User talk:xaosflux

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My PGP public key ID is 0x2F0E92637366A6A9, expand for key:

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You are amazing

I just looked at the history of Candidates/Guide, and it struck me just how much work you do behind the scenes to make Wikipedia happen. So, take this:

		All Around Amazing Barnstar
		For being quietly amazing. SilkTork (talk) 18:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC))

Pronunciation

Hi xaosflux - I was communicating with another editor, and your name came up in reference to something we wouldn't need to do because you'd done it. However, this was overshadowed by a far more crucial issue: that we had each been confidently sure we knew how to pronounce your name since we'd been editing Wikipedia, and our two ways were different. So, tl;dr: how do you pronounce your username? Nosebagbear (talk) 23:39, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear I think this is the right markup: /ˈzeɪ.as.flʌks/. I'm not super picky since I rarely hear it aloud! — xaosflux ^Talk 23:55, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

(c.f. testwiki:User talk:Xaosflux/phonos). — xaosflux ^Talk 23:57, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I didn't suspect three syllables. It was always just two in my head. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe think back in the day I derived it from the words "chaos" and "flux", and may have been inspired by the animated series Æon Flux. I've been called "Zous" by some. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:08, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, Joe. As a WP:Talk page stalker here, I thought it was just using the "X" for a Greek Chi and have always pronounced it as "Chaos Flux" in my head. TIL. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 01:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

(That was my method, too, @Vanisaac!) :) Nosebagbear (talk) 10:09, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Once we get the phonos extension installed, maybe we can make a new "hear my username" userbox! — xaosflux ^Talk 11:15, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

8TV (Malaysian TV network) needs to be protected from unregistered users

Hello there. I wanted to tell and concern about this. 8TV (Malaysian TV network) is suffering from vandalism and needs to be protected from the unregistered users because of the false information/gibberish into pages. There's no news about ceasing it's operation and it is proven to be false or just fake news. GlorysiaMelodyYT (talk) 10:16, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh yeah, don't forget about 8FM, it is also suffered from vandalism before I undo it. GlorysiaMelodyYT (talk) 10:19, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Third one: List of programmes broadcast by 8TV (Malaysian TV network) were also got hit, I trying to stop the vandalism but the unregistered users won't stop spreading fake news. GlorysiaMelodyYT (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

@GlorysiaMelodyYT Hello, to request a page be protected please post at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 11:14, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-50

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

Recent changes

• An A/B test has begun at 15 Wikipedias for DiscussionTools on mobile. Half of the editors on the mobile web site will have access to the Reply tool and other features. [1]
• The character = cannot be used in new usernames, to make usernames work better with templates. Existing usernames are not affected. [2]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 December. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 December. It will be on all wikis from 15 December (calendar).
• The HTML markup used by DiscussionTools to show discussion metadata below section headings will be inserted after these headings, not inside of them. This change improves the accessibility of discussion pages for screen reader software. [3]

Events

• The fourth edition of the Coolest Tool Award will happen online on Friday 16 December 2022 at 17:00 UTC! The event will be live-streamed on YouTube in the MediaWiki channel and added to Commons afterwards.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:33, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

"Admins can do CSS"

What do you mean by that? As far as I can tell only interface admins have the right to implement my request because it requires editing CSS in someone else ("User:UBX")'s userspace, which uses the editusercss right, which per Special:ListGroupRights only iadmins have. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:44, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pppery yes, the target of that probably should have been the userpage, not the template - it was showing up on the wrong report, looks like the entire thing has been speedily deleted now though so nothing to do. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:46, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Tech News: 2022-51

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

Tech News

• Because of the holidays the next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 9 January 2023.

Recent changes

• On a user's contributions page, you can filter it for edits with a tag like 'reverted'. Now, you can also filter for all edits that are not tagged like that. This was part of a Community Wishlist 2022 request. [4]
• A new function has been used for gadget developers to add content underneath the title on article pages. This is considered a stable API that should work across all skins. Documentation is available. [5]
• One of our test wikis is now being served from a new infrastructure powered by Kubernetes (read more). More Wikis will switch to this new infrastructure in early 2023. Please test and let us know of any issues. [6]

Problems

• Last week, all wikis had no edit access for 9 minutes. This was caused by a database problem. [7]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week or next week.
• The word "Reply" is very short in some languages, such as Arabic ("ردّ"). This makes the Discussion tools button on talk pages difficult to use. An arrow icon will be added to those languages. This will only be visible to editors who have the Beta Feature turned on. [8] [9]

Future changes

• Edits can be automatically "tagged" by the system software or the Edit filter configuration system. Those tags link to a help page about the tags. Soon they will also link to Recent Changes to let you see other edits tagged this way. This was a Community Wishlist 2022 request. [10]
• The Trust & Safety tools team have shared new plans for building the Private Incident Reporting System. The system will make it easier for editors to ask for help if they are harassed or abused.
• Realtime Preview for Wikitext is coming out of beta as an enabled feature for every user of the 2010 Wikitext editor in the week of January 9, 2023. It will be available to use via the toolbar in the 2010 Wikitext editor. The feature was the 4th most popular wish of the Community Wishlist Survey 2021.

Events

• You can now register for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2023, taking place on May 19–21 in Athens, Greece. You can also apply for a scholarship until January 14th.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:58, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

2FA security key

Hi - do you think this would be useful for my Google authenticator? Just in case? Don't want to loose access![11] Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I have two Yubikey 5's I use. -- Avi (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Avraham any idea what the difference is between the cheaper one that I linked and the one that you have? Thanks Doug Weller talk 16:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

See https://www.reddit.com/r/yubikey/comments/adzfqb/yubco_security_key_nfc_vs_yubikey_5_nfc/. The 5 has more methods. You could put GPG keys on it, for example. Or you could use the YubiAuth App with the key for TOTP (like Authy or Google Authenticator). -- Avi (talk) 11:38, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller I don't recommend it here. From what I see that would mean you'd convert your 2FA from TOTP to WebAuthn; WMF has even less support for WebAuthn than for it's almost non-existent TOTP support system. There is currently no self-service recovery for WebAuthn failures. I use TOTP, and set it up on 2 devices, that way if one device fails I still have it on the other. The easiest way to do this is to register them both at the same time (turn off TOTP and set it up again). Additionally, ensuring that you safely store your scratch codes for TOTP is important. If your authentication device fails it can take up to 2 scratch codes to turn off 2FA until you can re-enroll. I have used some of the hardware keys with other systems, but they are ones where I register my real-world identity to them and have various built-in recovery mechanisms. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:07, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I have two keys that I use for my FIDO2, including Wikipedia, and they work fine. But I have two in case I lose one. That's the downside of the increased security of a physical device: no virtual back door. I consider that a feature, not a bug. -- Avi (talk) 11:40, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I have my codes. It’s on my android phone so unless that dies before I replace it I can transfer it to a new phone. Doug Weller talk 17:10, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller if you have a secure computer, you could also install a software TOTP client. It won't help in the "your computer was taken over" type of attack, but still provides multifactor security from external cracking. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:13, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

good idea I can add Google Authenticatior to Chrome.. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 17:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

2FA - 2 devices, 2 different OSs

Hello, Xaosflux! I wanted to write a question here but I got a notice saying it didn't get many watchers so I thought about asking you personally given that you had answered quite some questions there. (The question above me is also about 2FA. Strange coincidence...)
I use a PC and a laptop to edit Wikipedia. The PC uses Windows and the laptop is on Linux. I want to activate the 2 factor authorization but I'm not sure as to what would be the best way to act on this case. Do I really have to get 2 different groups of scratch codes by 2 different programs? Is there "a better way"? Sorry if I'm not clear. I'm a bit confused by the whole 2FA thing. — Klein Muçi (talk) 12:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi 2FA isn't related to the devices that you use to log on. 2FA (sticking to the TOTP model here) requires an authenticator, which is software that can take an initial secret seed, the time of day, and output a short-lived code. Most people that use our TOTP use a smartphone app as their authenticator. When you activate 2FA it will give you your initial registration seed, at that point you can use that seed to register multiple authentication devices (I use a software application on a trusted computer, and a software application on a smartphone). You shouldn't store that seed as it could be used to impersonate you. During registration you will get a set of scratch codes. These are attached to your account, not to your authenticator or any computer you log on to. They should be used only in the even of a broken authenticator, and only to unenroll from 2FA until you can set it up again. Does that answer your questions? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

