This is an archive of past discussions with User:HouseBlaster. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
You stated my content was "paraphrasing" for a Award Criteria. Award criteria's on Wikipedia always remain verbatim as they are specific criteria's. Furthermore you stated it was copyrighted. The source was The State of Texas and The Governors Office of Texas. Both of those cannot copyright the material such as Award Info and Criteria as it's free-use. Please learn the law and understand it before making changes. TheNathanMuir (talk) 13:51, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
@TheNathanMuir: first, if you are copying verbatim, it needs to be in quotation marks or else it is plagiarism. Next, on Wikipedia, we require that text borrowed from other sources be more than "free-use". We require that it be eligible for commercial redistribution. The Texas website says it prohibits commercial redistribution, so we cannot use it on Wikipedia. The Texas website is copyrighted: the opposite of copyrighted is in the public domain, not "free use". Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 14:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
It was not verbatim. It was re-written hence you putting it was "paraphrased". The award which is public law is not copyrightable. Hence why every other government award on Wikipedia is written verbatim. TheNathanMuir (talk) 14:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Works by the federal government are legally public domain, but per https://copyright.lib.harvard.edu/states/texas/ it's not clear whether works of Texas state government are. This is the case for, e.g. works of the State of California -- but not for every state. @TheNathanMuir: The burden is on you to supply evidence that positively states that the State of Texas releases its works into the public domain (or is statutorily required to do so). This means that, for example, https://gov.texas.gov/site-policies does not count -- it simply lacks any statement on copyright for textual content -- this is not enough. jp×g🗯️16:11, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
You're the one ACCUSING me of Copyright Infringement, thus the burden of proof is on YOU. Where is the burden of proof ever on the person defending themself?
If the laws and case laws show it's Federally accepted that you can't copyright Governmental stuff like Awards, then it's the same for States unless otherwise specifically noted, which for Texas it is not.
This award was created by Texas Law. You cannot copyright a law. You cannot copyright any part of the law. The text was taken directly from the law.
TheNathanMuirWhere is the burden of proof ever on the person defending themself? on Wikipedia, for one. See WP:BURDEN. But that is not necessary, because even if the burden was on me I have provided evidence that the text from the website is not eligible for commercial distribution. Eligibility for commercial distribution is a requirement for inclusion on Wikipedia. Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to disprove the assertion that it is not eligible for inclusion on Wikipedia. You are getting very close to an "I didn't hear that" block. HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
That's a lot of words for saying nothing. I don't think you understand how the laws in the U.S work. If there is no specific law banning or allowing something at a local, county or state level, it falls on established Federal guidelines.
Federal Guidelines in this case state that Government Work (Such as Awards, Laws, Etc) are Public Domain and thus cannot be copyrighted. The State follows the Federal law in this case because there is no State laws stating otherwise. It's not a abstract or complex issue here. You're saying that it's copyrighted (which it's not). There are plenty of other awards on here from Texas that have had no issues (cite: Awards and decorations of the Texas government#Public Safety Office). Furthermore there are no issues on Military awards either (cite: Awards and decorations of the United States Armed Forces). Wikimedia Commons also establishes that works produced by the government are Public domain, hence the massive amount of images of Government Works.
The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that federal law takes precedence over state and local laws. This principle is supported by:
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): Affirmed that federal laws have supremacy over conflicting state laws.
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): Reinforced federal authority over interstate commerce, highlighting federal preeminence.
Supremacy Clause: Directly states that federal law is the "supreme Law of the Land." These provisions ensure that in the absence of local laws, federal laws apply.
The text I wrote for the award was from and per the Law (Texas Government Code, Title 4, Subtitle B, Chapter 3106)
You legally cannot copyright a law, or most Government Works.
It's public information and public records. Since this Award was created by law it would fall under Wheaton V. Peters (1834) [The U.S. Supreme Court case Wheaton v. Peters (1834) established that no one can claim a copyright in laws or judicial opinions.]
Under Title 17, Section 105 of the United States Code, it is stated that "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government." This is often interpreted to mean that federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and other official documents are not eligible for copyright protection.
Texas state law reflects this general principle. Texas Government Code Section 552.002 defines public information, which includes information that is written, produced, collected, assembled, or maintained under a law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by a governmental body. This ensures that such information, including laws, is public and accessible.
Banks v. Manchester (1888): Reinforced that judicial opinions, which are government-created, are public domain. This principle extends to other government works.
Now again, I have proven my side consistently, please explain your side without tagging a useless page that has no merit on this discussion. TheNathanMuir (talk) 16:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Also you tagged the page Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations, I provided Citations for everything I used so again I am not understanding the issue. I did the citations exactly how other awards and decorations are done on Wikipedia. I also did everything as I was supposed to. It appears you haven't a clue and made a mistake but lack humility to admit it. TheNathanMuir (talk) 16:27, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
TheNathanMuir: I referenced WP:BURDEN because you asked where in the world the burden is on the defendant. I provided such an example. I agree you have met that burden in this case. I was just providing an example in which the burden is on the "accused".In general, text of statues is not copyrighted. However, the website is not a statue. You can include things like the official qualifications which are defined in a statue. (However, they need to be enclosed in quotes or otherwise indicated that it is copying from a public domain source. This is not a legal requirement; it is "only" a Wikipedia rule. See Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain sources.) But things that are not statutory text, such as the blurb from the website explaining what the award is, are subject to copyright. Read the statue: it is very clear that it applied to works of the US government, not the governments of individual states (including Texas). And again: that website says it does not authorize commercial use. Either that website is lying or it cannot be used on Wikipedia. HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:45, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
The text from the site, was from the law. Almost verbatim. So again, how is that plagiarism. Again, the above laws/case laws/citations show that the State cannot copyright things belonging to public domain. So it's doubled down that it's not plagiarism or copyrighted. If it was plagiarized, there would need to be a victim. The State of Texas (SOT) cannot be the victim, because they cannot copyright. The person who wrote it (A government official/employee) cannot be the victim when creating work in official capacity unless explicitly stated (rare occurrence, and it would have to be provided that it was copyrighted), because they are the Government (belonging to), and therefor cannot copyright the writing of the site, belonging to the state, in official capacity for the state. Third, it came directly from the law which; cannot be copyrighted, so again what was plagiarized and who did I plagiarize? As stated this isn't abstract. This isn't complex.
If the content was Third Party content (such as Images taken by Contractors, News Organizations, Etc), or Trademarked (such as "U.S. Army Branch Insignia") this would be different. And again as Texas law states, the website about the Award and Law would be considered Public Information, which means it's not copyrighted.
The website policies state explicitly the only things copyrighted are the Videos and Photographs:
"All photographs and videos are copyrighted and may not be used without permission. Commercial use of any reproduction of any portion of this website is strictly prohibited. The OOG respects the rights of intellectual property owners and will not intentionally infringe on those rights. If an intellectual property owner believes his or her rights have been infringed by the posting or sharing of intellectual property on an OOG website or social media page, please visit the" (Cite:https://gov.texas.gov/site-policies)
The purpose of this is because they often get their content from Third-Parties (see above how that's allowed to be Copyrighted).
The policy above is cited for this page (https://gov.texas.gov/organization/cjd/star-of-texas). Thus, there were no photographs, videos or images taken from this page only Text. The Text was taken from the law. Nullifying any copyright.
The only page I found from the State of Texas that had a copyright was www.texas.gov not the Governors/Office of the Governors page/domains ("OOG") www.gov.texas.gov. You can't use the Copyright for one domain and use it on a different page and Subdomain, especially when they belong to different organizations.
However, looking at www.texas.gov Copyright or "Legal Policy" it says:
"Texas.gov is provided for public use on computer systems located within the State of Texas and for the use and benefit of citizens of Texas. Any person choosing to use this system or seeking access to information or materials on this system is subject to Texas jurisdiction. Any dispute arising therefrom shall be decided under the laws and in the courts in Texas."
Which per the laws cited above make it all PUBLIC INFORMATION, and thus Public Domain, meaning anything produced for the state, by the state, cannot be copyrighted and is available to the public unless explicitly stated otherwise. TheNathanMuir (talk) 19:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
@TheNathanMuir: Let's try taking this one step at a time. I never accused you of plagiarism. I just said that if the website was able to be used on Wikipedia, we would need to put it in quotes or else indicate that it was copied from the Texas website. Wikipedia's definition of plagiarism is taking credit for someone else's writing as your own, including their language and ideas, without providing adequate credit. It does not matter whether the writing is copyrighted or in the public domain. It does not require there to be a victim. Can we agree on that? (And yes, I will respond to the rest of your message later. I want to make sure we can first establish some common ground.) HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:54, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
If you want to ding me for copying award criteria's verbatim than we can go through and flag 100's of pages on Wikipedia that were taken directly from Government sites.
