Jump to content

User talk:Susmuffin/Archive 8

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8

Books & Bytes – Issue 62

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 62, March – April 2024

  • IEEE and Haaretz now available
  • Let's Connect Clinics about The Wikipedia Library
  • Spotlight and Wikipedia Library tips

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --11:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:49, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 18, 2024)

A crewed submersible used for underwater exploration
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Exploration

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Pool (cue sports) • Antarctic

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-18

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

Screenshot of the visual improvements made on talk pages
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
  • The appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Vietnamese Wikipedia. These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this test gave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks. [1]
  • Seven new wikis have been created:
  • You can now watch message groups/projects on Translatewiki.net. Initially, this feature will notify you of added or deleted messages in these groups. [9]
  • 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 mapstyle="osm". This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed. [10]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar). [11][12]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 03:31, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2024).

Administrator changes

readded Nyttend
removed

Bureaucrat changes

removed Nihonjoe

CheckUser changes

readded Joe Roe

Oversight changes

removed GeneralNotability

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:25, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Your usage of Citation bot on Joko Pinurbo resulted in an edit conflict while I was making a major edit. WC gudang inspirasi (Read! Talk!) 12:32, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 19, 2024)

Papyriform columns in the Luxor Temple
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Ancient Egyptian architecture

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Exploration • Pool (cue sports)

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 6 May 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-19

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

Screenshot of the visual improvements made on talk pages
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
  • The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks. [13][14]
  • Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the SiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page. [15]
  • 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. [16]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar). [17][18]
  • 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". [19]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 16:42, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 20, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Tax return

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Ancient Egyptian architecture • Exploration

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-20

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

Recent changes

  • On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word __EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list. [21]
  • If you use the user-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page. [22]
  • Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the alt= attribute. This is identical in usage to the alt= attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive. [23]
  • 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. [24]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar). [25][26]
  • The Special:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure. [27]

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. [28]
  • Two columns of the pagelinks database table (pl_namespace and pl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new linktarget table instead (lt_namespace and lt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
    1. Replace JOIN pagelinks with JOIN linktarget and pl_ with lt_ in the ON statement
    2. Below that add JOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:56, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:59, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

george macdonald

why did "that long list" need to be removed? this is from your december edits 50.126.71.214 (talk) 23:13, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

It was a massive list of names that added little information about George MacDonald to his article's lead. Furthermore, a list of that length encourages editors to indiscriminately add more random people and much of it was uncited. ―Susmuffin Talk 16:30, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 21, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

News program

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Tax return • Ancient Egyptian architecture

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 20 May 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-21

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. [31]
  • 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. [32][33]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [34][35]
  • 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.

MediaWiki message delivery 23:02, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

2023 Union Square riot

Apologies for the talk page message, but is this article is ready for FAC? — 🌙Eclipse (talk) (contribs) 14:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there anything that needs to be added to the article? Has anything changed since the incident was heavily in the news? ―Susmuffin Talk 06:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
There's some info about Cenat not getting any charges that's not in the article. 🌙Eclipse (talk) (contribs) 09:15, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
You should probably put that in there, assuming that it has been discussed by reliable sources. ―Susmuffin Talk 11:12, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 Done ― Anything else? — 🌙Eclipse (talk) (contribs) 11:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
The article largely looks fine. I would be careful about citing the National Review in an article on a riot. ―Susmuffin Talk 14:48, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Your use of Citation Bot

I notice you’ve been using Citation Bot on the 2024 in archosaur paleontology page for three days straight, always to make very minor changes to the citations. Is there any particular reason why don’t wait for the bot to come across the page on its own and update multiple citations at once? 49.144.197.22 (talk) 00:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I am trying to clear a category of known citation issues. The bot seems to be doing things in parts. Of course, that might have to do with its sources periodically being updated. ―Susmuffin Talk 09:12, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Is there any reason why it has to be done every day instead of like, every week? The issues will be fixed either way. 49.144.193.183 (talk) 02:42, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
My perspective is that it is fine as long as it is adding something useful to the templates. Edits that add volume information and bibcodes are valid. ―Susmuffin Talk 14:43, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 22, 2024)

Logo used from the 1990s until acquisition by Oracle
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Sun Management Center

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: News program • Tax return

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 27 May 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-22

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

Recent changes

  • Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
  • In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
  • Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: .collapsible, .multicol, .reflist, .coordinates, .topicon. Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar). [36][37]
  • 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. [38]

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, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 23, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

State of emergency

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Sun Management Center • News program

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-23

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. [39]
  • The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [40]
  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Kadazandusun (w:dtp:) [41]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [42][43]

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.

MediaWiki message delivery 22:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2024).

Administrator changes

readded Graham Beards
removed

Bureaucrat changes

removed

Oversight changes

removed Dreamy Jazz

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. T43351

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 June 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:28, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 24, 2024)

Turkish lira banknote
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

National economy (Turkey)

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: State of emergency • Sun Management Center

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 10 June 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-24

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. [44]
  • The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
  • The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [45]

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. [46]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [47][48]
  • The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [49]
  • On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [50]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 25, 2024)

Field hockey stick and ball
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Sports equipment

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: National economy (Turkey) • State of emergency

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 17 June 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-25

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. [51]
  • 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. [52][53]
  • 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. [54]

Problems

  • Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center. [55]
  • 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. [56]

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar). [57][58]
  • 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. [59]
  • 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. [60]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:47, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 26, 2024)

Breaking wave
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Breaking wave

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Sports equipment • National economy (Turkey)

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 24 June 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-26

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. [61]
  • 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. [62]

Problems

Changes later this week

  • The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [64][65]
  • 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. [66]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 22:30, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 27, 2024)

Theo Jansen's Strandbeest, a group of planar walking mechanisms
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Mechanism (engineering)

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Breaking wave • Sports equipment

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-27

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. [67]
  • 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. [68]
  • 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. [69][70]
  • 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. [71]
  • 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 Wikipedia in Mandailing (w:btm:) [72]

Problems

  • Editors can once again click on links within the visual editor's citation-preview, thanks to a bug fix by the Editing Team. [73]

Future changes

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 July 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2024).

Administrator changes

added
removed

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 28, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Applied science

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Mechanism (engineering) • Breaking wave

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 8 July 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-28

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

Recent changes

Problems

  • A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin, has been fixed.

Future changes

  • The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introduce temporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team has created documentation explaining how to do the update. Learn more.

Tech News survey

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

MediaWiki message delivery 21:30, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 29, 2024)

Ambush of Polish partisans against Russian forces during the January Uprising, 1863
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Ambush

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Applied science • Mechanism (engineering)

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-29

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

Tech News survey

Recent changes

  • Advanced item Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
  • Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
  • Editors who have access to The Wikipedia Library can once again use non-open access content in SpringerLinks, after the Foundation contacted them to restore access. You can read more about this and 21 other community-submitted tasks that were completed last week.

Changes later this week

Future changes

  • Advanced item Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page. [74]
  • Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. You can also get other news from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.

MediaWiki message delivery 01:29, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit conflict no thank you

Edit conflict no thank you!!! Alexysun (talk) 19:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 63

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 63, May – June 2024

  • One new partner
  • 1Lib1Ref
  • Spotlight: References check

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 30, 2024)

Cape of Good Hope (left) and Cape Hangklip (right) in South Africa
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Cape (geography)

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Ambush • Applied science

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 22 July 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Citation bot on 2024 in archosaur paleontology

I noticed you’ve been using Citation Bot on the 2024 in archosaur paleontology page almost every day since mid-May. I honestly believe your use of it is excessive, since the changes you make with it (adding missing parameters to citations few at a time) have been done faithfully by human editors before that or, when via the bot, done in bulk. I honestly think you should reduce your use of it, since the constant use of the bot clogs up the page history. Please consider my request. 2001:4453:5E9:900:617A:C3D0:939F:3116 (talk) 08:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 July 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-30

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

Feature News

  • Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
  • Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [75]
  • Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [76]
  • Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
  • Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [77]

Project Updates

  • Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.

Learn more

  • Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
  • How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe. You can also get other news from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.

MediaWiki message delivery 00:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 31, 2024)

Calder's Flamingo in Chicago
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

List of public art in Chicago

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Cape (geography) • Ambush

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 29 July 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-31

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

Feature news

  • Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.

Bugs status

  • Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
  • Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
  • There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
  • One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [78]

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:08, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 32, 2024)

Smiling woman
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Happiness

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: List of public art in Chicago • Cape (geography)

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 5 August 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-32

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

Feature news

  • Advanced item Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [79][80]
  • Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
  • The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.

Project updates

  • Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
  • Advanced item The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Archive request

Hello! Could I ask for your help in archiving 2024 Manila Bay oil spill? Thanks! Borgenland (talk) 10:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

It is done. ―Susmuffin Talk 15:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2024).

Administrator changes

readded Isabelle Belato
removed

Interface administrator changes

readded Izno

CheckUser changes

removed Barkeep49

Technical news

  • Global blocks may now target accounts as well as IP's. Administrators may locally unblock when appropriate.
  • Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 33, 2024)

A fictional social network diagram
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Social experiment

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Happiness • List of public art in Chicago

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 12 August 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-33

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

Feature news

Project updates

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:19, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:49, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 34, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Keygen

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Social experiment • Happiness

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-34

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

Feature news

  • Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
  • Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [83]
  • Advanced item Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [84][85]

Bugs status

  • Advanced item Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
  • Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.

Learn more

  • The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
  • The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:51, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious
One year!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 35, 2024)

Director Sergio Leone (right) and actor Enzo Santaniello on the set of the film
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Once Upon a Time in the West

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Keygen • Social experiment

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 26 August 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-35

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

Feature news

  • Advanced item Administrators can now test the temporary accounts feature on test2wiki. This was done to allow cross-wiki testing of temporary accounts, for when temporary accounts switch between projects. The feature was enabled on testwiki a few weeks ago. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Temporary Accounts is a project to create a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors which are no longer made public. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
  • Later this week, editors at wikis that use FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") may notice that the indicators at the top of articles have changed. This change makes the system more consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface. [86]

Bugs status

  • Editors who use the 2010 wikitext editor, and use the Character Insert buttons, will no longer experience problems with the buttons adding content into the edit-summary instead of the edit-window. You can read more about that, and 26 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Project updates

  • Wishlist item Please review and vote on Focus Areas, which are groups of wishes that share a problem. Focus Areas were created for the newly reopened Community Wishlist, which is now open year-round for submissions. The first batch of focus areas are specific to moderator workflows, around welcoming newcomers, minimizing repetitive tasks, and prioritizing tasks. Once volunteers have reviewed and voted on focus areas, the Foundation will then review and select focus areas for prioritization.
  • Do you have a project and are willing to provide a three (3) month mentorship for an intern? Outreachy is a twice a year program for people to participate in a paid internship that will start in December 2024 and end in early March 2025, and they need mentors and projects to work on. Projects can be focused on coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, research). See the Outreachy page for more details, and a list of past projects since 2013.

Learn more

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

MediaWiki message delivery 20:30, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

GDMG page

I work for [[GoDigital Media Group]], a digital rights management company. I disclosed a COI and requested a corrected/updated list of subsidiaries a few weeks ago and haven't gotten a response. I saw that you have an interest in digital rights management and was hoping you might be willing to take a look. You can find my edit request '''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GoDigital_Media_Group# here]'''.

Let me know if you are willing to take a look. Matthewjmt (talk) 20:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 36, 2024)

Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Cancel culture

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Once Upon a Time in the West • Keygen

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Administrators' newsletter – September 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2024).

Administrator changes

removed Pppery

Interface administrator changes

removed Pppery

Oversighter changes

removed Wugapodes

CheckUser changes

removed

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
  • A request for comment is open to discuss whether Notability (species) should be adopted as a subject-specific notability guideline.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:45, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Tech News: 2024-36

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

Weekly highlight

  • Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualisation can now test the new software for charts. Its early version is available on beta Commons and beta Wikipedia. This is an important milestone before making charts available on regular wikis. You can read more about this project update and help to test the charts.

Feature news

  • Editors who use the Special:UnusedTemplates page can now filter out pages which are expected to be there permanently, such as sandboxes, test-cases, and templates that are always substituted. Editors can add the new magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ to a template page to hide it from the listing. Thanks to Sophivorus and DannyS712 for these improvements. [87]
  • Editors who use the New Topic tool on discussion pages, will now be reminded to add a section header, which should help reduce the quantity of newcomers who add sections without a header. You can read more about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
  • Last week, some Toolforge tools had occasional connection problems. The cause is still being investigated, but the problems have been resolved for now. [88]
  • Translation administrators at multilingual wikis, when editing multiple translation units, can now easily mark which changes require updates to the translation. This is possible with the new dropdown menu.

Project updates

  • A new draft text of a policy discussing the use of Wikimedia's APIs has been published on Meta-Wiki. The draft text does not reflect a change in policy around the APIs; instead, it is an attempt to codify existing API rules. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome on the proposed update’s talk page until September 13 or until those discussions have concluded.

Learn more

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, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 September 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Edits such as special:diff/1244486085 to Radha Charan Gupta are unhelpful. The Internet Archive is a wonderful resource, and it's great to ask them to spider and archive pages linked from Wikipedia articles and use archive backups in articles when links rot or become otherwise inaccessible. However, preemptively adding a wayback link to every single external link on the site has no good justification, is distracting to readers, wastes a lot of space, and feels spammy. Please don't make such edits to Wikipedia articles. –jacobolus (t) 16:12, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I am aware that there is a disagreement on the subject of whether to archive functioning URLs in articles. That can depend on the editor consensus regarding a particular article. I am willing to recognise the consensus that has been established in the linked article. However, one of the edits that you reverted was a different one that added an article's issue number, a DOI and a few ISBNs. ―Susmuffin Talk 20:40, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
No, it's not about "editor consensus regarding a particular article". Indiscriminately adding Wayback machine archive links for still-living pages that are still available and accessible on the open internet is straight-up spam which is abusive of Wikipedia and Wikipedia readers, especially since many of the Wayback links do not actually display the content relevant to the citation. Littering these links sitewide is harmful to the project and wasteful of Wikipedia editors' and readers' time. As wonderful as the Internet Archive is, and however much you personally like it, it is not appropriate to turn Wikipedia into an advertising platform for the Wayback Machine.
(The Citation Bot edit is off topic here, but I partly kept its changes. The parts I reverted weren't actively harmful but also weren't necessary: In combination with a book title, author, year, and publisher, a DOI is an entirely sufficient piece of metadata for finding a book.) –jacobolus (t) 22:48, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
Adding archived links through a community-approved bot is not spam or advertising. If you regard it as such, start a discussion on either this project or Meta-Wiki. If you think that the bot is engaging in advertising or has an undue relationship with the Internet Archive itself, you can bring that up in one of the usual locations. In terms of article consensus, each article's citations are formatted in a way that reflects the presumed consensus of its editors. For example, Donald Trump's article has a talk page notice stating that archived links should not be added to it. That has to do with its sheer length and number of references. Meanwhile, I have been thanked by editors for adding archived links when editing different articles. Indeed, I have been asked to do it on a few occasions. ―Susmuffin Talk 05:02, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Archive backups for still-living pages do not serve any valuable purpose. (Except in rare cases where they are intentionally and specifically added because the site has substantially changed in some way since being cited, or in rare cases because a specific external site is notorious for routinely breaking links.) All they do is cause confusion and add clutter. I'm sure the IA loves to have WP:MEATBOTS spamming these all over the site, but it's not helpful to readers or other editors. Please don't waste your time and other people's on this net-harmful activity. The bot User:InternetArchiveBot doesn't directly add archive backups for living pages anymore, but only "rescues" dead links, something I have no problem with. (Indeed, I think rescuing dead links is extremely valuable!) –jacobolus (t) 06:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 37, 2024)

Map of the Caroline Islands Archipelago
Hello, Susmuffin. The article for improvement of the week is:

Caroline Islands

Please be bold and help improve it!

Previous selections: Cancel culture • Once Upon a Time in the West

Get involved with the AFI project: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 9 September 2024 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject AFI • Opt-out instructions

Tech News: 2024-37

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

Feature news

  • Starting this week, the standard syntax highlighter will receive new colors that make them compatible in dark mode. This is the first of many changes to come as part of a major upgrade to syntax highlighting. You can learn more about what's to come on the help page. [90][91]
  • Editors of wikis using Wikidata will now be notified of only relevant Wikidata changes in their watchlist. This is because the Lua functions entity:getSitelink() and mw.wikibase.getSitelink(qid) will have their logic unified for tracking different aspects of sitelinks to reduce junk notifications from inconsistent sitelinks tracking. [92]

Project updates

  • Users of all Wikis will have access to Wikimedia sites as read-only for a few minutes on September 25, starting at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [93]
  • Contributors of 11 Wikipedias, including English will have a new MOS namespace added to their Wikipedias. This improvement ensures that links beginning with MOS: (usually shortcuts to the Manual of Style) are not broken by Mooré Wikipedia (language code mos). [94]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 18:49, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 64

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 64, July – August 2024

  • The Hindu Group joins The Wikipedia Library
  • Wikimania presentation
  • New user script for easily searching The Wikipedia Library

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Booker T. Washington High School

I Have restored the link "Booker T. Washington High School (disambiguation)" in Template:Booker T. Washington. The reason is that the strange looking link is there deliberately. The link "Template:Booker T. Washington" will be seen correctly as a link to a disambiguation page and maintenance bot will flag it as a link that has to be fixed. But by using the link "Booker T. Washington High School (disambiguation)" the maintenance bot are fooled into believing that this is NOT a link to a disambiguation page (don't ask my why as I don't know) and will therefore not flag it as a link-to-be-fixed. It is a pure technical trick. The Banner talk 11:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Susmuffin/Archive_8&oldid=1246581615"