To be 100% clear, you can never have "2 different groups of scratch codes"; the only way to get scratch codes is to activate 2FA, and the only way to get another set is to deactivate it (invalidating the old scratch codes) and reactivate it. There is not currently support to register multiple TOTP instances with different seeds and scratches. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:10, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

During registration you will get a set of scratch codes. These are attached to your account, not to your authenticator or any computer you log on to.
Aha! Okay then. That was my dilemma. Thank you! :)) — Klein Muçi (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, whether it's Christmas or some other festival, I hope you and those close to you have a happy, restful time! Have fun, Donner60 (talk) 00:16, 23 December 2022 (UTC)}}

Donner60 (talk) 01:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

~~~ Merry Christmas! ~~~
Joyeux Noël! ~ Buon Natale! ~ Vrolijk Kerstfeest! ~ Frohe Weihnachten!
¡Feliz Navidad! ~ Feliz Natal! ~ Καλά Χριστούγεννα! ~ Hyvää Joulua!
God Jul! ~ Glædelig Jul! ~ Linksmų Kalėdų! ~ Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus!
Häid Jõule! ~ Wesołych Świąt! ~ Boldog Karácsonyt! ~ Veselé Vánoce!
Veselé Vianoce! ~ Crăciun Fericit! ~ Sretan Božić! ~ С Рождеством!
শুভ বড়দিন! ~ 圣诞节快乐！~ メリークリスマス！~ 메리 크리스마스!
สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส! ~ Selamat Hari Natal! ~ Giáng sinh an lành!
Весела Коледа!

Hello, Xaosflux! Thank you for your work to maintain and improve Wikipedia! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 19:15, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove and leave other users this message by adding {{subst:Multi-language Season's Greetings}}

Happy New Year, Xaosflux!

Happy New Year!

Xaosflux,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Abishe (talk) 21:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Abishe (talk) 21:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Xaosflux,
Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia, and a Happy New Year to you and yours! CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:14, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

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– Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year}} to user talk pages.

CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:14, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Inactivity criterion 2 desysop notifications

Hi xaosflux. It would be best to use {{inactive admin 2}} instead of {{inactive admin}}. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:13, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@JJMC89 thanks, good thing I'm doing these in batches! — xaosflux ^Talk 02:17, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	You deserve this barnstar because of your hard work at Wikipedia:Inactive administrators/2023. Great work! Sarrail (talk) 03:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

aand...

Happy New Year!

Xaosflux,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Sarrail (talk) 03:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Sarrail (talk) 03:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 January 2023

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

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

• Interview: ComplexRational's RfA debrief

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

• Essay: Mobile editing

• Arbitration report: Arbitration Committee Election 2022

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

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

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

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• CommonsComix: #4: The Course of WikiEmpire

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

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:47, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Wishing you a year filled with prosperity, happiness, and good health. Dr.Pinsky (talk) 12:23, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Xaosflux!

Happy New Year!

Xaosflux,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 17:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 17:07, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Suspension of my administrative permissions

Thank you for notifying me on my user talk page that my admin permissions have been suspended due to inactivity. Sadly, I have been too busy with other projects to do much Wikipedia editing in recent years. I still think Wikipedia is a great resource and a shining example of volunteer collaboration. Best wishes and Happy New Year.

--Sheldon Rampton Sheldon Rampton (talk) 19:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2022).

Administrator changes

• ComplexRational
• Extraordinary Writ

Stephen

• Andrew Yong
• Dbenbenn
• DESiegel
• GlassCobra
• Joe Decker
• Nancy
• Pathoschild
• StuffOfInterest
• William Pietri
• Wwwwolf
• Xdamr

Interface administrator changes

Nihiltres

CheckUser changes

Moneytrees

• Ivanvector
• SilkTork

Oversighter changes

• GeneralNotability
• Moneytrees

• Guerillero
• SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Speedy deletion criterion A5 (transwikied articles) has been repealed following an unopposed proposal.

Arbitration

• Following the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Barkeep49, CaptainEek, GeneralNotability, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees, Primefac, SilkTork.
• The 2021-22 Discretionary Sanctions Review has concluded with many changes to the discretionary sanctions procedure including a change of the name to "contentious topics". The changes are being implemented over the coming month.
• The arbitration case Stephen has been closed.

Miscellaneous

• Voting for the Sound Logo has closed and the winner is expected to be announced February to April 2023.
• Tech tip: You can view information about IP addresses in a centralised location using bullseye which won the Newcomer award in the recent Coolest Tool Awards.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Bureaucrat chat - invitation to participate

The RfA for MB has gone to a bureaucrat chat. Please join in the discussion. Primefac (talk) 15:02, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Re: License & wiki footer

Just a ping that I answered you at: https://en-wiki.kfd.me/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Text_of_the_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License&diff=1132579220&oldid=1132570362&diffmode=source although commenting on your discussion because we probably should move the discussion somewhere more centralized -so others can participate, too-, either on wiki or on Phabricator. :-) I pinged legal already and I am waiting for their advice, too on how flexible we can be. Regards, and thank you for answering! --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@JCrespo (WMF) thanks; are there other wikitext pages that are being monitored that may also need to be dealt with similarly? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:20, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Let me check the code and will get back to you. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 15:22, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as Mediawiki-content controlled pages for enwiki, I found only 2: check_legal_html!https://en-wiki.kfd.me/wiki/Main_Page and check_legal_html!https://en-wiki.kfd.me/wiki/Main_Page, and then wikibooks, aside. Only contents in MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright are checked(and the main page redirect should not be moved without also updating that code)- but after rendering into the Main page. We should wait for legal to answer first, maybe the check is not needed anymore in the current form. Or maybe we could change the alert to just check the links exist and that would give you more flexibility, rather than forcing you to notify us every time. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@JCrespo (WMF) thanks, this seems somewhat useless if MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright being the same is enough, as it links to the actual license external from that page! (Either a local copy such as we have at Wikipedia:Text of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License - and could just edit. Or completely outside of our control such as when it links to [12] and could be changed or corrupted there. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't necessarily always understand the lawyer's requests, but I am sure to follow their advice to avoid legal problems. :-) My guess is that at some point in the past, the footer disappeared due to a software bug/html rendering issue and that could have had legal consequences for us. I believe things like the license and the privacy policy are important enough to merit alerting over not having them! I don't know the details- what I know is that we (system administrators) get an alert when the footer is edited and want to make that better for us, in the most reasonable manner possible! Our lawyers understand the wiki, and they will know the best way to keep things editable while minimizing risk, I have no doubt- this is not about closing up things! --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

In any case, removing the alerts is one of the possible outcomes indeed, in which case you wouldn't be affected at all. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I gave you a personal thank you, in addition to mentioning it publicly on the ticket, for your role giving feedback on how to improve this particular legal check. Regards. --JCrespo (WMF) (talk) 17:26, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-02

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

Recent changes

• You can use tags to filter edits in the recent changes feed or on your watchlist. You can now use tags to filter out edits you don't want to see. Previously you could only use tags to focus on the edits with those tags. [13]
• Special:WhatLinksHere shows all pages that link to a specific page. There is now a prototype for how to sort those pages alphabetically. You can see the discussion in the Phabricator ticket.
• You can now use the thanks function on your watchlist and the user contribution page. [14]
• A wiki page can be moved to give it a new name. You can now get a dropdown menu with common reasons when you move a page. This is so you don't have to write the explanation every time. [15]
• Matrix is a chat tool. You can now use matrix: to create Matrix links on wiki pages. [16]
• You can filter out translations when you look at the recent changes on multilingual wikis. This didn't hide translation pages. You can now also hide subpages which are translation pages. [17]

Changes later this week

• Realtime preview for wikitext is a tool which lets editors preview the page when they edit wikitext. It will be enabled for all users of the 2010 wikitext editor. You will find it in the editor toolbar.
• Some wikis will be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. It will be performed on 10 January at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis) and on 12 January at 07:00 UTC (targeted wikis).
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 10 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 11 January. It will be on all wikis from 12 January (calendar).

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Add topic

Hi! When did you start to become an admin MintyEditor (talk) 05:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

In 2006. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:06, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Andrew Tate on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
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Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard Accidental revert

My apology for reverting your edit as it had nothing to do with your change. I was trying to select the "diff" link on a page in my watchlist and I accidentally clicked the "revert" link on your edit instead. I undid the revert as soon as I realized what I had done. RedWolf (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

No worries, accidents happen. Cheers! — xaosflux ^Talk 23:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2023