I've already proven that the work does not belong to anyone as it's created by the Government and free-use, the Texas law and State of Texas acknowledge that, along with Federal Law and Court cases (all provided above). If you had read the data provided it would articulate that. Citations were provided for the Text. It was done the same as every other award page.
Unless you have something that counters everything I've provided besides your opinion don't even respond. If you want to continue this game I expect all the other award pages to get the same treatment. TheNathanMuir (talk) 14:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
@TheNathanMuir: So your argument is that because other articles are problematic, you get to continue being problematic? Not how this works. Sorry. And you have not answered my one, simple question: do you agree that plagiarism does not require a victim? It is a simple yes or no question. Please answer it. HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
My argument is it's a Government Website that clearly states it is not copyrighted, and based on the precedent of Wikipedia, shows it's reasonable to copy Award Criteria and Information from Government Sites and Sources. Don't put words into my mouth to fit your fallacy ridden argument.
Plagiarism does require a victim. You can't say it's plagiarism if there's nobody to credit. However, in this instance - if the Government creates something it can't be plagiarized, because the Government cannot be the victim here. This is where fair-use, public information, etc all come into play. Which I've already laid the foundation and proven my argument for. TheNathanMuir (talk) 20:31, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
You can do what you want. Just don't go deleting pages without you having a understanding of what you're doing. Instead of editing the draft, or making a talk page you guys delete it first. An hour of formatting and sourcing down the drain, over something you have no clue about.
There is no issue, I already revised the text to the best that is possible so it's not verbatim. I provided my sources and the page is good to go.
Nobody has countered my proof that I have provided. It meets the terms of Wikipedia, it's not verbatim, and is not copyrighted per the policy on the OOG site. So I don't know what the issue is. TheNathanMuir (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Listen, pal: I don't like state governments asserting copyright over their works either, and if I had my druthers, I would tell them to pound sand. But I do not get to have my druthers, and neither do you: we get to follow the rules of this website, which are extremely clear that images are presumed to be copyrighted unless explicitly confirmed otherwise. The rules of this website are a pain in the keister. This is known to be true.
If the state of Texas has broken the law in claiming copyright over their website's contents, this needs to be taken up with them -- in an actual court of law, not a Wikipedia talk page. jp×g🗯️18:32, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin August Issue 2
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation over the second half of August 2024. Please help translate
Upcoming and current events and conversationsTalking: 2024 continues
Editor tools related to references & categories and more tech updates on the latest Tech News.
Outreachy (a paid, remote three-month internship to support underrepresented groups in tech) is open. Mentors should submit projects before September 11 at 16:00 UTC (more info).
The Campaign Events extension is now available on Meta-Wiki, Arabic Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested in other language wikis.
Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
Some next steps on a movement charter: A message from Wikimedia Foundation CEO, Maryana Iskander, Chair of Board of Trustees, Nataliia Tymkiv, and Chair of Governance Committee, Dariusz Jemielniak.
Elections for four community-and-affiliate elected seats on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will be held from September 3 to September 17. To learn more about the candidates, watch this short "Meet the Candidates" presentations.
Following an RfC, there is a new criterion for speedy deletion: C4, which applies to unused maintenance categories, such as empty dated maintenance categories for dates in the past.
The arbitration case Historical Elections is currently open. Proposed decision is expected by 3 September 2024 for this case.
Miscellaneous
Editors can now enter into good article review circles, an alternative for informal quid pro quo arrangements, to have a GAN reviewed in return for reviewing a different editor's nomination.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualisation can now test the new software for charts. Its early version is available on beta Commons and beta Wikipedia. This is an important milestone before making charts available on regular wikis. You can read more about this project update and help to test the charts.
Feature news
Editors who use the Special:UnusedTemplates page can now filter out pages which are expected to be there permanently, such as sandboxes, test-cases, and templates that are always substituted. Editors can add the new magic word __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ to a template page to hide it from the listing. Thanks to Sophivorus and DannyS712 for these improvements. [1]
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. [2]
Translation administrators at multilingual wikis, when editing multiple translation units, can now easily mark which changes require updates to the translation. This is possible with the new dropdown menu.
Project updates
A new draft text of a policy discussing the use of Wikimedia's APIs has been published on Meta-Wiki. The draft text does not reflect a change in policy around the APIs; instead, it is an attempt to codify existing API rules. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome on the proposed update’s talk page until September 13 or until those discussions have concluded.
Learn more
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
Hi, I have noticed that this category has been deleted by the bot, but the relevant discussion's final consensus was not that if I'm not mistaken. I am going to re-create the category if you, @Marcocapelle and Smasongarrison would agree. Aintabli (talk) 22:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
The initial proposal was to delete this category as it had one isolated category in it, which has since not been the case because I populated it with more categories. Then, we went by with Marcocapelle's suggestion, which was to merge and remove the categories within this category so that the categories do not distinguish the continents. Aintabli (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Given I clearly misread the consensus in the discussion, I will remove the listing from WP:CFDW. I will then re-create the category in ~an hour (enough time to make sure the bot realizes it has been removed and therefore will not instantly re-delete the category). Apologies for the hassle, Aintabli! Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
@Marcocapelle: Of course! I have removed it from WP:CFDW, but I will wait about an hour before undeleting it because sometimes it takes the bot a minute to realize the category is no longer listed at CFDW. (Otherwise the bot will simply re-delete the page.) HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:17, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
Mind batching nomination?
Mind batching the curly nominations and adding the rest of the set? They are all created by the same editor and all curly characters so the result will be the same either way.
don't worry about denying the permission. I'll try to help on the noticeboard a little more before trying again next time. just looking for someone else to do aside from WP:NPP. NYC Guru (talk) 11:11, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
Hi Mentor, i am trying to create a page for a musician i love, but i have had a few issues, could you have a look at my page editing and let me know if i need to do anything differently? :) Appreciate your help!
@Ashwinitorvi90: Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! Trying to write an article from scratch is difficult work. It is highly recommended you try improving existing articles before you dive into creating a new article. Once you feel you are ready, you can check out Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor for information on creating inline citations and Help:Your first article for a detailed look at how to create a brand new article. Let me know if you have any further questions, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:59, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
Undiscussed and seemingly uninformed move of template:CNY
There are many of these currency templates. What made you think it was appropriate to move it without discussion? Did you seriously believe that it would be an uncontroversial move? Please revert immediately and make a proper proposal at the article talk page. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:29, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
@JMF: It is very common to move things without discussion per WP:BOLDMOVE. Generally people find more descriptive template names helpful, and this is encouraged by WP:TG: Template function should be clear from the template name, but redirects can be created to assist everyday use of very popular templates. So, yes, I seriously thought that it would be an uncontroversial improvement, especially considering CNY (in mainspace) is a redirect to Renminbi. As there was an objection, I will revert myself and open a mass RM for all of them. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:57, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello Mentor. I have been making some edits to an entry, including adding some references. When I publish I get a message regarding the citation for the journal: Cite journal and check issn value. I don't understand why that is happening. Can you help me? Thanks. --Gehailun (talk) 23:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
Dear HouseBlaster, Thanks for your help with the journal citation yesterday. I have another question.
As you may know, in Chinese names the surname is typically placed first, followed by the given name. The artist whose article I am editing would like to follow this custom. I have been able to change the order in the first paragraph of the article, but I don't seem to have the authority to change the order in the article title.
This also has an impact on wikilinks with which the page has been associated: Living people, 21st century Chinese calligraphers, 21st century Chinese painters, and Chinese artist stubs. In all, the artist is listed under "M" (the given name) rather than "W" (the surname). I would like to rectify this but don't seem to have the authority to do that either.
