 * Good luck with the uni!
 * –LPfi (talk) 12:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I do agree we should aim for high-quality usable articles overall (and it's great that the number of high-quality usable substantially higher than it was in 2013 thanks to people like you). -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 12:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Reminder to vote now to select members of the first U4C
<section begin="announcement-content" />
 * You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. 

Dear Wikimedian,

You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.

This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

On behalf of the UCoC project team,<section end="announcement-content" />

RamzyM (WMF) 23:10, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Green card
@SHB2000, i won a green card. Lionel Cristiano (talk) 19:20, 4 May 2024 (UTC)


 * wait, what's a green card? To me, it's synonymous with a permanent residency card. (I'm genuinely confused haha) -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 22:42, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, a U.S. permanent residency card. Congratulations, Lionel! Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:39, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, righty. I second Ikan; congratulations! -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 00:36, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Gender in the UCOC
Hi SHB2000, I've seen this section of the UCOC mentioned a few times here, and since it's off-topic for the Talk:Buddhism page where you were talking about this with @Ikan Kekek and @Pashley (apologies to anyone I've forgotten), I thought I'd borrow your talk page. Here's what it says: Respect the way that contributors name and describe themselves. People may use specific terms to describe themselves. As a sign of respect, use these terms when communicating with or about these people, where linguistically or technically feasible. Examples include: [....]


 * People who identify with a certain sexual orientation or gender identity using distinct names or pronouns;

What this means is:


 * If someone directly tells you "I'm a man", then you should not show disrespect for that person by saying he's lying or by directly calling that person a woman.

What this does not mean is:


 * If you accidentally guess wrong, don't see a gender disclosed, forgot that the person previously said what their gender is, didn't take the time check the userpage first to see whether a gender is disclosed, etc., then doing your best (e.g., guessing from the username) is either bad or sanctionable.

They're trying to stop the kinds of exchanges that sound like:


 * "Actually, I'm a woman" – "No, you aren't, and I'm going to keep calling you he because I know you're a man", and
 * "Actually, I'm trans" – "Our community doesn't accept people like you".

People living in western democracies may find it hard to believe, but pre-UCOC, we actually had at least one Wikipedia that banned gay editors in their policies. Disclosing on your user page was a blockable offense there, even if you never touched a related article.

The main thing to remember is that the UCOC isn't concerned with the kinds of mistakes that all humans make occasionally. That policy is primarily concerned with deliberately malicious behavior. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see; that makes sense, . I'm actually quite shocked with the Wikipedia policy, but even the western world 15–20 years ago was a very different place than it is today. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 21:26, 5 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm not surprised, thinking about it. swwiki recently blocked a user for reporting an admin's anti-queer style of editing. -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 03:32, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It is shocking from our perspective, but as you say, it's not entirely surprising, after you think about it for a bit. If memory serves, that Wikipedia was for a language primarily spoken in a developing country where gay relationships are criminalized.  If you want your language's Wikipedia to be respected (especially by teachers or others who might be sensitive to child safety issues), then someone might think it was a good idea to set up a policy to exclude those "criminals".  Creating a global rule against this actually relieves some local groups from pressure.  (The English Wikipedia is fond of saying that nobody asked for it, but multiple affiliates actually did ask for the UCOC, and enwiki says that about everything, even if you give them evidence of the request being made at enwiki's own Village pump as a community-initiated, CENT-listed RFC.  Such claims are basically always wrong, and really mean "The individual complaining about this did not personally ask for it".)  Now the affiliates can tell their local politicians and pressure groups "Sorry, I know about our anti-gay laws, and we're all very patriotic here, but Wikipedia is run by a US organization that requires non-discrimination, so there's just nothing we can do about it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:41, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Figures out – I guess it really does put you in a difficult position if you lived in a country with anti-homosexuality laws, and I say this as someone who's ace, but at least the UCoC helps alleviate this issue. (also agreed on the enwiki bit – enwiki really likes to act as if it were in its own WMF world at times) -- SHB2000  (talk &#124; contribs &#124; meta) 06:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-19
<section begin="technews-2024-W19"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences (""). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the . More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs".

Future changes
 * A new service will be built to replace Extension:Graph. Details can be found in the latest update regarding this extension.
 * Starting May 21, English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia will get the possibility to activate "Add a link". This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to all Wikipedias. These communities can activate and configure the feature locally.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W19"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 16:45, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: April 2024
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 06:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-20
<section begin="technews-2024-W20"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list.
 * If you use the user-preference "", then the template-page feature "" will now also work without reloading the page.
 * Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> attribute. This is identical in usage to the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive.
 * The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure.