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

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

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

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

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

• In focus: Busting into Grand Central

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

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

• Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced

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

• Featured content: Flip your lid

• Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022

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

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-03

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

Problems

• The URLs in "prev" links on page history now contain diff=prev&oldid=[revision ID] in place of diff=[revision ID]&oldid=[revision ID]. This is to fix a problem with links pointing to incorrect diffs when history was filtered by a tag. Some user scripts may break as a result of this change. [18]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 17 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 18 January. It will be on all wikis from 19 January (calendar).
• Some changes to the appearance of talk pages have only been available on Talk: and User talk: namespaces. These will be extended to other talk namespaces, such as Wikipedia talk:. They will continue to be unavailable in non-talk namespaces, including Wikipedia: pages (e.g., at the Village Pump). You can change your preferences (beta feature). [19]
• On Wikisources, when an image is zoomed or panned in the Page: namespace, the same zoom and pan settings will be remembered for all Page: namespace pages that are linked to a particular Index: namespace page. [20]
• The Vector 2022 skin will become the default for the English Wikipedia desktop users. The change will take place on January 18 at 15:00 UTC. Learn more.

Future changes

• The 2023 edition of the Community Wishlist Survey, which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts next week on 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC. You can start drafting your proposals in the CWS sandbox.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The best dude 2023

I don't believe you actually processed the unblock for The best dude 2023. :) -- Yamla (talk) 16:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yamla if I didn't make the block, I wouldn't have, and I don't have high hopes but figured a little WP:ROPE will tell. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:17, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant I believe that user is still blocked. You are of course welcome to lift the block, I just think you haven't done that yet. --Yamla (talk) 16:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Yamla oooooooo, thanks for that - done. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Fingers crossed this person justifies your good faith in them. Have a great day! --Yamla (talk) 16:21, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I had meant to, but collided with my rename. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:21, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Not so weird flex

Hello, Xaosflux! I find myself in need of your technical advice. I was updating the SqWiki main page some days ago when I noticed that it doesn't render nice on mobile. Then I tried seeing what happened with EnWiki (I'm not an avid mobile wikiuser myself so I hadn't concentrated on such details before) and there I saw that the whole page layout changed, its "blocks" being rearranged in a very optimized column manner. Trying to replicate the same effect, I was searching around the source code to see what made this happen and eventually I learned about the existence of flexing in CSS. Given that I just learned about it I haven't been able to achieve much yet. Can you help me make SqWiki's main page behave in a similar manner as EnWiki's does in regard to that? - Klein Muçi (talk) 07:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi sorry, I don't have the cycles to work on that right now. You can try asking for a volunteer over at WP:VPT. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:30, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

It's okay. Apparently the problem is far more complex than just using Display:Flex as I was hoping when I wrote that. Experimented a bit around. Maybe it should wait a bit. — Klein Muçi (talk) 13:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

all images on wikipedia do not work

Hi for some all images on wikipedia do not work please help me fix it thank you The best dude 2023 (talk) 16:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@The best dude 2023 what happens if you try to load an image directly, such as by this link? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:47, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

It will not load at all... The best dude 2023 (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Not sure, sounds like a problem on your client - possibly with an extension. Try another browser. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I use safari The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@The best dude 2023 yes, try another browser, ensure it is a current release, ensure your operating system has current TLS/SSL support. Nothing else I can really do for you from here; you can try asking over at commons:Commons:Village pump/Technical. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

It loaded but it says Restricted Site The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

No idea, sounds like something on your network in your browser; if you can verify that the "restricted site" message is coming from a WMF server (not just something your browser generated) you can open a bug report here. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I do work for a organization so maybe they blocked it The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:58, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

That happens, sometimes it isn't a direct block, but an extension that is blocking it too - if you don't control your network and computer you should start by contacting your org helpdesk. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok thank you for your help The best dude 2023 (talk) 19:14, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for wasting your time. The best dude 2023 (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Account hacked

Hi I am reporting a hacked account The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Are you saying your account was hacked? Please review WP:COMPROMISED. --Yamla (talk) 15:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

No my friend got hacked The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:23, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Please provide the account name and evidence of this so we can block the compromised account. --Yamla (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

And do so at WP:ANI, not here. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:31, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry but the account name is Dummy boy 2.0

and here is evidence "Ha ha ha i hacked this account no one can stop now lol lol lol" The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@The best dude 2023 see above, post this at WP:ANI. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok i did it sorry The best dude 2023 (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

OP blocked as a vandal sock. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:28, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-04

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

Problems

• Last week, for ~15 minutes, all wikis were unreachable for logged-in users and non-cached pages. This was caused by a timing issue. [21]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 24 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 25 January. It will be on all wikis from 26 January (calendar).
• If you have the Beta Feature for DiscussionTools enabled, the appearance of talk pages will add more information about discussion activity. [22][23]
• The 2023 edition of the Community Wishlist Survey (CWS), which invites contributors to make technical proposals and vote for tools and improvements, starts on Monday 23 January 2023 at 18:00 UTC.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:44, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

OMG

You are the man. (ref this Special:Diff/1135488182) Thank you very much, for everything you do and thank you very much for the things you've helped me with. - FlightTime (open channel) 00:21, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Just saying :P - FlightTime (open channel) 00:23, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Reply as opposed to Edit

In other words, Reply works properly, but Edit is totally screwed up. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:39, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When you go to that preferences page, which skin is currently selected? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't know -- I just accepted all the defaults. I use WP just to look up information, and edit only to the extent of making small corrections to obvious spelling or grammatical problems. I've never bothered to figure out the jargon here, such as "skins". In the meantime, Edit seems to work more or less properly, except when it doesn't, jumping to top of page instead of to the correct Section.

(This is a copy/paste from our original discussion, to your talkpage. I very much appreciate your help and interest, but I'm another distressed user who wishes that far better than "good enough" had been left alone. If there were a way for users to choose the look and feel of WP as it used to be, I'd definitely be there instead.) Milkunderwood (talk) 10:04, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, and also, both times I've gone to Preferences, the Save button has been grayed out. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

The save button will always be greyed out until you make a change. I asked you to go there and look so I could try to guide you, but you never answered. If you want to reset all your options to the current default, you can go to these two pages and confirm: Special:Preferences/reset / Special:GlobalPreferences/reset. Note, there is no way to "undo" a preference reset. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

You may first want to actually check that Skin setting. It is right at the top of the page here: Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering, it says "Skin" and only one can be selected at a time. The new default is "Vector (2022)", the older default that you may want to try is "Vector legacy (2010)". — xaosflux ^Talk 11:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey, it works! Thank you! I never understood what all that gobbledygook was, other than giving me a headache. (If I didn't reply, I don't live on WP, but just visit when I need to. Most questions I might ask are never responded to.) Milkunderwood (talk) 16:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Good to hear you are fixed! — xaosflux ^Talk 20:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I am so happy now! Thank you again! Milkunderwood (talk) 00:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:CBAN

Hi, there's a community ban discussion going on at WP:AN#User:Doug Coldwell. Just before the votes, it says:

Per WP:CBAN, "discussions may be organized via a template to distinguish comments by involved and uninvolved editors". Please declare prior involvement and post in the "Involved" section only if you were previously involved.