Thanks for your advice. --Gehailun (talk) 12:55, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
Before I can answer that question, I need to know if you are being paid to edit. Paid editing is taken very seriously on Wikipedia. HouseBlaster (he/they) 14:41, 9 September 2024 (UTC)
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. [4][5]
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. [6]
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. [7]
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). [8]
All of the "Fair use" categoories that you proposed for speedy renames (like Category:Fair use Unknown magazine covers and Category:Fair use Galaxy Science Fiction magazine covers) were moved by JJMC89 bot III hours ago to the "Non-free" new categories but the contents of the categories haven't been moved yet. So the new categories are showing up on the "Empty categories" lists when it really is just a matter of time before they are filled. But you have spent more time working at CFD than I have and I was hoping you could tell me how much of a delay typically happens with this bot. Is this something to ask the bot operator about? I don't like to bother them so I was hoping you could clue me in on whether it generally takes a few hours to get everything moved, or a day or longer. Thanks for any information you can offer. LizRead!Talk!03:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
The issue with these is they are populated by a template, so someone needs to fix the template so it populates the new category. Then the job queue takes care of the rest. (When the bot moves categories, it usually happens essentially simultaneously.) I will update the templates now. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:14, 10 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
Why are you so rude my friend? Please be calm. I don't want to advertise anything. Thank you for not helping, unfortunately I don't know why you became my coach. have a nice day Javadshirazi1002 (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
note re CfD status
thanks for all your helpful effort in closing CfD sections items recently. i have just added my consent for a proposed change, at a CfD for categories that i created. i can proceed as soon as the CfD is closed. so this seems to resolve the issues there. if you wish to see my specific comment on this, please check my own contribs history, and see my edit just now at that page. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
I try not to let people close-shop, so I will not take a look at your contributions. I will get to it when I get to it :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Join Wiki Loves Onam, a photo campaign dedicated to documenting the vibrant and colorful festival of Onam on Wikimedia Commons. The campaign runs until September 30.
The Alternative Text suggested edits feature has now been fully deployed to production on the iOS App for Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and French Wikipedias! This feature, part of WE1.2, is designed to enhance how newcomers add alt text to images, aiming to improve accessibility and engagement. For more details, visit the project page and explore the new feature in the app!
Editors and volunteer developers interested in data visualization 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 test the charts.
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.
See the new members of the U4C following the results of the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election, a new decision making group that will enforce the UCoC in specific circumstances.
Hi, hope you are well. I saw that you are a helpful and active administrator and wanted to request that you review the draft and give feedback and/or accept it. Thanks. Perast (talk) 22:14, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello Perast! I am an administrator, but administrators do many different things on Wikipedia. I am not an active in the articles for creation process, so I am not able to help with that, unfortunately. If you have specific questions about Wikipedia policy, I would be more than happy to answer them! Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
post move cleanup
Hey,
I'm happy to chase you on some of the post move cleanup (at least for those articles that I have on my watchlist where it's easy to spot) on the renames, but just wanted to check with you if you have a list of the ones you're planning to move in case there are some that I don't cleanup (mainly updating the lead, default sort and the linked templates is the important part since the bots won't fix those)? Raladic (talk) 23:42, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good, I'll just try to chase and do what I can when I spot it and we'll see where we end up at. Hopefully the rest of the editing community also helps since it looks like various editors have started independently of each other to help with it :) Raladic (talk) 23:46, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
By the way, do you have an opinion of whether we should move the various Templates that have LGBT in the template name itself (like Template:LGBT or Template:LGBT sidebar) to LGBTQ and will redirects for those still works so we don't have to update the transclusions for those in all the articles that currently transclude the then potentially outdated name? Or is there a bot that could update outdated transclusions? Raladic (talk) 23:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Template redirects definitely work. For instance, {{t}} is a redirect to {{template link}}, which I have used to write this message. I think that making template moves is a good idea, though a lower-priority item than article/category/portal moves (which are visible to readers). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:03, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
Ok good to know :)
But yes, I agree, the visible text stuff is more important, so that's why so far I've only updated the visible text in those templates I've encountered in my post move cleanup and left the template itself at the existing part. Raladic (talk) 00:06, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
Reporter
Hello I am a reporter hoping to speak with you about Wikipedia editing -- could you please contact me on my Twitter @margimurphy? Thanks! Margimurphy (talk) 02:30, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-38
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Improvements and Maintenance
Editors interested in templates can help by reading the latest Wishlist focus area, Template recall and discovery, and share your feedback on the talkpage. This input helps the Community Tech team to decide the right technical approach to build. Everyone is also encouraged to continue adding new wishes.
The new automated Special:NamespaceInfo page helps editors understand which namespaces exist on each wiki, and some details about how they are configured. Thanks to DannyS712 for these improvements. [9]
References Check is a feature that encourages editors to add a citation when they add a new paragraph to a Wikipedia article. For a short time, the corresponding tag "Edit Check (references) activated" was erroneously being applied to some edits outside of the main namespace. This has been fixed. [10]
It is now possible for a wiki community to change the order in which a page’s categories are displayed on their wiki. By default, categories are displayed in the order they appear in the wikitext. Now, wikis with a consensus to do so can request a configuration change to display them in alphabetical order. [11]
Tool authors can now access ToolsDB's public databases from both Quarry and Superset. Those databases have always been accessible to every Toolforge user, but they are now more broadly accessible, as Quarry can be accessed by anyone with a Wikimedia account. In addition, Quarry's internal database can now be queried from Quarry itself. This database contains information about all queries that are being run and starred by users in Quarry. This information was already public through the web interface, but you can now query it using SQL. You can read more about that, and 20 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Any pages or tools that still use the very old CSS classes mw-message-box need to be updated. These old classes will be removed next week or soon afterwards. Editors can use a global-search to determine what needs to be changed. It is possible to use the newer cdx-message group of classes as a replacement (see the relevant Codex documentation, and an example update), but using locally defined onwiki classes would be best. [12]
Technical project updates
Next week, all Wikimedia wikis will be read-only for a few minutes. This will start on September 25 at 15:00 UTC. This is a planned datacenter switchover for maintenance purposes. This maintenance process also targets other services. The previous switchover took 3 minutes, and the Site Reliability Engineering teams use many tools to make sure that this essential maintenance work happens as quickly as possible. [13]
Tech in depth
The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes details about: research about hook handlers to help simplify development, research about performance improvements, work to improve the REST API for end-users, and more.
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
Hackathon Showcase (45 mins) - 19 short presentations by some of the Hackathon participants, describing some of the projects they worked on, such as automated testing of maintenance scripts, a video-cutting command line tool, and interface improvements for various tools. There are more details and links available in the Phabricator task.
Co-Creating a Sustainable Future for the Toolforge Ecosystem (40 mins) - a roundtable discussion for tool-maintainers, users, and supporters of Toolforge about how to make the platform sustainable and how to evaluate the tools available there.
Hello. I saw you were assigned to me as a mentor. Quick question: How can I make a photo ID of an image work while editing so that the image actually appears on the article instead of just the ID on the article itself. --Executive20000 (talk) 01:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
I am not entirely sure what you mean, Executive20000. Definitely not your fault that you don't magically know our jargon :)
Would you be able to give me an example of a photo ID? I think that would help me understand how to help you best. Thanks, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:32, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
For example, I was trying to add a photo to an article and when I saved my changes, the entire link of the photo including “.jpg” at the end appeared instead of the photo itself. Executive20000 (talk) 01:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Ah. I think I get what you are talking about, Executive20000. To include an image, we have a tutorial. So, to include a file title "Example file 123.png", you would write [[File:Example file 123.png|thumb|alt=<A short description of what the image displays. This is used for blind people with screen readers so we can ensure Wikipedia is as accessible as possible> | <A caption which is displayed for everyone below the image>]] (replacing the bolded parts as needed). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Welcome! Creating a new article from scratch is extremely challenging, and new editors are strongly recommended to spend a few months learning how Wikipedia works, by making improvements to some of our existing seven million articles before trying it. When you do decide to have a go at a new article, you are highly encouraged to read WP:Your first article. If you haven't already also check out WP:TUTORIAL; it's a lot of fun! Happy editing! HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:03, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello, HouseBlaster. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that User:JessZoiti/sandbox, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.
If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.