Future changes
 * In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Two columns of the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> database table (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> table instead (<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ). In your existing SQL queries:
 * Replace <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> with <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> and <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> with <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> in the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> statement
 * Below that add <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr">
 * See T222224 for technical reasoning.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W20"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:59, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

This Month in Education: April 2024
<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:2.9em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This Month in Education

<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:1.4em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> Volume 13 • Issue 4 • April 2024

<div style="border-top:1px solid #a2a9b1; border-bottom:1px solid #a2a9b1; padding:0.5em; font-size:larger; margin-bottom:0.2em">Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue
 * EduWiki Updates From Uganda
 * Good news from Bolivia: Reading Wikipedia Program continues in 2024
 * Hearing Health Project: Impactful partnership with Wiki Movement Brazil
 * Wikimedia Spain, Amical Wikimedia and the University of Valencia develop Wikipedia educational project

<div style="margin-top:10px; text-align: center; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 03:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * News and notes: Democracy in action: multiple elections


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


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


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


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


 * Comix: Generations


 * Traffic report: Crawl out through the fallout, baby

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 11:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

blocked ip address
i tried to edit a post today, but get the following message;

You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason: Your username or IP address is blocked from doing this. You may still be able to do other things on this site, such as editing certain pages. You can view the full block details at account contributions. The block was made by ‪SHB2000‬. The reason given is /32 range exclusively used by Brendan since late 2021. If you've been affected by this range block, please leave a message on User talk:SHB2000. Start of block: 08:54, 29 April 2024 Expiration of block: 08:54, 29 October 2024 Intended blockee: 2001:8004:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 Block ID #23146.

not sure who brendan is, but it looks like anyone in the region using 4g will be blocked. is that the desired outcome? 2001:8004:5170:6009:9063:BF69:95A1:87F 23:38, 16 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello, Brendan is an LTA based in SEQ (Maroochydore specifically) who used to routinely IP hop using different addresses from that range. I've unblocked that IP range so you can edit. Hope that clarifies things! -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 00:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * thank you, i'm in the northern rivers... certainly a baptism of fire here! 58.171.95.231 03:19, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, when I usually block a /32 range, I make sure that innocent users affected by it can still contact me since it's a large range to block – it's also why it's only used in mainspace. What I was surprised was that it affected people south of the border too. -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 07:24, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * A /32 range covers 4 billion /64 blocks. I don't know how the IPv6 blocks are allocated, but such a range could easily be enough for much more than an Australian state. –LPfi (talk) 08:15, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The /32 rangeblocks are usually very effective in tacking Brendan edits, as I've done several times before, but only use them in extreme circumstances (even more so than the criteria stewards use to global rangeblock /32 IPs). -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 08:58, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Are those criteria public? It would be nice to know how these allocations work and how the reasoning about them goes. –LPfi (talk) 09:23, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * No, and even I don't know the full criteria, but often those blocks are mirrored on Meta-Wiki if disruption continues from those ranges and you can imply the reason on a case-by-case (we don't have an exact block policy on Meta, but I've just abstained from doing range blocks over there and letting the stewards do it). -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 09:28, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * OK. I wonder whether /48 blocks (or somesuch) could be used in some of the cases where one is tempted to use /32. That would be 64 thousand /64 blocks instead of the 4 billion. –LPfi (talk) 09:57, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I believe I've used /48 blocks in the past, though I can't remember if they were full blocks or namespace-specific blocks (or a bit of both). -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:09, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Though I do wonder if a /38 block would be better in this case. -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:12, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Whatever covers the IPs you want to block and not too many others. /38 is still many million /64 blocks. –LPfi (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-21
<section begin="technews-2024-W21"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title.
 * New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W21"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-22
<section begin="technews-2024-W22"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
 * Octicons-tools.svg In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
 * Octicons-tools.svg Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> . Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W22"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 00:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

userpage
hey, i had been scratching my head trying to workout how to add linkable toc on my userpage banner, then stumbled across your userpage, which had exactly what i was trying to achieve. i do hope you don't take offense that i have used your tech on my page, but do thank you for this knowledge... Gecktrek (talk) 10:18, 24 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Not a problem – please do feel free to take anything from my userpage as you wish! -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * one more question if you don't mind, i've noticed that many of the indonesian cities don't have a climate template, given the weather is crucial to know, if i add them to a few places, where is the best place to put them? it appears to be in the 'understand' section, but in many pages, this is not in the usual place on the page.  should i move the understand section to the correct position first, before adding the climate template?  sorry for the long question. Gecktrek (talk) 13:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, under Understand would be good. -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 13:04, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * many thanks... Gecktrek (talk) 13:09, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * is there anyway of centering the the mapframe contents, so all the location places (coloured dots) appear in the map you see? Gecktrek (talk) 07:57, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, add the latitude in the first parameter and the longitude in the second parameter. It'd look something like if those are your center coordinates. Hope that helps! --  SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:08, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * ah, so i manually pick the central spot, and take those co-ords for the mapframe... will give it a try, thanks again!  g e c k t r e k (Talk) 10:40, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes – though the URL of OSM is also a good way to get centered coordinates. -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:57, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-23
<section begin="technews-2024-W23"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available.
 * The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> " to "<bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> ".
 * One new wiki has been created: a in Kadazandusun

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

Future changes
 * Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W23"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 22:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 June 2024
<div lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr" style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper
 * News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its Form 990 for fiscal year 2022-2023


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


 * Deletion report: The lore of Kalloor


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


 * 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


 * Opinion: Public response to the editors of Settler Colonial Studies


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


 * Featured content: We didn't start the wiki


 * Essay: No queerphobia


 * Special report: RetractionBot is back to life!