I looked at the policy and saw no guidance on what makes an editor "involved". I was hoping you might know how this works, in practice if not policy. Also, how does an "involved" editor's vote compare to an "uninvolved" editor's vote when the discussion is closed? The whole thing seems pretty odd to me, but I don't generally vote - or even pay that much attention to - these discussions. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 creating such a section doesn't appear to be required by policy, in general declaring involvement is beneficial so this may just make it easier. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Beneficial to whom? Other editors? The closer? I still don't get it, but it's not important, thanks for your reply.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 the purpose of the CBAN is to determine if the community should ban someone - so if someone is in a personal dispute with the subject they may still have something to contribute but could be biased, and the closer could take that in to consideration. It is likely a short way to help someone just call that out instead of starting threaded comments about the other participants possible involvements. I don't think it is used often like that. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-05

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

Problems

• Last week, for ~15 minutes, some users were unable to log in or edit pages. This was caused by a problem with session storage. [24]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 31 January. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 February. It will be on all wikis from 2 February (calendar).

Future changes

• Wikis that use localized numbering schemes for references need to add new CSS. This will help to show citation numbers the same way in all reading and editing modes. If your wiki would prefer to do it yourselves, please see the details and example CSS to copy from, and also add your wiki to the list. Otherwise, the developers will directly help out starting the week of February 5.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 00:04, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Minor template space cleanup

Do you have plans for {{Uw-ublock-nonsense/doc}}? It looks like the parent template uses shared documentation. If some random editor had created it, I would TFD it, but I figure that you either have plans for it or know how to use CSD G7. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 deleted. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:55, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2023).

Administrator changes

Gimmetrow

• Bjelleklang
• Bob the Wikipedian
• Leithp
• WhisperToMe
• 100 inactive admins

CheckUser changes

• BDD
• Bradv
• Donald Albury
• Maxim
• MusikAnimal

Oversighter changes

• BDD
• Bradv
• Donald Albury
• Maxim

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, the administrator policy now requires that prior written consent be gained from the Arbitration Committee to mark a block as only appealable to the committee.
• Following a community discussion, consensus has been found to impose the extended-confirmed restriction over the topic areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kurds and Kurdistan.

Technical news

• The Vector 2022 skin has become the default for desktop users of the English Wikipedia.

Arbitration

• The arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 has been opened and the proposed decision is expected 24 February 2023.
• In December, the contentious topics procedure was adopted which replaces the former discretionary sanctions system. The contentious topics procedure is now in effect following an initial implementation period. There is a detailed summary of the changes and administrator instructions for the new procedure. The arbitration clerk team are taking suggestions, concerns, and unresolved questions about this new system at their noticeboard.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2023 Steward elections will begin on 05 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC) and end on 26 February 2023, 21:00 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• Voting in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey will begin on 10 February 2023 and end on 24 February 2023. You can submit, discuss and revise proposals until 6 February 2023.
• Tech tip: Syntax highlighting is available in both the 2011 and 2017 Wikitext editors. It can help make editing paragraphs with many references or complicated templates easier.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Verified account

@Xaosflux Hello, can you give me a verified account flag? GlazaLubvi (talk) 21:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Replied on your talk. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:32, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 February 2023

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

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

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

• Disinformation report: Wikipedia on Santos

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

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

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

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

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

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Organized Labour

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

• Featured content: 20,000 Featureds under the Sea

• Traffic report: Films, deaths and ChatGPT

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-06

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

Recent changes

• In the Vector 2022 skin, logged-out users using the full-width toggle will be able to see the setting of their choice even after refreshing pages or opening new ones. This only applies to wikis where Vector 2022 is the default. [25]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 February. It will be on all wikis from 9 February (calendar).
• Previously, we announced when some wikis would be in read-only for a few minutes because of a switch of their main database. These switches will not be announced any more, as the read-only time has become non-significant. Switches will continue to happen at 7AM UTC on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [26]
• Across all the wikis, in the Vector 2022 skin, logged-in users will see the page-related links such as "What links here" in a new side menu. It will be displayed on the other side of the screen. This change had previously been made on Czech, English, and Vietnamese Wikipedias. [27]
• Community Wishlist Survey 2023 will stop receiving new proposals on Monday, 6 February 2023, at 18:00 UTC. Proposers should complete any edits by then, to give time for translations and review. Voting will begin on Friday, 10 February.

Future changes

• Gadgets and user scripts will be changing to load on desktop and mobile sites. Previously they would only load on the desktop site. It is recommended that wiki administrators audit the gadget definitions prior to this change, and add skins=… for any gadgets which should not load on mobile. More details are available.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 10:19, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-07

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

Problems

• On wikis where patrolled edits are enabled, changes made to the mentor list by autopatrolled mentors are not correctly marked as patrolled. It will be fixed later this week. [28]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 February. It will be on all wikis from 16 February (calendar).
• The Reply tool and other parts of DiscussionTools will be deployed for all editors using the mobile site. You can read more about this decision. [29]

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [30][31][32]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:47, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scotland on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

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Surprise!!!

Hi, Xaosflux. I was somewhat surprised, to say the least, to receive a notification that The Night Watch is my new mentor, because you have removed Kaleeb18 from mentorship. 🤔 JBW (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@JBW: you must be opted-in to being a mentee - probably from one of the early experiments, @Kaleeb18: was your prior mentor who has retired from WP; I removed them as a mentor so that people sending "ask my mentor" questions wouldn't go to him anymore, when this happened all of his prior mentees were pseduorandomly assigned to new mentors. You probably don't need mentoring at this point in your wiki career :) As an admin, I think you can claim yourself as a mentee at Special:ClaimMentee if you want to stay opted-in, but avoid that sort of thing in the future, or you can always poke The Night Watch and ask for some suggestions on articles to edit ;) — xaosflux ^Talk 17:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I have no memory whatever of opting in to be a mentee, and if I did ever opt in then I certainly never followed that up and actually became a mentee. Perhaps, however, I should take it up now: there may be a benefit of advice from someone newer, with a fresh outlook, instead of the jaded and worn-out approach that I have probably fallen into. 🥱 JBW (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@JBW: there is also a chance that you got hit with phab:T301981. Some people that never opted in get a notification anyway when their mentor changes (everyone has a mentor, but for most established users they are never used for anything). I'll keep following up on that ticket to avoid noise for people that don't need it. You are welcome to use the feature if you want! — xaosflux ^Talk 20:45, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

"Everyone has a mentor"? Really? Why? JBW (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@JBW it is just the way the system got initiated, something about not having null entries in the database tables. Most existing users never got opted-in, so it doesn't do anything - except for now possibly give people annoying notifications until that gets fixed! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:07, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

For me, the notification was not at all annoying, in fact I found it more amusing than anything else. Anyway, thanks for the explanation. JBW (talk) 08:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Mentoring still exists on Wikipedia? I thought all those old processes went inactive years ago. That's nice to know. I always thought that peer mentoring was a good concept. - jc37 19:11, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jc37 the old "mentoring" process (Wikipedia:Mentorship) sort of is still around, the new process that this log event was related to is primary targeted at brand new editors and is described at Wikipedia:Growth Team features. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Interesting! Thank you for the information. Learn something new every day  : ) - jc37 03:37, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2023

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

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

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

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

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• Featured content: Eden, lost.

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Tech News: 2023-08

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

Problems

• Last week, during planned maintenance of Cloud Services, unforeseen complications forced the team to turn off all tools for 2–3 hours to prevent data corruption. Work is ongoing to prevent similar problems in the future. [33]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 February. It will be on all wikis from 23 February (calendar).
• The voting phase for the Community Wishlist Survey 2023 ends on 24 February at 18:00 UTC. The results of the survey will be announced on 28 February.

Future changes

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks. [34][35][36]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:56, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

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Please remove Wikibreak Enforcer

My username is IntegerSequences. I added the code of Wikibreak Enforcer to my common.js page but later found that it was a mistake but only me and interface admins can edit that page. Please help! 10:20, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

 Done — xaosflux ^Talk 10:33, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. IntegerSequences (talk | contribs) 12:04, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

You mistyped

Your userpage says User Boxen instead of Userboxes, it must have 1 capital and no typos, also you must join the two words UrSUS529 (talk) 17:20, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I like it how it is. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 17:28, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

UrSUS529, this is an inside joke for computer nerds from the old days of computing. The joke is that "oxen" is the plural of "ox", so "boxen" should be the plural of "box". – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:56, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Really? I always thought it was a German thing. What do oxen have to do with computers? Or is it that computers were sometimes called boxes? Still, I like Xaosflux's answer - it's so polite.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:27, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, "Unix box" or "Linux box" is jargon, where "box" means "computer" or "server". The Jargon File says that "boxen" originated as an analog of "VAXen" (multiple VAX computers), which came from "oxen". It's just a jokey mapping of a morphological pattern onto a place where it does not belong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:40, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't suppose they had cows in mind when they created the VAX acronym. My knowledge of Latin is not scholarly, but rather through my knowledge of French (vache), if I happen to think about it.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

See more language tips in this mirror of the jargon file! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:30, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Okay, that's fine UrSUS529 (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Interface message suggestion

Hi Xaosflux! When I recently tried to move Draft:Pete Sutherland to Pete Sutherland (currently a redirect to a soap opera character), it gave me the normal error, as non-admins cannot overwrite a page. I'm about to submit a request to WP:RM#TR to usurp the title, but I noticed that the interface message does not point to it, or indeed even suggest that usurping is possible; it just says The page could not be moved, for the following reason: A redirect already exists at Pete Sutherland, and it cannot be deleted automatically. Please choose another name. Telling editors unilaterally to choose another name when sometimes usurping is the right course of action is bad advice (and reinforces systemic bias to the extent it gives precedence to older articles), so I think it should be changed. I couldn't find where that message is stored, as searching doesn't turn it up and I'm not able to add uselang=qqx to the URL in the middle of submitting. You tend to be knowledgeable about this area — would you be able to help me find and modify the message? Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb The common move move fails messages should be: MediaWiki:Cannotmove as the first line, followed by a "reason" such as MediaWiki:Articleexists or MediaWiki:Redirectexists. I think you hit the last one there. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:14, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

That's it; thanks! Requested the edit there. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:51, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Open meeting for patrollers

Hello, Xaosflux and friendly talk-page stalkers.

The mw:Editing team is starting a new project, mw:Edit check. They are particularly seeking the views of RecentChanges patrollers and other reviewers. One of the open questions is: When should the visual editor encourage people to add a citation?

The meeting will be this Friday, 3 March 2023. More information is available at mw:Editing team/Community Conversations#3 March 2023. I hope that you will be able to attend, but if you aren't, please consider leaving your advice to the team on the talk page. They would particularly value hearing about the citation standards at different Wikipedias, and also what you think the biggest problem is with the first edits made by new editors. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

User:Xaosflux/Sandbox44

Hello, Xaosflux,

Your user page is showing up on the broken redirects page as a page to be deleted or fixed because, well, it is a broken redirect. But I see in the page history that it is a test edit. So, I'm unsure what to do here. We delete broken redirects or at least remove or correct them from the page they are on but we also don't generally mess around with user pages of editors who have as much experience and advanced privileges as you have. But these error pages get updated every 6 hours and until the page is either deleted or the content altered, it will keep showing up as an error that needs to be dealt with.

So, maybe you could finish up with your test or alter the content so that it links to an existing page before my mild OCD kicks in. Thank you! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:05, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

@Liz blanked it for now, was a quick test for phab:T44899 - but any that need to stay live I'll drop on testwiki. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:55, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-09

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

Problems

• Last week, in some areas of the world, there were problems with loading pages for 20 minutes and saving edits for 55 minutes. These issues were caused by a problem with our caching servers due to unforseen events during a routine maintenance task. [37][38]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 February. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 March. It will be on all wikis from 2 March (calendar).
• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 1. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [39]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:45, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2023).

Administrator changes

The Wordsmith

• Fuhghettaboutit
• Spinningspark (deceased)

CheckUser changes

Callanecc

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, F10 (useless non-media files) has been deprecated.
• Following a request for comment, the Portal CSD criteria (P1 (portal subject to CSD as an article) and P2 (underpopulated portal)) have been deprecated.
• A request for comment is open to discuss making the closing instructions for the requested moves process a guideline.

Technical news

• The results of the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey have been posted.

Arbitration

• Remedy 11 ("Request for Comment") of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case has been rescinded.
• The proposed decision for the Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case is expected 7 March 2023.
• A case related to the Holocaust in Poland is expected to be opened soon.

Miscellaneous

• The 2023 appointees for the Ombuds commission are AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, JJMC89, MdsShakil, Minorax and Renvoy as regular members and Zabe as advisory members.
• Following the 2023 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Mykola7, Superpes15, and Xaosflux.
• The Terms of Use update cycle has started, which includes a [p]roposal for better addressing undisclosed paid editing. Feedback is being accepted until 24 April 2023.

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• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:20, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

• Congratulations on your election! I hope you find the work interesting. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:33, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Liz thank you, there is a lot to it, but there is a good team! — xaosflux ^Talk 11:29, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the re-welcome :)

I was just archiving my old talk page and noticed you had welcomed me back. Thank you! —siroχo 05:42, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-10

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

Recent changes

• The Community Wishlist Survey 2023 edition has been concluded. Community Tech has published the results of the survey and will provide an update on what is next in April 2023.
• On wikis which use LanguageConverter to handle multiple writing systems, articles which used custom conversion rules in the wikitext (primarily on Chinese Wikipedia) would have these rules applied inconsistently in the table of contents, especially in the Vector 2022 skin. This has now been fixed. [40]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 March. It will be on all wikis from 9 March (calendar).
• A search system has been added to the Preferences screen. This will let you find different options more easily. Making it work on mobile devices will happen soon. [41]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:48, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 March 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-11

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

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 March. It will be on all wikis from 16 March (calendar).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Chavacano de Zamboanga Wikipedia, Min Dong Chinese Wikipedia, Chechen Wikipedia, Cebuano Wikipedia, Chamorro Wikipedia, Cherokee Wikipedia, Cheyenne Wikipedia, Central Kurdish Wikipedia, Corsican Wikipedia, Kashubian Wikipedia, Church Slavic Wikipedia, Chuvash Wikipedia, Welsh Wikipedia, Italian Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [42][43]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 23:18, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Block an account from creating accounts?

Hello, Xaosflux! Is there a way one can block an account from creating other multiple accounts? If you check w:sq:Speciale:Log/newusers and search the page for Të paret e Llapit you'll see that they have wrongly created 4 new accounts now, maybe attempting to write an article (they've also tried using their user page as an article page). Any function that can block this functionality from an account? - Klein Muçi (talk) 10:25, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi yes, see this example block (just do partial, and only select creating accounts. There are of course many many many ways around that (including just logging out). — xaosflux ^Talk 13:10, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Can you give me temporary admin access on TestWiki for 1 week so I can unblock and reblock your 2nd account and thus learn what option to use for that? We have the interface badly translated in Albanian in such a way that most options don't make any sense for us. I need to retranslate them. — Klein Muçi (talk) 13:35, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi since youre a prod sysop it can be indefinite there :D And block your own account :D — xaosflux ^Talk 13:44, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Small curiosity: I'm not familiar with the expression "prod sysop". What exactly does prod stand for? — Klein Muçi (talk) 02:44, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi sorry for the jargon, "prod" = "production". We generally will give any permeant sysop of a production public wiki admin access on testwiki to test things. — xaosflux ^Talk 09:26, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, okay. That's what I was thinking but I couldn't find the definition anywhere explained. Do these rules apply to the interface admin role as well? I was thinking that maybe testing and localizing new gadgets there before getting them to run on SqWiki would be a good thing but currently I'm not working with any gadgets. — Klein Muçi (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi basically yup, if you need it there feel free to ping me. We generally do remove it from people not actively using it after a while. The one sort of gadget test we don't normally like much of on testwiki is default gadgets, so if your gadget is for logged-out-users, you can test it QUICKLY, then turn it right off (otherwise it can interfere with lots of other people's tests). If it is a gadget for users (even if you will make it default elsewhere) - don't make it default, and just turn it on to test it (and once done, delete it). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:09, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for information! — Klein Muçi (talk) 15:18, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

LOL OMG

Thank you so much, I have no idea why I couldn't figure this out, I'm just no good on working in variables. I will use this, if you don't mind :P - FlightTime (open channel) 22:31, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Think I'm done messing around with it now, have fun! — xaosflux ^Talk 22:34, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for all you do, you're a legit project gem. Cheers, - FlightTime (open channel) 22:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Question for edit filter manager

Hi @Xaosflux

While responding to Wikipedia:Edit_filter/False_positives, I came across Abuse Filter 225 which looked like it missed something. After putting it in Regex it looked like !summary rlike ("/\* .*" + match + ".* \*/") misses something. Would !summary rlike ("\/\* .*" + match + ".* \*\/") fix it? 1AmNobody24 (talk) 09:26, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@1AmNobody24 which FP item is that regarding? (Suggest moving this to WP:EFN with exact examples). — xaosflux ^Talk 10:01, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Xaosflux I found it while I was on this, but that one was a different problem. Since it isn't really connected with a FP i wasn't sure if WP:EFN is the right place for it. 1AmNobody24 (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

EFN is fine for any filters you think have an error, especially if you have an example and a proposed fix - worse case nothing happens :) — xaosflux ^Talk 10:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Got it I'll take it there then.  Thanks for the fast replies. 1AmNobody24 (talk) 10:24, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@1AmNobody24 (also I don't want it to get lost here - I won't have time to work on that for a couple days, but someone else may!) — xaosflux ^Talk 12:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Xaosflux I got it already sorted out at WP:EFN. The / was used as text for detecting the automatic summary not as a delimiter that has to be escaped, but escaping it would still work, so it makes no difference if changed or not. 1AmNobody24 (talk) 12:44, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 March 2023

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

• Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians

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

• Featured content: Way too many featured articles

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

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

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:18, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Barning

		The Special Barnstar
		Thanks for your work in the userbox! Thinker78 (talk) 20:56, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-12

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

Problems

• Last week, some users experienced issues loading image thumbnails. This was due to incorrectly cached images. [44]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 March. It will be on all wikis from 23 March (calendar).
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will appear on Special:Contributions — some user scripts which previously added this link may cause conflicts. This feature request was voted #17 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• The Special:AbuseFilter edit window will be resizable and larger by default. This feature request was voted #80 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
• There will be a new option for Administrators when they are unblocking a user, to add the unblocked user’s user page to their watchlist. This will work both via Special:Unblock and via the API. [45]

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Wikipedia mobile apps teams. During the meeting, we will discuss the current features and future roadmap. The meeting will be on 24 March at 17:00 (UTC). See details and how to join.

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Multi-level transclusion

Hello, Xaos! Can you help me solve something in SqWiki? This is our template for creating RFAs: Link. It works fine in itself (recent example) but look what happens when you transclude it on the main page where people are expected to see RFAs: Link. The problem is with {{User|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}. I think I should be using {{safesubst}} somewhere over there to solve it but I'm not sure where exactly. - Klein Muçi (talk) 19:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi I think I understand what you want, is it this: When someone makes a new application (such as it would appear in this link) all those SUBPAGE values should be subst'd in on to the new page they are creating? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:20, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I suppose so. I was talking only about the first SUBPAGE value because that is what is bringing problems but maybe all of them should be subst'd. — Klein Muçi (talk) 20:23, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi yup, do them all. QND example link - just wrap them in something like I did here: w:sq:Përdoruesi:Xaosflux/sandbox/2, that's what we usually do. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:27, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that solved it. — Klein Muçi (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-13

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

Recent changes

• The AbuseFilter condition limit was increased from 1000 to 2000. [46]
• Some Global AbuseFilter actions will no longer apply to local projects. [47]
• Desktop users are now able to subscribe to talk pages by clicking on the Subscribe link in the Tools menu. If you subscribe to a talk page, you receive notifications when new topics are started on that talk page. This is separate from putting the page on your watchlist or subscribing to a single discussion. [48]

Changes later this week

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

Future changes

• You will be able to choose visual diffs on all history pages at the Wiktionaries and Wikipedias. [49]
• The legacy Mobile Content Service is going away in July 2023. Developers are encouraged to switch to Parsoid or another API before then to ensure service continuity. [50]

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

MediaWiki message delivery 01:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi

I guess I finally figured this out 2600:1702:1F8D:1010:681:1CFE:77F4:2250 (talk) 13:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Categories

Hello, Xaosflux!

I was wondering if you could provide some practical advice on matters related to categories. My homewiki has always been a mess in regard to categories. Now we're trying to put our attention to that area a bit. Any advice on how to start attending to the category-tree so we can provide a well-structure hierarchy? From what I've seen, we've started dealing from the branches: Users translate articles and with them, they create the missing categories (and sometimes their parent categories) they find on EnWiki on those articles. This makes maintenance/technical categories almost non-existent when compared with their content homologues.

Bonus question: Why can't we have redirects work on category pages? I was thinking of asking about such a thing in the technical wishlist but I thought that it looked as a too obvious request so I thought that maybe there must be a reason why that doesn't exist. — Klein Muçi (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi for the second part, phab:T5311 is ~20 years old, it may never happen for a pile of reasons. For the first part, there are lots of philosophies, and it depends what your community wants. Categories do not need to be a "tree" (and they seldom only are) - they are more of a "web". For example take the article, w:sq:Banka_e_Shqipërisë, it is in w:sq:Kategoria:Ekonomi - is that useful? Who is it useful to? Categories may be used in different ways by different people (editors vs readers for example). In general, I think that very large categories are not useful for readers. For example our Category:Scientists would be unwieldy if it was fully populated, but with only 54 entries w:sq:Kategoria:Shkencëtarë could still be useful for your readers. Wikipedia:Categorization contains the guidelines that we use here on enwiki. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I've read those guidelines. I just don't know how I would start applying them practically. I mean, I was searching for a way I can "supervise from the top" the web-creating process, if that makes any sense. Utilizing tools and mass-changes. Creating a standard. Because now everyone just creates the categories needed for their article and as you said everyone is using different philosophies.

That's a bit sad to read. Some main reasons why that cannot happen? — Klein Muçi (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

On the concept, a community discussion about what you want and what you don't want is where to start. Good background would be any deletion or merge discussions you may have had about categories in the page. Do you want your category pages to contain their own content as well, or not (such as an overview of the topic) - do you want them to just be for navigation, or also for content?

On the redirects, one of the primary reasons is that categories are primarily managed by wikitext on the screen, and what to do if a category is moved (and how to do it), especially during category splits or merges. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I fail to understand what you mean about redirects. :/ — Klein Muçi (talk) 16:13, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 April 2023

• From the editor: Some long-overdue retractions

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

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

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

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

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

• From the archives: April Fools' through the ages

• Disinformation report: Sus socks support suits, seems systemic

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-14

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

Recent changes

• The system for automatically creating categories for the Babel extension has had several important changes and fixes. One of them allows you to insert templates for automatic category descriptions on creation, allowing you to categorize the new categories. [51][52][53][54][55]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 April. It will be on all wikis from 6 April (calendar).
• Some older Web browsers will stop being able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis from this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. If you have an old web browser on your computer you can try to upgrade to a newer version. [56]
• The deprecated jquery.hoverIntent module has been removed. This module could be used by gadgets and user scripts, to create an artificial delay in how JavaScript responds to a hover event. Gadgets and user scripts should now use jQuery hover() or on() instead. Examples can be found in the migration guide. [57]
• Some of the links in Special:SpecialPages will be re-arranged. There will be a clearer separation between links that relate to all users, and links related to your own user account. [58]
• You will be able to hide the Reply button in archived discussion pages with a new __ARCHIVEDTALK__ magic word. There will also be a new .mw-archivedtalk CSS class for hiding the Reply button in individual sections on a page. [59][60][61]

Future changes

• The Vega software that creates data visualizations in pages, such as graphs, will be upgraded to the newest version in the future. Graphs that still use the very old version 1.5 syntax may stop working properly. Most existing uses have been found and updated, but you can help to check, and to update any local documentation. Examples of how to find and fix these graphs are available.

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MediaWiki message delivery 23:38, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2023).

Administrator changes

Aoidh

KillerChihuahua

CheckUser changes

Ferret

Guideline and policy news

• A community RfC is open to discuss whether reports primarily involving gender-related disputes or controversies should be referred to the Arbitration enforcement noticeboard.

Technical news

• Some older web browsers will not be able to use JavaScript on Wikimedia wikis starting this week. This mainly affects users of Internet Explorer 11. (T178356)
• The rollback of Vector 2022 RfC has found no consensus to rollback to Vector legacy, but has found rough consensus to disable "limited width" mode by default.
• A link to the user's Special:CentralAuth page will now appear in the subtitle links shown on Special:Contributions. This was voted #17 in the Community Wishlist Survey 2023.

Arbitration

• The Armenia-Azerbaijan 3 case has been closed.
• A case about World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been opened, with the first evidence phase closing 6 April 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-15

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

Recent changes

• In the visual editor, it is now possible to edit captions of images in galleries without opening the gallery dialog. This feature request was voted #61 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [62]
• You can now receive notifications when another user edits your user page. See the "Edits to my user page" option in your Preferences. This feature request was voted #3 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [63]

Problems

• There was a problem with all types of CentralNotice banners still being shown to logged-in users even if they had turned off specific banner types. This has now been fixed. [64]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 April. It will be on all wikis from 13 April (calendar).
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get "Add a link" (Moroccan Arabic Wikipedia, Danish Wikipedia, Dinka Wikipedia, Lower Sorbian Wikipedia, Ewe Wikipedia, Greek Wikipedia, Emiliano-Romagnolo Wikipedia, Esperanto Wikipedia, Estonian Wikipedia, Basque Wikipedia, Extremaduran Wikipedia, Tumbuka Wikipedia, Fulah Wikipedia, Finnish Wikipedia, Võro Wikipedia, Fijian Wikipedia, Faroese Wikipedia, Arpitan Wikipedia, Northern Frisian Wikipedia, Friulian Wikipedia, Irish Wikipedia, Guianan Creole Wikipedia, Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia, Galician Wikipedia, Gilaki Wikipedia, Guarani Wikipedia, Goan Konkani Wikipedia, Gothic Wikipedia, Gujarati Wikipedia, Manx Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [65][66]

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MediaWiki message delivery 20:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Not sure if

Not sure if anyone saw this edit, but the bot still has the flag, so I'd guess not. Could you action? Izno (talk) 16:44, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

@Izno  Done, thanks for the note. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:10, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

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Help about a template problem

Hello, Xaosflux! I find myself a bit confused as how to handle a certain situation.

If you look at sq:Marrëdhëniet e jashtme të Maqedonisë së Veriut, you'll see that there are some empty sections and some other strange behaviors in it. After a bit of investigation I found out that this was coming from {{Pb}}. In EnWiki PB=Paragraph break but in SqWiki PB=Përdorues i bllokuar (Blocked user).

If you search for Template:Pb in SqWiki you'll see that apparently that is a really old template we would use to notify users about their blocks. If you check its transclusions you'll see that it has been used less than 50 times in all these years. Now normally I want our Pb template to serve the same purpose as the one here. Most of our new articles are CX translations and for CX to work correctly it needs to have the same technical infrastructure in templates. The problem is that I don't know how to handle those ~40 old transclusions. I can use AWB for massediting but what change would I need to do exactly? - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:56, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi have you fixed one "manually" (diff?) If so I might be able to tell you what to put in AWB. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:55, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

No, that's the problem: I don't know how to handle the situation. Should I just remove all those ~40 cases? Should I create another template and use that in those? Maybe I should just substitute the code there in those cases? A completely different solution? I don't know what would be the best choice in such situations dealing with these kinds of conflicts. — Klein Muçi (talk) 18:19, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi ah ok, so there are a few options. Yes you should remove those from those pages, as they certainly don't belong there. As far as exactly what to do, this will depend a bit on how your project standardizes style (or doesn't). It looks like you have w:sq:Stampa:Quote that you may convert things to, or you can just use plain wiki text, something like this. It really comes down to how much and what type of templates/wikitext/etc you want to be on your page sources. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:03, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Xaosflux! Sorry it took me so long to get back to this but I took a wiki-break and now I'm just starting to slowly ease myself in into work again. I tried converting them to quotes but the whole thing is a mess. Check the last post in here: w:sq:Përdoruesja diskutim:Rrjedha
Hitting Edit on it sends you to edit the template itself. I've come to the conclusion that I should remove them completely from the talk pages. Any idea how to quickly remove such sections with AWB? — Klein Muçi (talk) 09:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi maybe, send me a link of a diff of an edit that makes the change from broken to "fixed" made manually. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:17, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Përdoruesja diskutim:Rrjedha (Diff ~2550895) — Klein Muçi (talk) 10:22, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi OK so you want to:

• Find everything in a {{Pb|...}}, plus any line breaks before it, plus any line breaks after it, plus any unordered list content following any of that
  • Delete all that

That seems overly complicated, are you sure? — xaosflux ^Talk 10:40, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Well, yes. I can always remove them manually if it seems too much for regex. We're talking about only 40 cases in total. I was expecting for something greedy like .* if you understand what I mean. Basically if that template is in a section all that section must go. — Klein Muçi (talk) 10:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi why are you trying to match unordered lists that happen to be following that template? Just matching the PB template and their content is one thing, but the second part gets complicated - how many levels of unordered lists are you also trying to capture? (What is the identifier to know when to stop including text?) To be clear, I'm asking about how you are also removing the text in that diff that starts with this: :Gjithashtu të hoqa edhe nga grupi i përd. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:01, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Note: even only the PB's would need to be manually reviewed, as the ending delimiter would be the }}, but you have to watch for cases where another template is inside of that template. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:02, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that.
I'm matching the whole discussion. The template notifies one that they are blocked. Sometimes a discussion issues after that "Why was I blocked? Because you did this. No, I did not!" The whole section must be removed so maybe the delimiter would be ==, the starting point for the next section? — Klein Muçi (talk) 11:16, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Klein Muçi that's beyond what I normally do in AWB, you can ask over at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. For what it's worth this would likely be completely disapproved here: removing/replacing a broken template would always be fine - but just deleting user discussions as a side affect of a "template cleanup" would not be. Of course, how your project operates is up to your community, but I suggest you use a good edit summary so it doesn't appear you are trying bury discussion removals under the guise of template repair. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:10, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that. That's why I tried finding a workaround but I was literally unable to find a solution for quite some days now so I'm going for the "good edit summary" way. :/ And no problem about AWB. I only said that after your initial suggestion. I can remove them manually if that is the only solution. - Klein Muçi (talk) 13:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-16

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

Recent changes

• You can now see nearby articles on a Kartographer map with the button for the new feature "Show nearby articles". Six wikis have been testing this feature since October. [67][68]
• The Special:GlobalWatchlist page now has links for "mark page as read" for each entry. This feature request was voted #161 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [69]

Problems

• At Wikimedia Commons, some thumbnails have not been getting replaced correctly after a new version of the image is uploaded. This should be fixed later this week. [70][71]
• For the last few weeks, some external tools had inconsistent problems with logging-in with OAuth. This has now been fixed. [72]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 April. It will be on all wikis from 20 April (calendar).

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:53, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-17

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

Recent changes

• The date-selection menu on pages such as Special:Contributions will now show year-ranges that are in the current and past decade, instead of the current and future decade. This feature request was voted #145 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [73]

Problems

• Due to security issues with the Graph extension, graphs have been disabled in all Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Foundation teams are working to respond to these vulnerabilities. [74]
• For a few days, it was not possible to save some kinds of edits on the mobile version of a wiki. This has been fixed. [75][76][77]

Changes later this week

• All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on April 26. This is planned for 14:00 UTC. [78]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 April. It will be on all wikis from 27 April (calendar).

Future changes

• The Editing team plans an A/B test for a usability analysis of the Talk page project. The planned measurements are available. Your wiki may be invited to participate. Please suggest improvements to the measurement plan at the discussion page.
• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input until May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023 on Meta-wiki.

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MediaWiki message delivery 22:02, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

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The Signpost: 26 April 2023

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

• In the media: Contested truth claims in Wikipedia

• Obituary: Remembering David "DGG" Goodman

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

• Opinion: What Jimbo's question revealed about scamming

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Tech News: 2023-18

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

Recent changes

• The content attribution tools Who Wrote That?, XTools Authorship, and XTools Blame now support the French and Italian Wikipedias. More languages will be added in the near future. This is part of the #7 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [79][80][81]
• The Video2commons tool has been updated. This fixed several bugs related to YouTube uploads. [82]
• The Special:Preferences page has been redesigned on mobile web. The new design makes it easier to browse the different categories and settings at low screen widths. You can also now access the page via a link in the Settings menu in the mobile web sidebar. [83]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 May. It will be on all wikis from 4 May (calendar).

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MediaWiki message delivery 01:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2023

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2023).

Administrator changes

Spicy

• Ale jrb
• Dbachmann
• DGG (deceased)
• Jimbo Wales

CheckUser changes

Jimbo Wales

Oversighter changes

Jimbo Wales

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.

Technical news

• Progress has started on the Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their 2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.

Arbitration

• The proposed decision in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case is expected 11 May 2023.

Miscellaneous

• The Wikimedia Foundation annual plan 2023-2024 draft is open for comment and input through May 19. The final plan will be published in July 2023.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Blocked user restriction

According to policy, when a user is blocked, the only page they can edit is their Talk page, but something came up on a blocked user's Talk page that I've never seen before, and I wanted to confirm the language in WP:OPTIONS: "Sitewide block will prevent the user from editing any page on Wikipedia with the exception of their own user talk page." (emphases in original). Can a blocked user change their Preferences? Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 11:28, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 yes, sitewide blocked users can do things like change their own preferences and update their watchlist, however your quote above isn't wrong "... the user from editing any page..." - those type of actions are not considered "edits" and the targets of those actions are not "pages". Such a block would prevent pseudo prefernces such as a Special:MyPage/twinkleoptions.js from being updated. Does something else seem amiss? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:58, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

There are two ways I know of to change your watchlist. One is to "view and edit" it and the other "edit raw watchlist". Although both use the word "edit", it seems like the latter is more like editing a "page". Assuming a block user can do either, what is the point of all this? Why should they be permitted to do it? And although it may seem obvious to a technical user like you, I would favor clarifying the policy section, although I'm not sure how it should be worded.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 I suppose the key part there is that neither of those are "pages". They are made up of system messages (which are on pages, that they can't edit) - and private data.

Blocking is a control that we use to stop disruption, preferences and watch lists can be used for adjusting ones "reading" experience, thus they are not prevented from being maintained during a block (There isn't an option to turn that on either in the current software).

We don't have a specific local "policy" about this, I think that section of the policy page is just meant to be informational, perhaps you could clarity what "edit"s are there by linking to Help:Editing.

You could also add a statement that clarifies that blocked users may still manage their user settings. There are lots of reasons that should still be allowed - for one blocks are not necessarily indefinite, and being able to do things like: change your notifications, mute abusive users, fix things like a bad signature that got you blocked in the first place, etc - should certainly be allowed.

If a user does manage to create special disruption via their private preferences (which the local admins wouldn't be able to detect and would generally have a sysadmin and a security task involved), their account can be locked to prevent them from logging in at all. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:37, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

What you're saying with respect to the why makes a lot of sense to me, thanks. As for clarifying the policy, I don't see where Help:Editing says anything that elaborates on what is a "page" and what is not (I skimmed it - it's awfully long). Would a steward lock a user just because of the private preference subterfuge? I always thought locks were generally available only for cross-wiki abuse. As an aside, I'm not sure what kind of private preference you're referring to.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 such a lock would likely come from WMF T&S or a sysadmin, hypothetical example - a vulnerability exists that if someone loaded some exact combination of things in to their watchlist it caused system disruption, they may be locked for TOS violation (and people would be scrambling to patch the vulnerability), other times locks have been temporarily used were when someone was causing disruption by abusing the read API (things that are transparent to project admins).

mw:Help:Page is a redlink, the technical aspects of "what is a page" are here: mw:Manual:page table. In high-level "edit" is an action that create a revision to a "page". Things like: what your signature is, the contents of your watchlist, what your password is, etc - are certainly not 'pages' and don't have revision entries. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd only add mw:Manual:page table to the blocking policy if I was really pissed and wanted to torture anyone who read it. :p --Bbb23 (talk) 15:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 wrapping back to the start - I'm assuming there is some confusion of "why can a blocked account edit their preferences", it's just because they can. Perhaps adding "Blocked users are not prevented from managing their preferences." to the end of that information line would be your fix? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

That would certainly be the simplest and smallest change. I don't like making any significant changes to policies without first obtaining a consensus. I'll think about it. Given this issue has never come up until now after all these years of blocking editors, maybe it's unnecessary to do anything. FYI, the issue came up because of one of your examples above (changing one's signature). In closing, I just wanted to say that I always learn a lot when having these kinds of discussions with you, and I appreciate it.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:24, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

@Bbb23 you are welcome, hope I helped without getting too technical; for the specific situation, think I've dealt with such a user once or twice. They had a non-compliant signature (something with templates or images I think), asked them to change it, they wouldn't, blocked them until they said they changed it, unblocked. FYI: phab:T306574 is a feature request that would allow admins to forcibly reset someone's signature. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:34, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

You helped and got very technical (smiling), but if the answer is technical, what can you do? Besides, you do a good job of teaching. This user wasn't blocked for their signature, although editors complained about it. In case you're interested, see the block of ChiserYT and the post-block discussion about their sig.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• A bit off-topic. You changed the blocking policy on partial blocks to include a third option: "or from performing a specific set of actions". I looked at the block form, and I don't see any way to do that or even what you mean. Could you clarify?--Bbb23 (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Bbb23 just reverted myself there, thought that feature was here, but isn't quite live yet. PBlocks will be able to be used against only specific types of actions soon (see example block here: testwiki:Special:Redirect/logid/360996). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  Although I'm not a fan of partial blocks generally, that feature looks kinda cool.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:11, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Bbb23 goal of that is just to give admins choices, I agree that often a pblock isn't very effective against a user that wants to be disruptive. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 May 2023

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

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

• Recent research: Gender, race and notability in deletion discussions

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

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

• News from the WMF: Planning together with the Wikimedia Foundation

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

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Tech News: 2023-19

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

Recent changes

• Last week, Community Tech released the first update for providing better diffs, the #1 request in the 2022 Community Wishlist Survey. This update adds legends and tooltips to inline diffs so that users unfamiliar with the blue and yellow highlights can better understand the type of edits made.
• When you close an image that is displayed via MediaViewer, it will now return to the wiki page instead of going back in your browser history. This feature request was voted #65 in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey. [84]
• The SyntaxHighlight extension now supports wikitext as a selected language. Old alternatives that were used to highlight wikitext, such as html5, moin, and html+handlebars, can now be replaced. [85]
• Preloading text to new pages/sections now supports preloading from localized MediaWiki interface messages. Here is an example at the Czech Wikipedia that uses preload=MediaWiki:July. [86]

Problems

• Graph Extension update: Foundation developers have completed upgrading the visualization software to Vega5. Existing community graphs based on Vega2 are no longer compatible. Communities need to update local graphs and templates, and shared lua modules like de:Modul:Graph. The Vega Porting guide provides the most comprehensive detail on migration from Vega2 and here is an example migration. Vega5 has currently just been enabled on mediawiki.org to provide a test environment for communities. [87]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 May. It will be on all wikis from 11 May (calendar).
• Until now, all new OAuth apps went through manual review. Starting this week, apps using identification-only or basic authorizations will not require review. [88]

Future changes

• During the next year, MediaWiki will stop using IP addresses to identify logged-out users, and will start automatically assigning unique temporary usernames. Read more at IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Updates. You can join the discussion about the format of the temporary usernames. [89]
• There will be an A/B test on 10 Wikipedias where the Vector 2022 skin is the default skin. Half of logged-in desktop users will see an interface where the different parts of the page are more clearly separated. You can read more. [90][91]
• jquery.tipsy will be removed from the MediaWiki core. This will affect some user scripts. Many lines with .tipsy( can be commented out. OO.ui.PopupWidget can be used to keep things working like they are now. You can read more and read about how to find broken scripts. [92]

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MediaWiki message delivery 00:34, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Tech News: 2023-20

Latest tech news from the Wikimedi