Hey there. Am I allowed to withdraw and the restart a few Cfd? I'm referring to the mess that is the baseball category where I'm being accused of having an agenda and making the Cfd in bad faith and so on. The main purpose of it, in my mind, has been lost entirely and I think a fresh one will let me clarify any misunderstanding there may have been. Asking for an opinion basically. Omnis Scientia (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Hi Omnis Scientia! If nobody else has opined in favor of a nomination you made, you can use XFD closer to close the nomination as speedy keep. I am not going to advise for or against it; you might consider whether the act of making a fresh nomination is going to raise or lower the temperature. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 23:15, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
I'm not one to step out of the usual system of how things work and usually only withdraw if I realize the nomination I made was by mistake. So I'm a bit hesistant to do so. I think I will let this one go on and hope that a consensus is reached. If this closes as "no consensus" then I'll think about opening a new one. Omnis Scientia (talk) 23:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Procedural question for CfD closes where redirects are kept
Hello, I need advice and I think you're probably the best person to provide it. I want to close the two CfD discussions about LGBT categories which you posted at CR as a consensus to rename and retain redirects. If it weren't for the redirects, I would just post a request on WT:CFDW, but I'm assuming the bot will automatically delete the redirects, and I don't see a way to specify that it shouldn't. Is there? Otherwise, I'll need to manually move the categories and then, I guess, use AWB to semiautomatically change the category on all articles, which would be quite tedious. Or just recreate the redirects afterwards, which I guess would be okay, although it feels sloppy. —Compassionate727(T·C)12:52, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Hi Compassionate727! To tell the bot to automatically leave a redirect, you add (case-sensitive) REDIRECT after the * but before the old category name. I usually paste the list into your selection of word processor and find and replace *[ with * REDIRECT [. And thank you for volunteering to close the discussion! Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 14:24, 21 September 2024 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on Wednesday September 25 at 15:00 UTC. Reading the wikis will not be interrupted, but editing will be paused. These twice-yearly processes allow WMF's site reliability engineering teams to remain prepared to keep the wikis functioning even in the event of a major interruption to one of our data centers.
Updates for editors
A screenshot of the interface for the Alt Text suggested-edit feature
Editors who use the iOS Wikipedia app in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or Chinese, may see the Alt Text suggested-edit experiment after editing an article, or completing a suggested edit using "Add an image". Alt-text helps people with visual impairments to read Wikipedia articles. The team aims to learn if adding alt-text to images is a task that editors can be successful with. Please share any feedback on the discussion page.
The Codex color palette has been updated with new and revised colors for the MediaWiki user interfaces. The most noticeable changes for editors include updates for: dark mode colors for Links and for quiet Buttons (progressive and destructive), visited Link colors for both light and dark modes, and background colors for system-messages in both light and dark modes.
It is now possible to include clickable wikilinks and external links inside code blocks. This includes links that are used within <syntaxhighlight> tags and on code pages (JavaScript, CSS, Scribunto and Sanitized CSS). Uses of template syntax {{…}} are also linked to the template page. Thanks to SD0001 for these improvements. [14]
Two bugs were fixed in the GlobalVanishRequest system by improving the logging and by removing an incorrect placeholder message. [15][16]
The API now enables 5,000 on-demand API requests per month and twice-monthly HTML snapshots freely (gratis and libre). More information on the updates and also improvements to the software development kits (SDK) are explained on the project's blog post. While Wikimedia Enterprise APIs are designed for high-volume commercial reusers, this change enables many more community use-cases to be built on the service too.
The Snapshot API (html dumps) have added beta Structured Contents endpoints (blog post on that) as well as released two beta datasets (English and French Wikipedia) from that endpoint to Hugging Face for public use and feedback (blog post on that). These pre-parsed data sets enable new options for researchers, developers, and data scientists to use and study the content.
In depth
The Wikidata Query Service (WDQS) is used to get answers to questions using the Wikidata data set. As Wikidata grows, we had to make a major architectural change so that WDQS could remain performant. As part of the WDQS Graph Split project, we have new SPARQL endpoints available for serving the "scholarly" and "main" subgraphs of Wikidata. The query.wikidata.org endpoint will continue to serve the full Wikidata graph until March 2025. After this date, it will only serve the main graph. For more information, please see the announcement on Wikidata.
Thanks for moving templates to better names. I think you are doing good work. I have one minor request: After you move a template, can you please click Edit and then Publish? In case you are unfamiliar, this is called a null edit, and it helps avoid having the template and its subpages show up in various error reports, including Wikipedia:Database reports/Uncategorized templates. It's a small thing, but it will help your fellow gnomes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)
The Language and Product Localisation team is hosting two office hours to discuss this year's plans and gather feedback from event organizers. The first session is October 5 at 16:00 UTC (Europe-Africa-Americas friendly), and the second is on October 6 at 03:00 UTC (Asia-Pacific friendly).
MediaWiki Product Insights: The latest edition includes details about: research about hook handlers to help simplify development, research about performance improvements, work to improve the REST API for end-users, and more.
I'm hoping you can find a solution for a problem I encountered (or started, I'm not sure). Another admin deleted this category as a CSD C1 which was not appropriate because it was being discussed at CFD. So, I restored it but they also emptied the category so now it is an empty category. Can you take a minute and close this discussion to bring this to closure? Thanks for any assistance you can supply. LizRead!Talk!03:25, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
You definitely did not cause a problem, Liz.@JoJan:WP:C1 requires that the category be empty for seven full days as well as not currently under discussion at CFD. Any renames of categories need to go through CFD. That has been reversed by Liz, so no harm no foul – but something to keep in mind for the future :)There was not currently consensus in the discussion to merge, but if a subject-matter expert believes it should be merged I think we should defer to their judgement. Therefore, I have !voted to that affect. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
LGBT categories not redirected
Regrettably, many of the categories speedily renamed from the speedy nominations at [17] were not coded with *REDIRECT, so no redirects were left at the old names. The intersection categories by date and media are probably not worth recreating as redirects, and we don't need the template-generated ones for stubs nor the container categories e.g. "LGBT by continent", but I recommend that you do recreate the others e.g. LGBT for each country. – FayenaticLondon11:14, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
Readers of 42 more wikis can now use Dark Mode. If the option is not yet available for logged-out users of your wiki, this is likely because many templates do not yet display well in Dark Mode. Please use the night-mode-checker tool if you are interested in helping to reduce the number of issues. The recommendations page provides guidance on this. Dark Mode is enabled on additional wikis once per month.
Editors using the 2010 wikitext editor as their default can access features from the 2017 wikitext editor by adding ?veaction=editsource to the URL. If you would like to enable the 2017 wikitext editor as your default, it can be set in your preferences. [18]
For logged-out readers using the Vector 2022 skin, the "donate" link has been moved from a collapsible menu next to the content area into a more prominent top menu, next to "Create an account". This restores the link to the level of prominence it had in the Vector 2010 skin. Learn more about the changes related to donor experiences. [19]
The CampaignEvents extension provides tools for organizers to more easily manage events, communicate with participants, and promote their events on the wikis. The extension has been enabled on Arabic Wikipedia, Igbo Wikipedia, Swahili Wikipedia, and Meta-Wiki. Chinese Wikipedia has decided to enable the extension, and discussions on the extension are in progress on Spanish Wikipedia and on Wikidata. To learn how to enable the extension on your wiki, you can visit the CampaignEvents page on Meta-Wiki.
Developers with an account on Wikitech-wiki should check if any action is required for their accounts. The wiki is being changed to use the single-user-login (SUL) system, and other configuration changes. This change will help reduce the overall complexity for the weekly software updates across all our wikis.
In depth
The server switch was completed successfully last week with a read-only time of only 2 minutes 46 seconds. This periodic process makes sure that engineers can switch data centers and keep all of the wikis available for readers, even if there are major technical issues. It also gives engineers a chance to do maintenance and upgrades on systems that normally run 24 hours a day, and often helps to reveal weaknesses in the infrastructure. The process involves dozens of software services and hundreds of hardware servers, and requires multiple teams working together. Work over the past few years has reduced the time from 17 minutes down to 2–3 minutes. [20]
@Hushquid: That is a userpage, not an article. Your userpage is the place to tell other Wikipedians about yourself. If you want to get it published, you need to read the entirety of our autobiography guideline. Because it is strongly discouraged to write about yourself, I can only point you to relevant policies and guidelines – it is up to you to read them – but I can answer clarifying questions after you have read the guideline.I have a question for you: Is File:Hushquid home blackguard.jpg is selfie? Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:10, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
Following a discussion, the speedy deletion reason "File pages without a corresponding file" has been moved from criterion G8 to F2. This does not change what can be speedily deleted.
Hi HouseBlaster, back in January, you helped with some edits on the Thoma Bravo company page. I'm working on an article draft for their co-founder, Carl Thoma and would appreciate your input there, as well. If you agree that he is notable, would you mind moving the draft to main space?
Thank you, JBarTB (talk) 15:53, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
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
Communities can now request installation of Automoderator on their wiki. Automoderator is an automated anti-vandalism tool that reverts bad edits based on scores from the new "Revert Risk" machine learning model. You can read details about the necessary steps for installation and configuration. [21]
Updates for editors
Translators in wikis where the mobile experience of Content Translation is available, can now customize their articles suggestion list from 41 filtering options when using the tool. This topic-based article suggestion feature makes it easy for translators to self-discover relevant articles based on their area of interest and translate them. You can try it with your mobile device. [22]
It is now possible for <syntaxhighlight> code blocks to offer readers a "Copy" button if the copy=1 attribute is set on the tag. Thanks to SD0001 for these improvements. [23]
Customized copyright footer messages on all wikis will be updated. The new versions will use wikitext markup instead of requiring editing raw HTML. [24]
Later this month, temporary accounts will be rolled out on several pilot wikis. The final list of the wikis will be published in the second half of the month. If you maintain any tools, bots, or gadgets on these 11 wikis, and your software is using data about IP addresses or is available for logged-out users, please check if it needs to be updated to work with temporary accounts. Guidance on how to update the code is available.
Rate limiting has been enabled for the code review tools Gerrit and GitLab to address ongoing issues caused by malicious traffic and scraping. Clients that open too many concurrent connections will be restricted for a few minutes. This rate limiting is managed through nftables firewall rules. For more details, see Wikitech's pages on Firewall, GitLab limits and Gerrit operations.
The process will have a one week call for candidates phase, a one week pause to set up SecurePoll, a three-day period of public discussion, followed by 7 days of no public discussion and a private vote using SecurePoll.
The outcomes of this process are identical to making requests for adminship. There is no official difference between an administrator appointed through RFA or administrator elections.
Ask any questions about the process at the talk page. A separate user talk message will be sent to official candidates with additional information about the process.
To avoid sending too many messages, this will be the last mass message sent about administrator elections. If you are interested in the process, please make sure to watchlist the appropriate pages. A watchlist notice will be added when the discussion phase opens, and again when the voting phase opens.
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You can; I am just asking if you actually want to know the answer the to question or if you were making sure that the question feature works :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 14:56, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I am not entirely sure why. Sometimes your language is set to a different country's version of English, and that causes things to be considered errors when they are not. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 15:23, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
Hello Seabhcan! Thank you so so much for your quick response! The easiest way to do this is to simply reply here and say "I intended to release the image under the GFDL". I can take care of the wiki-code bits. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin October Issue 1
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation over the first half of October 2024. Please help Translate.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
The Structured Discussion extension (also known as Flow) is starting to be removed. This extension is unmaintained and causes issues. It will be replaced by DiscussionTools, which is used on any regular talk page. A first set of wikis are being contacted. These wikis are invited to stop using Flow, and to move all Flow boards to sub-pages, as archives. At these wikis, a script will move all Flow pages that aren't a sub-page to a sub-page automatically, starting on 22 October 2024. On 28 October 2024, all Flow boards at these wikis will be set in read-only mode. [30][31]
WMF's Search Platform team is working on making it easier for readers to perform text searches in their language. A change last week on over 30 languages makes it easier to find words with accents and other diacritics. This applies to both full-text search and to types of advanced search such as the hastemplate and incategory keywords. More technical details (including a few other minor search upgrades) are available. [32]
View all 20 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, EditCheck was installed at Russian Wikipedia, and fixes were made for some missing user interface styles.
Updates for technical contributors
Editors who use the Toolforge tool Earwig's Copyright Violation Detector will now be required to log in with their Wikimedia account before running checks using the "search engine" option. This change is needed to help prevent external bots from misusing the system. Thanks to Chlod for these improvements. [33]
Some HTML elements in the interface are now wrapped with a <bdi> element, to make our HTML output more aligned with Web standards. More changes like this will be coming in future weeks. This change might break some tools that rely on the previous HTML structure of the interface. Note that relying on the HTML structure of the interface is not recommended and might break at any time. [35]
In depth
The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available. This edition includes: updates on Wikimedia's authentication system, research to simplify feature development in the MediaWiki platform, updates on Parser Unification and MathML rollout, and more.
The latest quarterly Technical Community Newsletter is now available. This edition include: research about improving topic suggestions related to countries, improvements to PHPUnit tests, and more.
@MikutoH: Ack. The bot is moving them as I type this (and had already moved some when I started to write this message) The bot has moved the categories, and there is no way to stop the bot while it is currently processing things (besides blocking it, which is a very extreme measure). Reversing and reopening the move would be more work than simply renominating it (User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/massXFD will help with a batch nomination). Therefore, I would recommend opening a fresh move request, making it clear why this is taking place immediately after the last one and potentially pinging the participants in the previous discussion. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 01:05, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
Hello, HouseBlaster. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or draft page you started, "sandbox".
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material, the draft has been deleted. When you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
In case you should encounter a similar situation again, please note that courtesy vanishing is a courtesy, not a right. Blocked users are not eligible. "A courtesy vanishing may be implemented when a user in good standing decides not to return" (my emphasis). Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 16:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
I appreciate your thoroughness against aspersions [36], even when they consist of an unchallenged claim about the difficulty of finding more diffs that exhibit the same pattern of behaviour which I have supported with evidence. I was able to find another one, though [37], but I will look no further because it is time-consuming and also unnerving. However, I would be grateful if you could also remove Elinruby's aspersions against me. That would be fair and due. You will find an (incomplete) list in this edit
[38]. Note that in the fourth one in the list (off-Wiki campaign) Elinruby mentions evidence privately submitted to the ArbCom; however, given the private nature of the evidence and the public nature of the accusation, it is aspersions and should be removed, please. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 05:57, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Hi Gitz. Requests like this should be made to the clerk team as a whole, not just an individual. I am going to ask you to move this to either the workshop talk (or, if you wish to be discrete about it, which I would completely understand, by email to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:11, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Have we a quick way to remove these from their eponymous categories? Pretty much every single one of them is a member of their group's eponymous category and apparently shouldn't be. RachelTensions (talk) 01:59, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Hi RachelTensions! Unfortunately, I am unaware of a tool that would do something like that. Someone at WP:AWBREQ might have a better idea, but this seems difficult (mostly because you are not looking for the same character sequence in each template, if that makes sense). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Ah yes one of our AWB friends might be able to figure it out, thank you!
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
The Mobile Apps team has released an update to the iOS app's navigation, and it is now available in the latest App store version. The team added a new Profile menu that allows for easy access to editor features like Notifications and Watchlist from the Article view, and brings the "Donate" button into a more accessible place for users who are reading an article. This is the first phase of a larger planned navigation refresh to help the iOS app transition from a primarily reader-focused app, to an app that fully supports reading and editing. The Wikimedia Foundation has added more editing features and support for on-wiki communication based on volunteer requests in recent years.
iOS Wikipedia App's profile menu and contents
Updates for editors
Wikipedia readers can now download a browser extension to experiment with some early ideas on potential features that recommend articles for further reading, automatically summarize articles, and improve search functionality. For more details and to stay updated, check out the Web team's Content Discovery Experiments page and subscribe to their newsletter.
Later this month, logged-out editors of these 12 wikis will start to have temporary accounts created. The list may slightly change - some wikis may be removed but none will be added. Temporary account is a new type of user account. It enhances the logged-out editors' privacy and makes it easier for community members to communicate with them. If you maintain any tools, bots, or gadgets on these 12 wikis, and your software is using data about IP addresses or is available for logged-out users, please check if it needs to be updated to work with temporary accounts. Guidance on how to update the code is available. Read more about the deployment plan across all wikis.
It is now possible to create functions on Wikifunctions using Wikidata lexemes, through the new Wikidata lexeme type launched last week. When you go to one of these functions, the user interface provides a lexeme selector that helps you pick a lexeme from Wikidata that matches the word you type. After hitting run, your selected lexeme is retrieved from Wikidata, transformed into a Wikidata lexeme type, and passed into the selected function. Read more about this in the latest Wikifunctions newsletter.
Updates for technical contributors
Users of the Wikimedia sites can now format dates more easily in different languages with the new {{#timef:…}} parser function. For example, {{#timef:now|date|en}} will show as "31 January 2025". Previously, {{#time:…}} could be used to format dates, but this required knowledge of the order of the time and date components and their intervening punctuation. #timef (or #timefl for local time) provides access to the standard date formats that MediaWiki uses in its user interface. This may help to simplify some templates on multi-lingual wikis like Commons and Meta. [44][45]
Commons and Meta users can now efficiently retrieve the user's language using {{USERLANGUAGE}} instead of using {{int:lang}}. [46]
The Product and Tech Advisory Council (PTAC) now has its pilot members with representation across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. They will work to address the Movement Strategy's Technology Council initiative of having a co-defined and more resilient technological platform. [47]
In depth
The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: an upcoming Newcomer Homepage Community Updates module, new Community Configuration options, and details on new projects.
The Wikimedia Foundation is now an official partner of the CVE program, which is an international effort to catalog publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This partnership will allow the Security Team to instantly publish common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) records that are affecting MediaWiki core, extensions, and skins, along with any other code the Foundation is a steward of.
The Community Wishlist is now testing machine translations for Wishlist content. Volunteers can now read machine-translated versions of wishes and dive into discussions even before translators arrive to translate content.
20–22 December 2024 - Indic Wikimedia Hackathon Bhubaneswar 2024 in Odisha, India. A hackathon for community members, including developers, designers and content editors, to build technical solutions that improve contributors' experiences.
On October 25, we will start the voting phase. The candidate subpages will close again to public questions and discussion, and everyone will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for. Please note that the vote tallies cannot be made public until after voting has ended and as such, it will not be possible for you to see an individual candidate's tally during the election. The suffrage requirements are different from those at RFA.
Once voting concludes, we will begin the scrutineering phase, which will last for an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps a week or two. Once everything is certified, the results will be posted on the main election page. In order to be granted adminship, a candidate must have received at least 70.0% support, calculated as Support / (Support + Oppose). As this is a vote and not a consensus, there are no bureaucrat discussions ("crat chats").
Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.
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You are definitely getting this barnstar back at you after this thing is done, Novem Linguae. Thank you for everything you have done to get WP:EFA (which is the superior shortcut) off the ground :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
We will add a new module to the Newcomer Homepage that will allow communities to highlight specific events, projects, campaigns, and initiatives. We have released a simple version on beta wikis and we will soon start an A/B test on our pilot wikis. This module will only display on the Newcomer Homepage if communities decide to utilize it, so learn how to configure the Community Updates module, or share your thoughts on the project's talk page.
One design concept aimed to increase constructive activation
After showcasing early design ideas at Wikimania, we conducted user testing of design prototypes. We now aim to engage communities in further discussions and plan to run a targeted experiment, presenting a structured task within the reading view to logged-in new account holders with zero edits.
This Community Configuration extension was developed to help communities customize wiki features to meet their unique needs. The Growth team is now helping other Wikimedia Foundation teams make their products configurable:
The Moderation Tools team now provides Community Configuration for Automoderator. (T365046)
Certain Babel extension settings will be configurable soon. (T328171)
Future work
As part of the Growth team annual plan, we will continue to investigate ways to increase constructive activation on mobile, while also working with Data Products to move forward A/B testing functionality via the Metrics Platform.
Community events
Growth team members presented Community Configuration: Shaping On-Wiki Functionality Together at Wikimania (slides). The session recording is available to watch on YouTube. This session provided an update on the Community Configuration project and introduced details about the upcoming features that communities will soon be able to configure. Representatives from the Moderator Tools, Editing, Web, and Campaigns teams shared their plans for utilizing Community Configuration in the future. Following these presentations, the WMF Growth team's Benoît Evellin and Martin Urbanec answered audience questions.
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.
Wiki for Human Rights is organizing a call for South Asia, East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific communities to discuss the Future of WikiForHumanRights on October 24 at 10 UTC.
Campaign Events tool: a call with the Indonesian communities will be hosted on October 25.
Tech News: In issue 2024/42, read about the removal of the Structured Discussion extension (also known as Flow), work on making text searches easier, and more. In issue 2024/43, read about improvements to mobile app navigation, temporary accounts pilot details, the Content Discovery Experiments, and more updates.
MediaWiki: The latest monthly MediaWiki Product Insights newsletter is available and include updates on Wikimedia’s authentication system, research to simplify feature development in the MediaWiki platform, and more.
CampaignEvents extension: The CampaignEvents extension provides tools to create, manage, and promote collaborative activities on the wikis, such as edit-a-thons, meetups, and more. You can visit the Deployment page to learn how to get the extension on your wiki.
New Content Translation feature: Translators using Content Translation on wikis with mobile support can now customize their article suggestions with 41 filtering options. This feature helps translators find relevant articles based on their interests for translation.
Temporary Accounts: Temporary accounts will begin rolling out on October 29 to production wikis with an aim to do a complete deployment by May 2025. You can see the deployment plan and timeline on the project page. As we rollout this change, it is likely that some tools (gadgets, user scripts, templates and bots) will be impacted by it. We have a developer FAQto help developers with making necessary changes to their maintained tool(s). Please let us know on our talk page if you have any tool in mind that may need updating or if you need help with updating your maintained tools.
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
In the voting phase, the candidate subpages will close to public questions and discussion, and everyone who qualifies for a vote will have a week to use the SecurePoll software to vote, which uses a secret ballot. You can see who voted, but not who they voted for. Please note that the vote tallies cannot be made public until after voting has ended and as such, it will not be possible for you to see an individual candidate's tally during the election. The suffrage requirements are different from those at RFA.
Once voting concludes, we will begin the scrutineering phase, which will last for an indeterminate amount of time, perhaps a week or two. Once everything is certified, the results will be posted on the main election page. In order to be granted adminship, a candidate must have received at least 70.0% support, calculated as Support / (Support + Oppose). As this is a vote and not a consensus, there are no bureaucrat discussions ("crat chats").
Any questions or issues can be asked on the election talk page. Thank you for your participation. Happy electing.
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Hi HouseBlaster. Just a heads up that sanctions can be appealed anytime at AN (not just after six months). Assuming that this was a sanction under WP:CASTE, you should probably also log it there. RegentsPark (comment) 16:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Apparently it is a community sanction, rather than a purely admin-imposed sanction thus it can be placed only at WP:EDRC which was already done by HouseBlaster. Dympies (talk) 16:24, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
I will correct the record regarding appeal time – thank you! I do not think this is a WP:CASTE sanction (even though it covers the same thing). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 16:28, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Hi HB. I appreciate your diligence in making this closure, but I believe it may have been a misreading of consensus. That discussion is marked by a total absence of uninvolved input; every last !vote is from people involved in the same disputes, with positions based on whether they agree or disagree with Adamantine123. I don't think that is sufficient basis for a community sanction. I believe letting the thread die is the better course - a more structured complaint can always be brought to AE, as the dispute is within a CT. Failing that, I believe "no consensus" is the appropriate outcome, or possibly resuscitating the thread for more input. Are you open to revisiting this? For the record, I've been in several disputes with people who !voted on either side of that, but I'm not involved on the caste dispute specifically or - I believe - with respect to Adamantine123. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
[Acknowledging I have seen this; I have to go pick up a family member momentarily, and will respond in full in within ~2 hours.] HouseBlaster (he/they) 18:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
This made absolutely zero sense. There was a clear cut consensus to topic ban Adamantine123 for his misconduct and the proposal stayed there long enough for the community to judge whether the proposal is correct or wrong. Most editors who participated in the thread never interacted with Adamantine123. It is also senseless to imagine that anyone was supposed to be going to WP:ARE over Adamantine's misconduct on ANI given such reports are rejected elsewhere per forum shopping.Dympies (talk) 18:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Hi Vanamonde93. I closed the thread after a request at WP:CR (which I now see was filed by the person who opened the thread). I would be happy to re-list the discussion for further input from outside voices. (And apologies for the delay in responding.) Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:30, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, a relisting would be much appreciated. I will endeavor to provide some input - I think that would only be fair. No apologies required. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Category for Discussion :American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
Hi there,
I saw the discussion at Categories for Discussion regarding "American People Who Self-identify as being of Native American Descent" was just closed.
It looks like people were still voting at the time the discussion was closed as no consensus. I think relisting it again would likely create clearer consensus. Would you consider reopening the discussion? Whitewolfdog1 (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Hi Whitewolfdog1! I am not going to relist that discussion. It was already relisted twice, and per WP:RELISTIn general, a discussion should not be relisted more than twice. Discussions on Wikipedia usually last a week; this one was open for a month. People had enough time to weigh in. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:16, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
You didn't mention WP:NONDEF, which is relevant in this instance because most of those added to this category (and its subcategories) neither mention this in their ledes or verify that there's no evidence for their heritage. And WP: ABOUTSELF would surely justify the generic "American people of Native American heritage" instead? Because the "self-ID" categories themselves state that this is for people who can't prove they're NA (which I doubt most subjects have said about themselves).
You also ignored the stronger issues of WP:CATV and WP:POVCAT. Was there any reason you missed those arguments out?
Despite more policy-based arguments supporting deletion, your "no consensus" close serves the purpose of siding with the less policy based (and fewer) !votes to keep the category.
There's simply no way to verify the majority of subjects in the way this category demands that isn't WP:OR, because most RSes don't discuss this issue in a way that's defining, verifiable and notable for the individuals themselves. There's also a risk this becomes a stick for people to beat others with, or to push a POV about persons they dislike.
The category itself is inherently non-neutral, much like "trans-identified male" and similar terms. See WP:SCAREQUOTES and WP:QUOTEPOV, which explain that there are multiple ways to distance from a claim in a way that raises suspicion about the person making it, and that these can make those statements not neutral. For BLPs, this is particularly problematic. Lewisguile (talk) 19:27, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
The point of a close is to summarize the key points of a discussion, not every argument that was made. The BLP argument was by far the most common thing mentioned by supporters of deleting the category, so that is what I focused on in the closing statement.
As for the other PAGs you cite: The defining argument was rebutted by Yuchitown. That is evidence the intersection is defining – and that would need to be rebutted. To make a successful WP:CATV argument for deletion (and not merely purging), you need to show that it is impossible to source. No such showing was made. (And nobody made a CATV argument for purging.) If a particular article should not belong in the category, that is not a reason to delete the entire tree. Finally, WP:POVCAT: A good deal of editors think that there is nothing negative about self-ID. There wasn't really any PAGs to go off of when making the determination about which side of the neutrality question is stronger. Taken together, I closed it as no consensus.
Obviously, you disagree with that assessment. You have my blessing to take this to WP:DRV; I will not be overturning my close. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 20:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Firstly, apologies if my prior message came off blunt—it was late and on a re-read, I think it could be read as more direct than I wanted it to be.
As for WP:CATV, this was raised as an issue in the discussions. If the category were purged, it would be eligible for speedy deletion anyway; if most things in the category fail WP:CATV, then the category is dubious at best and that's another argument for just deleting it.
However, I can see we're not going to agree here so I will hop on over to the deletion review thread and add my thoughts there instead. Have a good weekend. Lewisguile (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)
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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
Later in November, the Charts extension will be deployed to the test wikis in order to help identify and fix any issue. A security review is underway to then enable deployment to pilot wikis for broader testing. You can read the October project update and see the latest documentation and examples on Beta Wikipedia.
View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, Pediapress.com, an external service that creates books from Wikipedia, can now use Wikimedia Maps to include existing pre-rendered infobox map images in their printed books on Wikipedia. [48]
Updates for technical contributors
Wikis can use the Guided Tour extension to help newcomers understand how to edit. The Guided Tours extension now works with dark mode. Guided Tour maintainers can check their tours to see that nothing looks odd. They can also set emitTransitionOnStep to true to fix an old bug. They can use the new flag allowAutomaticBack to avoid back-buttons they don't want. [49]
Administrators in the Wikimedia projects who use the Nuke Extension will notice that mass deletions done with this tool have the "Nuke" tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. [50]
Hello, HouseBlaster. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Ops, it went under spam, my bad. Bit ironic since I used to advise loads of customers to be aware of that during my time in customer service. Best. HistoryofIran (talk) 22:16, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Welcome, welcome, welcome HouseBlaster! I'm glad that you are joining the November 2024 drive! Please, have a cup of WikiTea, and go cite some articles.
Question from Kristi Rock (16:02, 2 November 2024)
Hello there! I am trying to write an article or bio about a family friend and I am a little confused. I start the page on my user page correct under write an article where the cursor blinks? It tells you to start in "the box", is this the box? Then it tells me to name in article and makes it sound as if I am suppose to change my user name? Any help is greatly appreciated. --Kristi Rock (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068
Hello, Lokpali! There is a very large backlog of pages needing to be patrolled; there is no specific order in which pages are reviewed. You can read more about the process at WP:NPP, but many articles take months to get reviewed. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:35, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
Stewards can now make global account blocks cause global autoblocks. This will assist stewards in preventing abuse from users who have been globally blocked. This includes preventing globally blocked temporary accounts from exiting their session or switching browsers to make subsequent edits for 24 hours. Previously, temporary accounts could exit their current session or switch browsers to continue editing. This is an anti-abuse tool improvement for the Temporary Accounts project. You can read more about the progress on key features for temporary accounts. [51]
Wikis that have the CampaignEvents extension enabled can now use the Collaboration List feature. This list provides a new, easy way for contributors to learn about WikiProjects on their wikis. Thanks to the Campaign team for this work that is part of the 2024/25 annual plan. If you are interested in bringing the CampaignEvents extension to your wiki, you can follow these steps or you can reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for help.
The text color for red links will be slightly changed later this week to improve their contrast in light mode. [52]
View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, on multilingual wikis, users can now hide translations from the WhatLinksHere special page.
Updates for technical contributors
XML data dumps have been temporarily paused whilst a bug is investigated. [53]
In depth
Temporary Accounts have been deployed to six wikis; thanks to the Trust and Safety Product team for this work, you can read about the deployment plans. Beginning next week, Temporary Accounts will also be enabled on seven other projects. If you are active on these wikis and need help migrating your tools, please reach out to User:Udehb-WMF for assistance.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New languages supported in translatewiki or in MediaWiki; New keyboard input methods for some languages; details about recent and upcoming meetings, and more.
Meetings and events
MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference Fall 2024 is happening in Vienna, Austria and online from 4 to 6 November 2024. The conference will feature discussions around the usage of MediaWiki software by and within companies in different industries and will inspire and onboard new users.
I was going to tag this category CSD C1 but, within seconds, you filled it with articles. How did you categorize these articles so fast? I assume you used some editing tool or was it a template you used? Always curious on how to edit more efficiently. Thanks. LizRead!Talk!02:41, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, HouseBlaster. I've looked at Cat-a-lot several times over the years I've been editing but I found it too complicated to jump into. But I assume that this is also how some CFD closures are handled that aren't handled by a bot? Maybe I'll spend the time this week trying to figure it out. I've never gotten the hang of AWB either. LizRead!Talk!03:03, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
It is how I do most CFD closes which do not need the bot (usually because you only need to merge some entries). I found it fairly easy to learn; the documentation at Commons is really helpful. It can be a little buggy at times (it was built to handle files), but it gets the job done the vast majority of the time. I am happy to help with questions if you have them :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:07, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment
I've contributed to tagging a lot of buildings into the demolition category on the understanding they were deliberately demolished. I completely disagree with the consensus that was reached at that discussion, but now it's closed, I'm one user and am unable to overturn it on my own. My suggestion would be to have a category for buildings that were demolished and another for buildings that were destroyed. I only noticed because of my watch list.
Hi SportingFlyer! The consensus in the discussion was that this tree should mirror Category:Buildings and structures by year of completion, and contain buildings destroyed by any cause whatsoever, including demolition. Your options include a fresh CFD (User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/massXFD is very helpful for mass nominations), though I would warn that the participants in the old discussion see the rescoping as a feature, not a bug. You could also create a new subcategory of the destroyed categories for intentional demolition, though I would consider self-CFDing one or two of those categories to ensure there is consensus for their existence before creating a massive tree. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 14:51, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
I did voice my displeasure on the page outside the closed discussion and someone else agreed with me. The problem is we just renamed a bunch of categories where every building would have been "demolished" but not "destroyed," so the "correct" thing to do would have been to rename the top category and then create a new set of subcats like we have for building collapses. I'm really frustrated by this sadly, though that has nothing to do with you! SportingFlyerT·C16:28, 7 November 2024 (UTC)
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation over the first half of November 2024. Please help translate.
WikiCelebrate Mārtiņš Bruņenieks
Upcoming and current events and conversations Talking: 2024 continues
Commons Community Call: The first community call with Wikimedia Commons volunteers and stakeholders to help prioritize support efforts for 2025-2026 Fiscal Year will take place on November 21. The theme of this call will be about how content should be organised on Wikimedia Commons. The call will be hosted by Chief Product and Technology Officer Selena Deckelmann.
Wikifunctions: The Abstract Wikipedia team is working toward a rewrite of our backend services in a different programming language, likely Rust. More status updates.
Temporary accounts: Logged-out editors on 12 wikis, including Norwegian, Romanian, Serbian, Danish, and Cantonese Wikipedia, receive temporary accounts now. This new account type enhances the privacy of logged-out editors and makes it easier for community members to communicate with them. Read the new Diff post to learn more about temporary accounts.
Mobile apps: The Mobile Apps team has released an update to the iOS app’s navigation, now available in the latest App store version.
Admin Retention: A survey on Wikipedia Administrator Recruitment, Retention, and Attrition is open until November 11. As part of the Foundation's 2024-2025 Annual Plan, the research team and collaborators are studying recruitment, retention, and attrition patterns among long-tenured community members in official moderation and administration roles.
Knowledge is Human: The campaign web page, which educates visitors on Wikipedia’s model and why it’s trustworthy, has earned over 140,000 clicks. The campaign has increased pageviews on WikimediaFoundation.org by more than 50%.
Annual Goals Progress on Equity See also a list of all movement events: on Meta-Wiki
WikiCelebrate: From making a minor maintenance edit in 2005 to being one of the most appreciated Wikimedians in the Central Eastern European (CEE) region: this month we celebrate Mārtiņš Bruņenieks.
Future of Language Incubation: As part of a new Future of Language Incubation initiative to support language onboarding, Wikipedia is now live for five languages: Pannonian Rusyn, Tai Nüa, Iban, Obolo, and Southern Ndebele.
Global Advocacy: Reflecting on the anniversary of the EU’s Digital Service Act (DSA), Wikimedians share successes and public policy priorities at digital rights Global Gathering event, and more global advocacy updates.
Fundraising Report: Our annual fundraising report for the 2023-2024 fiscal year is published. Last year, we had over 8 million donors giving an average donation of m:Fundraising/2023-24 Report0.58. We ran campaigns in 33 countries, 18 languages, and received donations from over 200 countries.
I know the discussion was archived at a non-consensus. I was going back through the Project page and came across it again. After re-reading the inputs from @DMacks , specifically, I took another look at the articles in question. While I agree with DMacks that it would be more akin to a separations process on re-review (compared to my original assesment), it is still not a great descriptor, as DMacks point it out as well, because its not the exact same function as a adsorpition bed.
I went out and looked elsewhere to see if I could find anything regarding the topic name, which seems to be big in academic circles regarding Carbon Capture. I landed upon this article from the Royal Chem Society, with this specific quote:
"Although the term “chemical looping” was first minted by Richter and Knoche in 1983 in the context of reducing exergy loss in fossil fuel combustion,1 the concept of chemical looping (CL), i.e. decomposition of a chemical reaction into multiple sub-reactions facilitated by solid reaction intermediates, was investigated long before that. Owing to the pressing demand for carbon emissions reduction,4,5 chemical looping combustion (CLC) has been studied extensively over the past three decades as a new technology for power generation with integrated CO2 capture,6–22 as evidenced by more than 2400 peer-reviewed publications to date (based on the chemical abstracts service)."
From this, I think Im personally going back towards Category:Chemical processes for both things, but would rather see something related to carbon capture, environmental process, etc. to better describe it. As I said before, these specific topics seem to be very geared towards carbon capture and maximizing chemical process energy so little goes to waste in terms of energy, while also being a source of carbon capture.
Hi ChemicalBear! I am going to be very honest and say that I do not understand what you are saying (almost certainly due to my complete lack of formal training in chemistry!). Would you like the CFD to be reopened? If so, I would recommend filing a new CFD instead and pinging the previous participants. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 21:32, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
Hi! I've reopened the topic in a new CFD here. I appreciate your honesty, I was just reaching out because you were last point-of-contact from that discussion! ChemicalBear (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation is conducting a survey of Wikipedians to better understand what draws administrators to contribute to Wikipedia, and what affects administrator retention. We will use this research to improve experiences for Wikipedians, and address common problems and needs. We have identified you as a good candidate for this research, and would greatly appreciate your participation in this anonymous survey.
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You know how you make a new page for a new season of a show and there’s an episode part that you edit and make the title cards so I’m wondering how do you do that Good baker (talk) 17:00, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
Are you referring to the box at the right of the article which summarizes key information? I admit I do not regularly edit TV articles, but if you want to ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television they might be better able to assist you (WikiProjects are groups of editors who work on specific groups of articles – in this case, TV). Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 17:14, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
To publish an article directly, you need to be "autoconfirmed" (which requires 4 days experience and 10 edits). You can use the article wizard to submit a draft before you are autoconfirmed. Once you have created your draft, I would be happy to give you some pointers. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:18, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
Query
Hello, HouseBlaster,
There were some speedy category renames yesterday (from U.S. Presidents categories to United States Presidents categories) and User:JJMC89 bot III should have recategorized all of the talk pages on Nov. 8th but it still hasn't and it's almost been 24 hours since the categories were moved. See Category:B-Class U.S. Presidents articles as an example.
Does it usually take this long or did something happen with the bot? Because all of the United States Presidents articles categories are empty right now. In the past, I've brought this question to the bot operator but they say that they created the bot but do not control how it is utilized with CFD requests. Just hoping you can make some magic edit to resolve this or tell me that I should give the bot more time to do its work. Thank you. LizRead!Talk!21:29, 9 November 2024 (UTC)
Do you have some magic goggles to know when it's a template responsible for filling categories? Because I see to run into this fairly regularly, categories that suddenly go empty. I have a script installed that allows you to see when someone added or removed a page from a category but when this happens, there is just no information at all. Typically, this is because someone has tinkered with a template, creating an error but it can be hard to trace back what template it was when this happens. Thanks for the information. I came to the right admin! LizRead!Talk!22:26, 10 November 2024 (UTC)
I make creative use of WP:HOTCAT to make the determination. If you go to Australia#footer, you can see "−" and "(±)" symbols next to Geographical articles missing image alternative text, which means that you can edit it with HOTCAT, and therefore is not added by a template. Coordinates on Wikidata does not have those symbols, so you cannot edit it with HOTCAT, thus it is template-generated. To determine what template is the culprit, it is generally just a bit of guess and check, while making sure your guesses smart. In this case, I (correctly) guessed that we wanted {{WikiProject United States}} would have something to do with Category:B-Class U.S. Presidents articles. HouseBlaster (he/they) 00:07, 11 November 2024 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Updates for editors
On wikis with the Translate extension enabled, users will notice that the FuzzyBot will now automatically create translated versions of categories used on translated pages. [54]
In 1.44.0-wmf-2, the logic of Wikibase function getAllStatements changed to behave like getBestStatements. Invoking the function now returns a copy of values which are immutable. [56]
Wikimedia REST API users, such as bot operators and tool maintainers, may be affected by ongoing upgrades. The API will be rerouting some page content endpoints from RESTbase to the newer MediaWiki REST API endpoints. The impacted endpoints include getting page/revision metadata and rendered HTML content. These changes will be available on testwiki later this week, with other projects to follow. This change should not affect existing functionality, but active users of the impacted endpoints should verify behavior on testwiki, and raise any concerns on the related Phabricator ticket.
In depth
Admins and users of the Wikimedia projects where Automoderator is enabled can now monitor and evaluate important metrics related to Automoderator's actions. This Superset dashboard calculates and aggregates metrics about Automoderator's behaviour on the projects in which it is deployed. Thanks to the Moderator Tools team for this Dashboard; you can visit the documentation page for more information about this work. [57]
Meetings and events
21 November 2024 (8:00 UTC & 16:00 UTC) - Community call with Wikimedia Commons volunteers and stakeholders to help prioritize support efforts for 2025-2026 Fiscal Year. The theme of this call is how content should be organised on Wikimedia Commons.