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


 * Comix: The Wikipediholic Family


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


 * Concept: Palimpsestuous

<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 12:30, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This Month in GLAM: May 2024
<div style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 14:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-24
<section begin="technews-2024-W24"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * The software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
 * Octicons-tools.svg The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> class, Parsoid now also adds the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available.

Problems
 * There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Octicons-tools.svg The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available.
 * On multilingual wikis that use the <bdi lang="zxx" dir="ltr"> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W24"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 20:20, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

This Month in Education: May 2024
<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:2.9em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">This Month in Education

<span style="font-weight:bold; color:#00A7E2; font-size:1.4em; font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> Volume 13 • Issue 5 • May 2024

<div style="border-top:1px solid #a2a9b1; border-bottom:1px solid #a2a9b1; padding:0.5em; font-size:larger; margin-bottom:0.2em">Contents • Headlines • Subscribe

In This Issue <div style="margin-top:10px; text-align: center; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony 13:30, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Albania - Georgia Wikimedia Cooperation 2024
 * Aleksandër Xhuvani University Editathon in Elbasan
 * Central Bicol State University of Agriculture LitFest features translation and article writing on Wikipedia
 * Empowering Youth Council in Bulqiza through editathons
 * We left a piece of our hearts at Arhavi
 * Wiki Movimento Brasil at Tech Week and Education Speaker Series
 * Wikimedia MKD trains new users in collaboration with MYLA

Tech News: 2024-25
<section begin="technews-2024-W25"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details.
 * The new Community Configuration extension is available on Test Wikipedia. This extension allows communities to customize specific features to meet their local needs. Currently only Growth features are configurable, but the extension will support other Community Configuration use cases in the future.
 * The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page.

Problems
 * Octicons-tools.svg Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center.
 * Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Starting June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable.
 * Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W25"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:49, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Aussie oddities?
User:Daceyvillain recently blanked both User:Voyage2023/Sydney/Eastern Suburbs and User:Voyage2023/Sydney/South-Eastern Suburbs with the edit comment "User is tricking readers by spreading misinformation on a user page which is crafted to look like an official page". Both users have been around since late 2023 & have many contributions, most or all around Sydney.

I suspect something weird is going on here, but am not sure what & I lack local knowledge. Can you take a look? Pashley (talk) 01:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I think that's because Voyage2023 on enwiki has a tendency to push a certain region boundary and I think they were banned for that? (don't quote me on that)
 * I've reverted Daceyvillain's edits, though – there isn't any policy (local or global) that prohibits this kind of material in userspace anyway. -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 02:00, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * FWIW, Voyage2023 was just banned from Wikipedia (yet again) for various reasons (vandalism, sockpuppetry, harrassment, etc)
 * My issue with their user pages here is that they are essentially putting misinformation on Wikivoyage in order to take advantage of Wikivoyage’s Google Search ranking. In particular, Google now shows the same misinformation and lists Wikivoyage as a source, but the source is actually just their user page and not a normal page on Wikivoyage. So this seems very broken.
 * Anyway, sorry for any controversy. Some more context here (at the bottom)
 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Daceyvillain Daceyvillain (talk) 10:29, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'd just NOINDEX it SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 12:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Daceyvillain (talk) 10:32, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Glad I could help :-) (and don't feel the need to apologise). -- SHB2000  (t &#124; c &#124; m) 10:47, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-26
<section begin="technews-2024-W26"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage.
 * The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode.

Problems
 * You can copy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp. This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from . It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from . It will be on all wikis from (calendar).
 * Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W26"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 22:33, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-27
<section begin="technews-2024-W27"/> Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of the top-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information in the latest Web team update.
 * Logged-in users can now set global preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis.
 * If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use new CSS features and to send less code to all readers.
 * Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily using Community Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configure Growth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months.
 * Editors interested in language issues that are related to Unicode standards, can now discuss those topics at a new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now a member of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
 * One new wiki has been created: a in Mandailing

Problems
 * Editors can once again click on links within the visual editor's citation-preview, thanks to a bug fix by the Editing Team.

Future changes
 * Please help us to improve Tech News by taking this short survey. The goal is to better meet the needs of the various types of people who read Tech News. The survey will be open for 2 weeks. The survey is covered by this privacy statement. Some translations are available.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. <section end="technews-2024-W27"/>

MediaWiki message delivery 23:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC)