Wikipedia:Simple talk/Archive 132

Tech News: 2020-37

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

Changes later this week

• Normally pages can be moved to a title that has no existing page yet or to a page that has only one revision, which is a redirect to the page to be moved. A new user right allows editors to move pages over one-revision pages that redirect to anywhere. [1]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 September. It will be on all wikis from 10 September (calendar).
• All MediaWiki API modules will now use watchlist instead of watch. This was inconsistent before. [2]

Future changes

• The Wikipedia Android app team might work on patrolling tools in the future. You can let them know what tools would be useful for you or for less experienced patrollers. See the page on mediawiki.org.
• OTRS will be updated to a new version. This will probably take around two days. OTRS agents will not have access to the system during these days. Emails that come in during the update will be delivered when the update is done. The plan is to start around 08:00 UTC on 14 September. This could change. [3]
• The Wikipedia Android app will send push notifications if users want them. This could help you see for example when someone wrote on your talk page or your edit was reverted. This will need Google Play Services to work. It will also be possible to get the app without Google Play Services but push notifications will not work. Google Play Services is also used to make the app work for Android 4.4 users. [4][5]
• Wikimedia code review could move to GitLab. It would be hosted on Wikimedia servers. You can take part in the consultation.
• Dropdown menus in the Vector skin use a .menu class. This will not work in the future. Scripts can use nav ul instead. .vectorTabs and .vectorMenu will also not work. Some scripts need to be updated. You can read more in Phabricator.

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

15:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Shibboleth

This new page on our wiki is apparently already linked to En wiki, but the link is not showing on our pages (or theirs). Needs someone to see what's going on. Thanks, Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:14, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Probably just needed to purge the pages cache, its linking and showing up for me. -Djsasso (talk) 18:09, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a little weird when it doesn't show up right away, but it just takes time. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:06, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to participate in the conversation

Hello. Apologies for cross-posting, and that you may not be reading this message in your native language: translations of the following announcement may be available on Meta. Please help translate to your language. Thank you!

We are excited to share a draft of the Universal Code of Conduct, which the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called for earlier this year, for your review and feedback. The discussion will be open until October 6, 2020.

The UCoC Drafting Committee wants to learn which parts of the draft would present challenges for you or your work. What is missing from this draft? What do you like, and what could be improved?

Please join the conversation and share this invitation with others who may be interested to join, too.

To reduce language barriers during the process, you are welcomed to translate this message and the Universal Code of Conduct/Draft review. You and your community may choose to provide your opinions/feedback using your local languages.

To learn more about the UCoC project, see the Universal Code of Conduct page, and the FAQ, on Meta.

Thanks in advance for your attention and contributions, The Trust and Safety team at Wikimedia Foundation, 17:55, 10 September 2020 (UTC) 

Template:Infobox person/Wikidata

I've noticed that this template is on several hundred articles. It appears to be intended to retrieve information from Wikidata so that information doesn't have to be hardcoded in each article. However, in at least some cases, the results on the page have little or no information in the infobox. I think retrieving from Wikidata is a good idea, but this template doesn't seem to be doing the job very well right now. Is this something we can fix, or should we back off of this template until we can get it to work properly?

Pinging Slowking4 because they seem to have placed the template in some cases. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:48, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

change the infobox person/wikidata to include all values, not just referenced ones. or when references get added to wikidata then the box will be filled. removing boxes rather than editing wikidata is problematic: it removes interproject links without solving the information quality problem. i see there is a move to delete bio items at wikidata without references which will complete the deletion of the sum of all knowledge, [6] - Slowking4 (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The interproject links aren't tied to the infoboxes. I know this because we have many articles that have no infobox but which do have the interwiki links. I asked about this because leaving the empty infoboxes on the page looks bad. If we are going to use this, then maybe anyone adding it to a page should also make sure that Wikidata has all the relevant information so that the infobox actually contains information. Let me say again that I would love to see this working so that we don't have to hardcode information. --Auntof6 (talk) 11:04, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I switch them to en.wiki based infoboxes when I see them and they are mostly empty when there is a more full en.wiki version. I remove them when they are empty. Slowking has been warned before that they should not be added when they are empty. As long as they have some information in them they are not horrible and I just leave them. But in general Infobox person/Wikidata boxes are much much worse than using the typical ones we pull from en.wiki because the Wikidata ones pretty much never have the equivalent information and very often have incorrect information compared to getting them from en.wiki and will likely never be as good as the en.wiki ones unless en.wiki decides to go with wikidata which they most likely won't anytime soon since wikidata is plagued by bad information and a lack of visibility when people vandalize it versus vandalizing directly on wiki. In general we need to remember articles don't need to have infoboxes. If there is almost no information in the infobox it might be better in that case not to have one until there is. -Djsasso (talk) 12:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

i was going to circle back and add references to wikidata, but i guess not fast enough for you. smdh. Slowking4 (talk) 21:30, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Slowking4: You are indefinitely blocked on Wikidata, so that would not be allowed. Using another account or otherwise logging out would be block evasion. --IWI (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

thanks for the reminder, maybe you would care to edit wikidata? smh. Slowking4 (talk) 22:50, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I have connected most of your articles to Wikidata and will continue to do so. If you want to edit Wikidata, you must request unblock. --IWI (talk) 22:55, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Necessary and sufficient...

Hello all, I created the article Necessary and sufficient conditions tooday. it illustrates concepts which are probably common in most sciewnce topics. I only wrote a stub, to be extended. Please take a look.--Eptalon (talk) 15:55, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Savièse

I did a cleanup here, but how do I move "other websites" section back up? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:15, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: there was a {{clear}} template that moved the section to below the infobox. I have fixed it :) --IWI (talk) 00:40, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:46, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Most viewed articles

Can I find a list of the most viewed articles here, so I can improve them? Naddruf (talk) 16:09, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I think not. The data is collected, and used to be displayed to us. For some reason the data is no longer displayed. I think it was valuable for just the reason you suggest. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:45, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if there is some way that this could be done. On en there is this weekly ranking: [7]. Naddruf (talk) 01:51, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The data is available on the Wikimedia Statistics site: [8] Chenzw  Talk  02:06, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. These popular articles are very strange in my opinion. Maybe these are being linked by other popular websites. Naddruf (talk) 04:59, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Well the simplewiki page List of U.S. states is the third result on google here. Might have something to do with why some of these are high. --IWI (talk) 14:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-38

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

Problems

• The Wikipedia apps briefly showed pages without CSS last week. This meant they looked wrong. It was quickly fixed but cached pages without CSS were shown for a few hours. [9][10]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 September. It will be on all wikis from 17 September (calendar).

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

16:19, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Smile, you're famous!

Say hello to Reddit readers: https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/iut7y5/lpt_replace_the_en_on_wikipedia_with_simple_to (this is just a random find of mine). --Elitre (talk) 10:31, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. I think this discussion further proves that more integration with enwiki will be needed if we want more readers (and thus eventually editors). Most are not aware of our existence, but agree that this Wikipedia is useful. On the flip-side, could we handle the vandalism that would come with a drastic viewership increase? --IWI (talk) 02:42, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

You have a point, except that increased vandalism comes with increased editing, not increased viewing. But I also wonder if we can handle the increased number of people we'd have to shepherd through learning curves as they learn how things work here. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:26, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

True, but I think as we get more viewers, some of them will also edit/vandalise. --IWI (talk) 14:00, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the OP of that reddit post! I was summoned over by IWI and Vernon but since I've never written a thing on Wikipedia, I'm sure that this very post is a disaster on it's own. Thanks for all of what you guys do! You are awesome! X30phil1x (talk) 20:52, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

@X30phil1x: Yes thanks for making this post. Our overall viewership shot up drastically after you posted it. And no, your message is not a disaster :) --IWI (talk) 11:25, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Ayu Marcellia Br Sitorus

Please delete this page. User who created this article is a crosswiki vandal and needs a global block. Jeromi Mikhael (talk) 04:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Related accounts blocked, the IP range which edited there disruptively also blocked. Unfortunately I'm on my phone and not easily able to handle speedy deletion and closure of the RfD, hopefully another admin can do so soon. Best, Vermont (talk) 05:08, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Can we make articles?

My question is: Can we make articles on people who had already Google knowledge graph.

A knolwedge graph is some technical tool to measure how important a piece of knowledge is. We don't use knowledge graphs; our concept is called notability: Subjects that are reported in independent media are probably notable. Note also: if there is at least a hint the subject could be notable, the article will not be quickly deleted, but the community will discuss for a week. Contrary to other Wikipedias, we judge the arrticle, and the article's subject. We don't judge the editzors who created or contributed to it. In short: try and see for yourself. --Eptalon (talk) 10:12, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

If they are notable, per GNG / BIO, why not? In addition, we could possibly pass a subject notablity guideline if we want to say people who have knowledge graph can be included. If I am not wrong, they are based on wikipedia info at times, people can claim them (i.e. use blue tick instangram / facebook accounts to verify). I am not sure what is google criteria to include these, so might be paid / fishy at times but mostly people / things / organizations / shops etc nonsense that have these knowledge graph typically have wikipedia pages, and those who don't can justify one page. I am just worried about the inclusion may be a little lenient for some and paid concerns. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't support such a guideline, personally. --IWI (talk) 12:10, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we can wait and see. En wiki, with its huge number of editors, will either use it or not, and we can follow. I think we're right to anticipate intrusion by paid PR agents into any kind of entry path to Wikipedias. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-39

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

• There is a new tag for reverted edits. For example you can see it in the recent changes feed or in the article history. It is added to edits when they have been undone, rollbacked or manually reverted to an older version of the page. [11][12]

Changes later this week

• The number of times you can do something in a period of time on wiki is limited. This could be the number of edits per minute or the number of users you email in a day. Some users are not affected by all limits because of their user rights. They could soon see the limit even if it does not affect them. [13]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 September. It will be on all wikis from 24 September (calendar).

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

21:27, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Puzzle

"Munawar khan of katlang": I don't even know what country this refers to! Any suggestions? Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@Macdonald-ross: this probably. A province of Pakistan. The page is unsourced, BLP concerns. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:31, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The person might be suitable for an article, but in this state Munawar khan of katlang it's better for a delete and start over, and I can't find sources of his death and quotes. Seem some content are fake? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

British Foreign Office

As part of a series on the British Government, I've had various problems. The names of essentially the same departments have regularly changed, and their remits have changed a bit, too. We had a weak article titled "Foreign and Commonwealth Office" created by an IP. It had little content. The department's latest title is even longer and more gobbledegooky: "Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office". Good grief. I've got the view that the title should be Foreign Office or Foreign Office (UK) or something else, but short and snappy. What it covers can be expanded as usual in the article.

What we do with the old article (F&C.O.) is delete the text and redirect it to the new title. There would be various other redirects. Anyhow, I thought you should have a chance to comment. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Creating two articles for the same subject should be avoided and I assume you did this by mistake. Not a massive deal in this case but try to overwrite the old article in future. It means we might end up with Wikidata pointing to a redirected page. I think we should match enwiki at Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. No real reason to deviate from that; it is the current name. I would be ok with Foreign Office too, per en:WP:COMMONNAME. --IWI (talk) 17:23, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Twinkle stub error

I think there is an error with Twinkle's stub adding function. It only seems to add one line between the categories and the stub template, instead of two. Of course, one line doesn't actually create any visible space; two is needed. See a random example I came across here. --IWI (talk) 21:12, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

London Underground

I have started a content dispute discussion here after I have disagreed with a change an anonymous editor has made. I invite some editors to share their views. --IWI (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

• 
  Image A
• 
  Image B

To better illustrate: The image on the left (A) was replaced by the one on the right (B). Which of the two is preferable?--Eptalon (talk) 14:43, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, in relation to demonstrating the origin of the nickname "the Tube". --IWI (talk) 14:45, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Image A shows the tube (i.e. tunnel) while B show the train is tube shaped, why not we just put both. We are here for ESL users and learners of the language, and usually people learn by looking at pictures (a picture paints a thousand words), so I will recommend putting both pictures, I don't think it's excessive given the length of the page. @ImprovedWikiImprovment and Eptalon:Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Tweak to MediaWiki:Cite-tracking-category-cite-error

Can an admin please change | other = Pages with reference errors to | other = Other pages with reference errors and create the new category? Thanks Nunabas (talk) 17:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done DannyS712 (talk) 17:21, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Nunabas: I am curious about the reason for this change? It appears your were trying to make an "Other" catch all category? That isn't really how categories work, the "other" go to the parent cat if they don't fit in a sub-category. Not really sure this change should have been made if that was the reasoning but maybe I am missing something. -Djsasso (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Trying to keep an article only category, I know simple tries to use the word "Page" instead of article in order to keep things simple. Wasn't sure how else to name things. Nunabas (talk) 23:25, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Page is the term we use for all namespaces. It is the generic. Article is one type of page, Wikipedia or Talk are others. -Djsasso (talk) 16:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Transliterating Cyrillic: Kiev or Kyiv?

Hello, Kiev is the capital of Ukraine. At Talk:Kiev, there's a discussion about how to spell that name. This is just a pointer, so I won't say much, except perhaps: There are two different spellings of the name (Київ and Киев, first one Ukrainian, second one Russian); there are also two different transliterations. So the discussion is on which of the two to use. We currently have a redirect from the Ukrainian transliteration to the Russian one. Anyway, this is just a pointer.--Eptalon (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Inclined to go with ukrainian one, it's ukraine capital not russia. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: Would you mind adding your recent comments on this page to the relavent talk pages so we can keep these two discussions in one place? These ST posts were intended to be pointers to there. Thanks, --IWI (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh I see. To be honest there is much more traffic here, discussions here might be more productive? Just my 2 cents. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:28, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The issue is that we should have the discussion in one place related to the page, so the consensus is preserved. That's why there is a pointer here. We shouldn't have a discussion split between multiple pages. --IWI (talk) 16:32, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't read that this is a pointer only. I just meant if we can have discuss here and then having a link to the archive can also work. For sure a discussion shouldn't spread 2 pages. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 19:07, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-40

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

• Admins can now see links to diffs of deleted revisions on Special:AbuseLog. This uses the interface of Special:Undelete. [14]
• Editors are automatically added to some user groups. For example editors are added to autoconfirmed users when they have edited enough times and long enough. Abuse filters can hinder users from automatically getting user rights for a period of time. They can also remove rights user have. Wikis can now ask to change how long this period of time is for their wiki in Phabricator. It is currently five days. [15]

Problems

• Last year some abuse filters stopped working because of a new change. If they tried to use variables that were unavailable for that action they would fail. This has now been fixed. [16]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 September. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 September. It will be on all wikis from 1 October (calendar).

Future changes

• You can't see the language links to other language versions from the talk page or history page. They are also not shown when you edit an article. This could change. It is not decided if for example the history page should link to another history page or to the article. You can take part in the discussion in Phabricator.
• The link colours could change. This is to make the difference between links and other text more clear. You can read more in Phabricator.
• In your preferences you can choose to get different notifications on the web or by email. You will see Apps as one of the alternatives later this week. This is because the Android and iOS Wikipedia apps will use push notifications for those who want them. You can see the preferences on the test wiki. The goal is to have push notifications on Android in October and on iOS in early 2021. [17]
• You can soon put pages on your watchlist for a limited time. This could be useful if you want to watch something for a shorter time but don't want it on your watchlist forever. It now works on mediawiki.org and will come to more wikis later. You can read more and see when it will come to other wikis.
• You can see what Wikimedians think are the best new technical tools this year. You can also nominate them.

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

21:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of functions naming contest

Please help translate to your language

Hello. Please help pick a name for the new Wikimedia wiki project. This project will be a wiki where the community can work together on a library of functions. The community can create new functions, read about them, discuss them, and share them. Some of these functions will be used to help create language-independent Wikipedia articles that can be displayed in any language, as part of the Abstract Wikipedia project. But functions will also be usable in many other situations.

There will be two rounds of voting, each followed by legal review of candidates, with voting beginning on 29 September and 27 October. Our goal is to have a final project name selected on 8 December. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)

21:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Slowking4

Naleksuh (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@Naleksuh: Although I am opposing the global ban on meta, I will support a local ban on simple wikipedia as this behaviour is clearly non constructive here on simple and the threat of press shame seems not compatible to what we deem as acceptable. Opinions? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:20, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage: He is already blocked indef and his talk page makes it clear he is unlikely to be unblocked. So I wouldn't see a need for a local ban here other than just more bureaucracy. Naleksuh (talk) 18:36, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Please move Purple mangosteen to Mangosteen

It has been changed in en wiki.

Does simple wiki has page like en:Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests for this kind of request? --Hddty (talk) 11:51, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Logical move. Technically I can perform the move via page swop (as an IAR as GR) but I think will be better for an admin to do it, cross posted to WP:AN.Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:49, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done. -Djsasso (talk) 13:58, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Articles to be worked on

Hi everyone. I'm an English teacher at a cram school in a non-English speaking country and I'm considering having my students, who are returnee middle schoolers (and possibly junior high schoolers as well), work on improving articles on the Simple English Wikipedia. I've taken a look at both Most wanted articles and Requested pages to come up with a list of articles students can contribute to, but some of those were either too specific (e.g. articles about places within London) or too challenging (e.g. topics in thermodynamics). I was wondering if you have any suggestions on what would be suitable for middle schoolers to work on. Any help is appreciated. Thank you. NMaia (talk) 06:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Something to consider reading through might be the following: Wikipedia:Schools and Wikipedia:Schools/Teachers' Guide. Doesn't necessarily help specifically with your question but it might give you some ideas. -Djsasso (talk) 15:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@NMaia: Would your students want to improve existing articles or create new ones? You could choose a country, either your own or a different one, and create articles about its history, places there, people from there, etc. The places could be either human-defined ones (for example, cities, counties, etc.) or things like notable mountains or lakes. If this seems like a good idea, if you tell me what parts of the world the students might want to write about, I could make more-specific suggestions. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Auntof6, NMaia, you could always have your students write in Simple English about things in or from their own country. One of the problems with the two English Wikipedias is that they focus on things that native speakers of English have seen themselves, which means it's been highly America-centric. Maybe they could write about their country's history or famous people or any World Heritage Sites. One thing: writing about people who are currently alive is a very delicate thing, and they might not be ready for that.

You should also consider the English Wikinews. Their review process is heavily focused on correcting people who are still learning to write in English. My first year there, we had a whole heap of Australian journalism students come through. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:21, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

WAM 2020

The so called Wikipedia:Wikipedia Asian Month/2019 is back this year 2020. Last year it's a mess as the organizer left after the event started and BRPever and I clean up with only one day notice, so I hope this year anyone wanting to organize can be an experienced member of this community (rather than a random Joe Doe leaving the name on the meta page). I don't mind acting as standby organizer, hopefully then I can have slightly more time to spend onwiki. Regards,Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

+ Hopefully we can have enough participants this year, last year we only have 2, which only 1 finished... Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Camouflaged Mirage I am going to participate in this year's WAM --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:31, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Any interest to organize, i.e. judge articles created by other participants? I will join in to help as much as I can? As organizers cannot self judge articles. @Thegooduser: Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Camouflaged Mirage:, I can help in judging the articles, but I will need help in setting up the pages. :)-BRP ^ever 13:53, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@BRPever: The pages I can help to settle if you mean the contest page (copy paste from last year) etc. Pending Thegooduser reply, if they are willing, then I will submit 3 of our names to meta as organizers. The fountain should be done by the international team AFAIK. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:43, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Asian Month/2020 is created, so the pages are sort of in place already. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:06, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Heads up, this is held at the same time as National Novel Writing Month in the United States, November 1 to November 30. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:16, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Camoflaged Mirage I can be an organizer, but is there a page with instructions on what to do, and can we create articles? Also, I'm busy, so I'll only be online a hour or two a day. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:37, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Camouflaged Mirage Fixing Ping. See above --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:37, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Basically is just using a tool called fountain to approve articles, not to worry, when the contest start we can guide you along, me and BRPever did it last year so we have the experience. Just a log in (with SUL) and then the system will check the basic and we click accept / reject. At the end, when everything is wrap up, send a success message to successful ones, unsuccessful one to those who failed the standard 4. Time isn't a concern either, we settled this around 4 hours last year irrc. There is no rush to judge. Yes, you can still write articles, the other judges will mark it in this case (to be fair). So I shall place all 3 of our names there (me as a reserve - as I might be busy then). Thanks for volunteering :). I think we just need 1 day on IRC to co-ordinate and judge that's it, I will try to pop into IRC (simple channel). Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

When's a good time for IRC? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:29, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Not to worry for now, basically we don't have anything else to do at this moment, at then if there is a need to discuss about whether an article is ok or not, I can make it basically around night UTC+8 time. We just need at most 1h / week in Nov. We can discuss more nearer to the date. If the submitted articles are all okay, nothing much to consider, then we can just approve without IRC. My IRC is currently not available but I will strive to recover it by Nov. Nick is "cohaf" my previous username. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:53, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Nigeria

A new WikiProject has been created to help the development of Nigerian articles. Feel free to join here and contribute.Tbiw (talk) 16:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tbiw: Sure I'll help out. --IWI (talk) 21:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-41

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

• There is a new tool where you can see which home wiki users have in discussions on Meta. This can help show which communities are not part of the discussion on wikis where we make decisions that affect many other wikis.
• You can now thank users for file uploads or for changing the language of a page. [18]

Problems

• There were many errors with the new MediaWiki version last week. The new version was rolled back. Updates that should have happened last week are late. [19]
• Everyone was logged out. This was because a user reported being logged in to someone else's account. The problem should be fixed now. [20]
• Many pages have JavaScript errors. You can read more and now see a list of user scripts with errors.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 6 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 7 October. It will be on all wikis from 8 October (calendar).
• Letters immediately after a link are shown as part of the link. For example the entire word in [[Child]]ren is linked. On Arabic wikis this works at both the start and end of a word. Previously on Arabic wikis numbers and other non-letter Unicode characters were shown as part of the link at the start of a word but not at the end. Now only Latin and Arabic letters will extend links on Arabic wikis. [21]

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [22]

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16:24, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric

Hello. Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language.

Today the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees starts two calls for feedback. One is about changes to the Bylaws mainly to increase the Board size from 10 to 16 members. The other one is about a trustee candidate rubric to introduce new, more effective ways to evaluate new Board candidates. The Board welcomes your comments through 26 October. For more details, check the full announcement.

Thank you! Qgil-WMF (talk) 17:17, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Gay Yong Hernandez and systematic creation of stubs from IPs

While this wasn't thought to have been an issue of concern back in July 2019, the concern of Gay Yong Hernandez (talk · contribs · count) creating stubs while logged out has surfaced again this year:

• User_talk:Gay_Yong_Hernandez#IP_editing
• User_talk:Gay_Yong_Hernandez#IP_editing_2

Indeed, there is nothing in the rules saying that registered editors cannot edit Wikipedia constructively while logged out, however it has been highlighted that the volume of stub creations by the range 2A02:21B0:644D::/48 is starting to create increased pressure in the patrolling backlog. I have also noticed that the initial revision by the IP is a generic "x is a y in z"-style edit, and that the registered account adds contents in subsequent diffs. See page histories of Gooise Meren, Haarlemmermeer, Heiloo, Bussum for examples.

I am personally am not a fan of mass stub creation (especially when the creation is templated/semi-automated), and am highlighting this for the community's attention. The lack of response by the editor on their talk page is also concerning. In fact, there have been zero edits to User talk, Wikipedia, and Talk namespaces since the account was registered. Chenzw  Talk  06:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

A case could be made that they switch to the IP to avoid scrutiny which I believe is something that is disallowed by policy. Now whether a strong case could be made for that is a different matter as pretty much everyone knows it is them, although it is hard to track as their IP changes regularly. A case could almost definitely be made that lack of communication when issues have been brought to them is disruptive as well. -Djsasso (talk) 11:51, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Well I do agree that almost everyone knows the range is them, but tools we use don't and they will still appear when GYH logs out to create the stubs. --Minorax (talk) 13:48, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Based on some comments on his talk page that were just left it has me wondering if he is using automation to create the articles which could explain why he wasn't logged in. And then uses the browser to change the pages which would be why he was then logged in. If that is indeed what he is doing it is completely blockable for using automation without a bot approval. -Djsasso (talk) 14:28, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Chenzw, Can you provide me with the log, of which admin, had granted Gay Yong Hernandez patroller rights? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:26, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

While I really appreciate the work Gay Yong Hernandez does (assuming it's not a bot), it is concerning that this could be a bot and not a person editing. I think a block would be the last resort, and I hope we won't need to go there and loose another editor --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: the right was granted in Dec 2019. Chenzw  Talk  10:48, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Why is he patrolling his own IP creation, like Briaroaks, Texas which clearly shouldn't be marked as patrolled. This page is close to an A2 as rephrasing the title in some sense. This seems illegit use of patroller rights and seems socking. Worrying IMO. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:53, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Well technically if GYH were to create that page using his account instead of the IP, it'll still be automatically marked as patrolled. I think the sysops should consider removing his patroller rights, @Eptalon: ping for comment. --Minorax (talk) 15:09, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

True, however, this can also be seen as wanting to conceal the IP creation problem. So even if we AGF and then deem the page patrol issue not important, autopatrolled users shouldn't create such pages or rather, can create and tag accordingly etc. Still worrying? Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

•  (change conflict) It's worth pointing out again the major issue that GYH has apparently never edited any talk namespace here, and thus has never communicated with anybody here. Communication is needed. I don't personally think someone who does not communicate should be granted any extra rights. I also can't exactly say that he has demonstrated article creation worthy of the patroller right. It also could be the case that the massive amount of stubs he creates are automated, which might explain why he fixes up his own IP articles. Many of the articles he creates anonymously, particularly the one sentence "PLACE is a commune in the DEPARTMENT department in France" ones that have been made en masse are very poor, and not particularly useful or helpful. It may also be worth looking at the blocks placed on him elsewhere in his CentralAuth.

On the other hand, I will say that he does clean up other's new articles by categorising them accordingly, which is quite helpful. I agree with Thegooduser that a block should be a last resort for this final reason. --IWI (talk) 15:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, considering he apparently operates stub creation bots elsewhere (apparently plwiki), I would say it is very likely these stub creations are made by a bot. This of course, isn't allowed. I would definitely support the removal of the patroller right at this point. It is also certainly blockable to operate such a bot without authorisation. --IWI (talk) 15:57, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Just noting here that the user has continued to create these stubs as an IP and patrolling and cleaning up even after this discussion as I am writing this. Maybe action should be taken sooner rather than later. --IWI (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Hello all, I won't comment on a possible link from IP to user, as I can't do this per policy. As to Gay Yong Hernandez: I tink they only have intermediate language skills in English, and recently their edits focused on fixing texts, finding typos, and similar. Personally, I have always had the opinion, that 'X is a city in Y'-type articles are borderline deletes, even if vommunity consensus is that such articles are notable. And as to me assigning the 'autopatrolled': At that time, their edits looked like they didn't need another look, they were unproblematic. Also, I don't know what the benefit is of me creating an article as IP as opposed to me creating an article as logged in user. --Eptalon (talk) 22:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon: As stated above, it appears that the IP creations are most likely an automated unauthorised bot (he operates a similar bot on another wiki). He then uses his main account to add categories and patrol each creation. There is really no question of whether he is related to the range as all article creations by the range are immediatley edited by Gay Yong Hernandez. In my opinion, patroller should only be assigned to people who demonstrate a good ability of writing a large number of Simple English pages. --IWI (talk) 22:47, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

ImprovedWikiImprovment So, Technically speaking Gay Yong Hernandez could be blocked now, because of WP:ONESTRIKE? I will try to get in contact with him by leaving him a message, but I doubt it would work --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:21, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Well technically speaking he would have to have been banned on another project. --IWI (talk) 12:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

+ I don't think ONESTRIKE fits them, as this isn't creating pages out of the project language, and if I am not wrong, we need to notify them ONESTRIKE before we can use them, which no one had officially notified them. I will say let's communicate and find a solution out of this, I don't want to see a productive contributor being lost. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:41, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
While there is indeed the general impression that there are signs of trouble here, I dislike having to resort to ONESTRIKE as an arguably more convenient way to block and remove an allegedly problematic editor from this wiki. It is also worth noting that our policy page talks about users "who have been banned on other Wikimedia Foundation projects" (emphasis mine), so we should adhere to that. Users who are actively breaking rules on this wiki can be blocked, with or without ONESTRIKE's existence. As a community, we can do better in our efforts to engage editors before resorting to other sanctions (of course, engaging the editor in this case doesn't seem to be going particularly well). Chenzw  Talk  13:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Chenzw, ImprovedWikiImprovment I've left a message on their talkpage, encouraging them to join in --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:56, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Here are 64 more stub creations over several hours during two days of this discussion. As dj pointed out up above, active editors here know it is them. However, using the IP somewhat conceals his bot-created stub history here from users of other wikis. It should be clearly visible to admins of other wikis when they start bot editing elsewhere. See no reason to make an exception for GYH for bot (or indistinguishable from bot) edits. --Gotanda (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Another concern I have, is that GYH, when editing, does not make edits all at once, for example, they will make 1 edit at a time on the same page, it may just be their style of editing though, and I am going to AGF that it is --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:19, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Seriously what is so wrong of making edits one by one, we do miss it at times to complete a full edit. It's not they are pandering edit counts or whatsoever or to game some sort of status etc, we have wikis (like zhwiki) where rollback needs 1000 edits, so yes, if we have these criterion, splitting edits can be seen as gaming. Not all users can make a page by just 1 edit to be honest. This isn't an AGF issue IMO. It's totally fine for me. (for this particular issue). Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:54, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Camouflaged Mirage What I meant is, I won't assume that that the account is a bot. I mean I edit like that too sometimes, and I'm sorry, that I didn't word that good enough. I don't mean to attack the user (GYH). Like, I mentioned, that may just be how they edit, and that's fine. It's only concerning if it's a bot making those edits, but I will assume it's not a bot. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Thegooduser No worries. I am also a little heated there. To be honest, if they run bots using IpV6 we can't do much either, the address will skip and then we have to block a range which is clearly hard here given the range they use can be used by other users. What is worrying to me is they having the patroller rights (which they aren't creating autopatrol eligible pages always - one example I given above). In addition, the lack of communication and engagement to the community is worrying. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:00, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Using IPv6 isn't an issue as issuing /64 blocks on them is considered the equivalent of blocking a single IPv4 IP in that it is done all the time. -Djsasso (talk) 16:23, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

What I am concerned is the possible collateral? As the bot will not end soon, I am afraid a long block might have some collateral as we typical indef unauthorized bots but with IP, indefs are very rare. That's my concerns of ipv6 or IPs in general.Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think an indefinite block for an IP is what is being considered (that sounds like a very bad idea). /64 has low collateral really too. --IWI (talk) 16:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all for clarifications. :) Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I can't speak for other admins, but I probably wouldn't jump to indef on the IPs immediately (though maybe on the named account). It would be a slow build up of longer and longer blocks toping out at the typical 1 year max for an IP that isn't a proxy IP. And it wouldn't be the first time. His IPs have been blocked in the past before we all knew it was him doing it, so not sure if blocking just the IPs would make him stop. It would probably take blocking his main account as well. As for collateral, most ISPs assign IPv6 /64 ranges to a single customer in the same way a single customer gets a single IPv4 IP. -Djsasso (talk) 16:37, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

The whole situation is somewhat puzzling, but I agree with Djsasso about not jumping to indef on IPs. We should follow the normal procedure and go from there. --Yottie ^=talk= 18:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

It looks like we have consensus here maybe to implement a block of some type on the IPs at the very least if not their main account as well. At the very least it appears they are running a bot without authorization which is blockworthy in and of itself. The fact that they have not one single time replied to anyone's concerns on their talk page including the two notices about this discussion means they are violating en:Wikipedia:Communication is required as well. Am I correct in thinking there is consensus? I ask because I don't want this to get lost in the archives. Could we maybe get people to chime off if they think a block is warranted so its a bit more clear. -Djsasso (talk) 21:54, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

​ At that point, we would just be repeating the conversation above. But I do think there is a consensus to block the unauthorized bot. I do personally feel a bit sad in saying that due to the loss of someone with 25, 237 edits. But policies are policies, and I do think that there is consensus here. Naleksuh (talk) 22:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict)  I certianly think a block is the only way forward at this point for both the account and IP range. The user has been given chances to communicate over a period of several months. We certainly can't allow these bot creations to continue, and since the user does not answer to comments, there's not much else we can do. --IWI (talk) 22:05, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict) Yeah I certainly don't want to redo the conversation above. I just wanted to make sure people stated clearly they thought a block was the way forward. Most comments above talked about issues but didn't necessarily outright say lets block him. So I wanted any admin to be super clear before we blocked as you say a 25k+ editor. -Djsasso (talk) 22:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear, as requested, I am chiming in to agree that a block of the named account is appropriate and should be done. If creation from the IPs continues, then short and progressively longer blocks seem reasonable. --Gotanda (talk) 08:20, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think I can make an attempt at speaking to the editor (after all, they speak the same language); It is my opinion that a block must not affect the named account, but only the IPs (which also means not blocking named users operating from the IPs). I haven't run a checkuser, as so far I haven't seen any need. I do however trust the named editor; in my opion, the edits of the named editor do not warrant removing the autopatrolled flag. --Eptalon (talk) 08:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

If you can get through to him in his native language then great, but at the bare minunum we must remove the patrol right here. There is no way any of those stub creations can be considered autopatrol worthy creations. And the IP range is certainly him, no CU is required. They always edit at the same time – they clean up and patrol every stub within a few minutes. There really is no debate whether this IP range is him. Evidence from other wikis makes it very likely they are using an unauthorised bot script to create these stubs en masse and then patrolling them while logged in. This is definitley something we would apply a block for to protect the encyclopedia if they refuse to stop or do not communicate. --IWI (talk) 08:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I left a message on his talk page, in German. Any action taken should be the result of a consensus. So please don't jump to conclusions here. --Eptalon (talk) 09:13, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course. In order to achieve that consensus I am adding my point of view to the discussion, which is of course how Wikipedia works. Thank you for leaving a message for him in German; we shall see if he does respond. --IWI (talk) 09:17, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

As above I really hope they will communicate, not easy and dedication to keep to so many mainspace edits over so many years (w/o breaking the temptation to break it). However, communication is needed here. I will note if we block the IP address only, they can IP hop and that might be problematic. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

It is not immediately clear that Gay Yong Hernandez will IP hop. If the ISP respects the conventional sizes of IPv6 prefixes, a /64 or /56 block is sufficient for coverage (I understand that some particularly generous ISPs grant a single /48 to each customer). If anything, if IP hopping occurs after the above-mentioned IP block(s) are made, I would start considering it as potential evidence of bad faith and refusal to communicate. Chenzw  Talk  11:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I am meaning the hopping between different IPs such as using multiple /64 blocks or rather using other ipv4 etc. I am worried there might be a possibility that they will resort into using other IPs to evade the blocks, this will certainly be met by further blocks for evasion but I truly doesn't want to see a good faith contributor turning into a LTA or sort. I know I might be pessimistic (given how the current global climate is in part) but such blocks to communicate might not yield much afterall. I am for a block for creating bad pages with or without using a bot but then they fixed most of the pages. Block or not block we need to calibrate properly to ensure it doesn't turn into a true net negative for the project. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 17:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree there is consensus to block the IPs for a period of time, with a warning not to continue. I would hold fire on the named account, as per Eptalon's suggestion. --Yottie ^=talk= 18:42, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Block I guess is okay for now, since they are editing after Eptalon message and didn't engage here. Communication is needed for a collaborative project. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 10:30, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
In light of recent sentiment on-wiki I think I should clarify the above statement doesn't want to see a good faith contributor turning into a LTA: one does not simply become an editor worthy of "LTA treatment" merely because they evade blocks. Saying that a "good faith" editor becomes an "LTA" is an oxymoron - if you accept that their contributions are good, what is the reason for turning into an LTA case in the first place? I don't know the reason(s) behind GYH not engaging with the community - perhaps they are extremely shy, perhaps some other reason - but that is hardly enough yet to label them as "LTA". WP:LTA explains further under the section "Don't use LTA unless needed". Chenzw  Talk  12:08, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes the term "LTA" implies bad faith, but I am pretty sure that GYH is acting in good faith. I don't see how a person acting in good faith can be labelled as "LTA". After all, they are creating pages and cleaning up new ones; I don't think any of their behaviour suggests otherwise. This is very much a WP:CIR issue. There could be a large number of reasons why they do not respond. A block would not imply that the user is acting in bad faith, and nor would them editing under a new IP address. --IWI (talk) 12:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me clarify where I am coming from. I seen cases in other wikis where there are some good faith contributors for some reason or sort get blocked for some reasons, and then they started using multiple IPs to disrupt the project, over a period of time, they turned into an LTA. What I didn't place in the original statement is that the time it progresses from good faith to LTA. Clearly, I am versed with LTAs having dealt with it in various venues, I know when to / when not to term someone as LTA. I am not saying GYH now is a LTA, it clearly isn't. What I don't want is that there is that slim chance they might. LTA implies bad faith yes, what I mean is that someone who may be aggrieved by a block can have the tendency (however slim) to turn into LTA. @ImprovedWikiImprovment: I will say blocking them by itself implies assuming bad faith in general, unless we are using CIR as a reason but to be honest, saying CIR is also meaning they lack the competence to edit which is also sour to the user in practice. Blocks tend to follow warnings, and usually is level 4/level 4im, which implies bad faith anyway. In addition, if we allow them to edit under new IP address, we aren't solving the problem and then why do we block in the 1st place. And if they edit using another IP address when blocked, repeating the same behaviour, this can be deemed as bad faith editing or whatsoever. What my point is that should we block, let us communicate the reason properly, and then give them the chance to address the issues (given their communication issues - we need to be extremely patient). I don't want to see a block on them, and then the standard block notice and etc, and then they use another IPs to edit, we block the another IP as block evasion and this goes on and on and after 2 years, yeah, we have an LTA. Let us handle this carefully. Sorry for the language used, pardon me if it was a little excessive. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 12:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Left an additional message for them to engage. Hope they can finally talk to us. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:20, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
GYH has Interwiki "Other Languages" Links for his userpage, Is this allowed? (I've never seen it done before, and I want to do it for mine too, but wanted to make sure its okay) --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Can I ask Gay Yong Hernandez to email me? (Or any one of us) If he prefers that way? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:37, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Yes, you can have hardcoded interwiki links on your own user pages, to link your user pages across sites. I have it on mine. --Auntof6 (talk) 01:16, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Auntof6 How do I do it? Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:18, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Just put [[en:User:Thegooduser]] at the bottom and change the language/page name accordingly. --IWI (talk) 01:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• 25 more new bot minimal stubs from IP then updated by GYH after the message in German from eptalon. We have made multiple exceptions for this editor and many attempts to contact them. It appears they do not wish to communicate or follow the policies of this wiki. --Gotanda (talk) 22:20, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Gotanda Can we at least give him the simple English Wikipedia Admins's email, before we do anything else. Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I think he has been given far more chances than most now. Whatever the reason may be, he is not communicating nor listening to our community. These stubs are unhelpful, and I still support a block on both the IP range and account. --IWI (talk) 22:26, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, we can't just go and block him, without giving him the admin's email list email. Like Chenzw has said, maybe he's shy. Or maybe the reason is private and hence he didn't respond. Let's just see if he will respond via email, we can't just go blocking him without giving him the chance to email the admins first. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Change conflict -- Why? We have already made every reasonable effort to communicate with this editor. They have chosen to never respond. Here are 45 more. Both those sets of IP created pages have been patrolled. Were they patrolled by GYH themselves? No other current editor is given this much leeway to work outside the clearly explained policies of this wiki. --Gotanda (talk) 22:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Gay Yong Hernandez does not have an e-mail address attached to his account. Whatever the reason for the lack of communication may be, he is welcome to write on his talk page or send e-mail while blocked. Naleksuh (talk) 22:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

(Change Conflict) Alright then, I'm not the community and I don't make the decisions here, it's based on consensus, if the community doesn't want my suggestion, then they can go ahead and do what they want. (This tone of message might sound like I'm attacking, but I'm not :) ) --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

IPv6 /64 blocked for 1 week and message left on GYH's talk page. As a side note, if one is concerned that the tone of their message might sound combative, perhaps they need to re-think how they worded their original comment(s) in the first place. Chenzw  Talk  03:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Just noting here that the stub creations have continued from an IP within the /48 range (not covered by the smaller range blocked), specifically 2A02:21B0:644D:AF3A:C441:FCD8:D80B:56F2. --IWI (talk) 12:16, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

No communication. No change in behavior (except to try evade the IP block). Editor is knowingly violating pretty clear policies of this wiki that aren't hard to follow. Why has GYH not been blocked? --Gotanda (talk) 09:57, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

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Hello Gotanda, we are looking at an editor with over 26.000 edits in this Wikipedia. I have personally given Gay Yong Hernandez the patroller right (about a year ago), I don't see anything wrong with the edits they do (as named editor). For my part, GYH is a trusted member of the community. --Eptalon (talk) 10:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

East Japan Railway Company

If that article, if I'm correct, was copied from English Wikipedia, and not attributed, I have no idea which version it was taken from, is it a copyright violation? I editied the article and did not know it was copied from EN. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 01:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: Apparently is the latest edition, seems the lede only. The text is almost the same. I just provided the attribution (and is acceptable as it's not too long ago). Is copyvio then but no more, but ideally the translated page template should be added eariler. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 15:50, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ImprovedWikiImprovment

Please note there is a RFA open --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Did you know...?

Hello all, I think we should revive the DYK process. Ideally, we should have 1-2 updates a month (ideally, one every other week). I therefore propose we do an update of the DYK hooks in one week's time. Look at the nomination page:

• Add new ineresting hooks
• Review existing ones
• Help fix the ones with findings.

Ideally: Publication of new hooks, Oct. 18, 2020. --Eptalon (talk) 07:58, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Eptalon I Agree, Sometimes some hooks stay on for months, while some for only a week. It isn't fair --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, Eptalon. I agree, it would be great to get this updated more often, given the prominence of the Main Page. --Yottie ^=talk= 17:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eptalon, Thegooduser, and Yottie: I agree. I will try to get more involved in DYK over the coming days. There was a point where I was able to update the template fairly often a month or two ago. --IWI (talk) 17:55, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: It's not a question of being fair. Everyone here is a volunteer and works on whatever they have the time for and interest in. --Auntof6 (talk) 19:49, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Auntof6 Yes, somewhat. But it takes a lot of time and effort to make a DYK hook. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser:Yes... but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything being fair. If you're saying we should all pay more attention to DYK because people put time and effort into it, I'd have to disagree. We all decide for ourselves where to put our time and effort. I'm not saying DYK isn't worthwhile, just that we shouldn't make people feel obligated to participate. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Auntof6, If we shouldn't pay more attentions to DYK's then there is no need for this discussion to take place at all. But I respect your opinion and everyone's opinion and we'd have to go with what the majority agrees to. I don't want to make this conversation heated, and I don't intend rudeness with my tone of sentence here, It's just hard to put into words what I'm trying to say. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:14, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: I don't consider this conversation to be heated. :) We all have things we think deserve more attention, and the thing is, we're all right: everything here deserves more attention. But as long as each person decides for themselves what to spend their time on, not everything will get all the attention it deserves. --Auntof6 (talk) 21:16, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Auntof6 I totally agree with you. We all have different areas we like to work on here, but in the end, we're all helping build the SEWP! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:19, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This is why I suggested awhile back in the last push to get DYK going again to remember to not just immediately publish a queue to the front page once it was full. There should be a number of queued up ones waiting before we change the one on the main page, then it becomes easier to determine when you should change the main page one as you can see how fast new sets are being filled up and you are prepared for periods of slower creation. Based on past history the ones on the front page probably shouldn't be changed more than once every other month or so. Obviously the goal is to get it happening much faster. But yes the fact that some of them changed after only a week was exactly the reason I suggested making sure you have a number queued up and ready so you can spread out the changing of them. Remember how many DYKs we create is directly proportional to how many new/significantly expanded pages we create. So the best way to solve this situation is to create/expand more articles. -Djsasso (talk) 16:31, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I would definitely agree with changing it once a month. That should give us enough time to fill a queue, and any extras can go onto the following month's queue. --Yottie ^=talk= 19:00, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, we are almost there; the next DYK queue (2) is full, except for the DYK with the picture...--Eptalon (talk) 18:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-42

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

• Because of the problems with the MediaWiki version two weeks ago last week's updates are also late. [23][24][25]

Changes later this week

• Live previews didn't show the templates used in the preview if you just edited a section. This has now been fixed. You can also test CSS and JavaScript pages even if you have the live preview enabled. Previously this didn't work well. [26][27]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 13 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 14 October. It will be on all wikis from 15 October (calendar).

Future changes

• A new stable version of Pywikibot is coming soon. [28]

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

15:24, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Robin Williams

We've been getting some increased vandalism on this article. If anyone feels like adding it to their watchlist, at least for a while, that might help us catch the vandalism quicker. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Auntof6: Yes I have it there now, although it all seems to be coming from one IP range, as listed on VIP. In any case, I will keep an eye. --IWI (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Kimono

I'm currently in the process of making this article a Good Article or Very Good Article, where can I find the rules for them? If anyone wants to help, feel free to :) --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: The relevant guidelines are Wikipedia:Requirements for good articles and Wikipedia:Requirements for very good articles. --IWI (talk) 23:33, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest doing it in two steps, the Good article criteria are a subset of the very good article criteria. The proposals page: for Good Articles, and for Very Good Articles.--Eptalon (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Only cursory glance: There are very few red-links, so you are probably almost at a level to poropose for Good Article. --Eptalon (talk) 09:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I do agree with that. The article is near to the GA level, however everything will need to be sourced. The sourcing in the article needs to be improved; I can try to help with that. Most of the claims are unsourced. --IWI (talk) 09:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Update to WikiProject: VIdeo Game Hardware

We are now Wikiproject: Video Game Hardware and Software, as a few video game software pages are in need of improvement. Thank you.--Derpdart56 (talk) 14:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

also the reason we're not wikiproject video games is that was already taken and that one was kinda dead so yeah--Derpdart56 (talk) 14:59, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Why not just revive that one, a wikiproject isn't really tied to one person, anyone can be in them. No need to reinvent the wheel. -Djsasso (talk) 16:24, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

DYK

Hello. In our current DYK article templates, it mentions that if the article has been in a DYK or not, in the talkpage of the article. However, it does not mention the hook, which was used, unlike EN wiki. The hook should be added in the template, so future DYK'ers can know which hook/fact not to use --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 21:50, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like a good suggestion to me. --Yottie ^=talk= 16:09, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

It already does. Look at the second example on the template page for how to do it. -Djsasso (talk) 18:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-43

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 20 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 21 October. It will be on all wikis from 22 October (calendar).

Future changes

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on 27 October around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [29]
• In the AbuseFilter extension, the rmspecials() function will be updated soon so that it does not remove the "space" character. Wikis are advised to wrap all the uses of rmspecials() with rmwhitespace() wherever necessary to keep filters' behavior unchanged. You can use the search function on Special:AbuseFilter to locate its usage. [30]
• Some gadgets and user-scripts use the HTML div with the ID #jump-to-nav. This div will be removed soon. Maintainers should replace these uses with either #siteSub or #mw-content-text. A list of affected scripts is at the top of phab:T265373.

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

16:31, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Is Reeii Edu advertising through sources?

If so, that's a new one -Derpdart56 (talk) 15:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Rolled it all back. --IWI (talk) 15:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

That's odd. No COI vandal has done that one before. -Derpdart56 (talk) 15:28, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I seem to come across it a fair bit actually. User now blocked by Vermont; all changes reverted. --IWI (talk) 16:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on October 27

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, October 27 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• There will be code freezes for the week of October 26, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

-- Trizek (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska

Change to Yakutat? Per wp?

--MangoRum (talk) 08:22, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Cuties

I think the page is vandalised. MangoRum (talk) 08:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

It was. Seems to be fixed now. --IWI (talk) 08:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I’ve also tagged the vandalism photo for speedy deletion on commons. --IWI (talk) 08:46, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Question

Around 2 weeks ago, I made a page for Thiago Alcântara. Today I started looking through Sport Stub pages, and found Thiago Alcántara, which has not been edited since 2014. My question is what do we do with the original page? ShadowBallX2 (talk) 19:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@ShadowBallX2: I took care of it. The one you created is more complete and spelled correctly, so I redirected the other one and changed the Wikidata item. I notice that there are incoming links to both pages. --Auntof6 (talk) 20:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

CentralNotice banner for Wikipedia Asian Month 2020

Dear colleagues, please comment on CentralNotice banner proposal for Wikipedia Asian Month 2020 (1st November to 30st November, 2020). Thank you! --KOKUYO (talk) 20:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Irrelevant to us as the default language is en, so there isn't a separate simple banner. In addition, 2nd time raising up, I still yet have received my email certification as organizer last year (last time is on meta). Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

What is however relevant is WAM will be starting in 1 weeks time, hope to see more signups. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 13:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Not editing until I know something

I'm not a vandal or sock. Please don't judge me. Can I edit now? BlopoSnare (talk) 01:24, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't mean to offend you, but saying "I'm not a vandal or a sock" is only going to make people wonder if you're a vandal or a sock. If you've been mistaken for either on another wiki, then there is not much here on Simple we can do about that. Except if you were to make good edits that a vandal or sock would not make. There is a lot of work to do here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes prove yourself to us by having good faith and make good edits.105.112.45.7 (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Julie Condliffe scandal

I was patrolling new pages and wasn't sure Julie Condliffe was notable. A search showed she'd been part of a scandal. I would like to ask someone with more experience in BLP to give the matter a look. The sources I found are on talk. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:52, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Opinion on article

Hello, I just created my first page on the Simple English Wikipedia, Loveless. I'd like to know if there is anything wrong with it. If there are any errors please let me know so I don't do them again in the future. Thanks GhostP. ^talk 02:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi GhostP.. The article was great, just a little bit of simplifying I had to do. You might find this page useful for simplifying in the future. Also, I don't know if you based your article from another Wikipedia (like the English Wikipedia or Portuguese Wikipedia), but if you did, you should add attribution on the talk page for copyright. That link will show you how to do that. Thank you :). --IWI (talk) 02:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Rwanda disagreement

I am having a disagreement with Rsk6400 about the page for Rwanda and would like help figuring out what it means for the page and the website. You can look at the changes starting with mine a couple days ago to see what the disagreement is. I don't believe the reasons Rsk6400 is removing my changes are good ones and would like to know if others agree. I mentioned the user here so they can explain in more detail if they want to. You can also see what they said on my talk page here. DoSazunielle (talk) 15:12, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-44

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

• You will be able to read but not to edit the wikis for up to an hour on October 27 around 14:00 (UTC). It will probably be shorter than an hour. [31]
• Last week, links to "diffs" from mobile watchlists and recentchanges were linking to page-revisions instead of diffs. This has now been fixed. [32]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Future changes

• Since the introduction of the interface administrators user group in 2018, administrators couldn’t view the deleted history of CSS/JS pages. Now they can. [33]
• There was a problem with the Change Tags. The software would apply the "Reverted" tag to any page actions such as page-protection changes if they came directly after a reverted edit. This has now been fixed for new edits. [34]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias in November. Another announcement will be made once the date is finalized. [35]

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

17:38, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

AbuseFilter notice: rmspecials() will no longer remove whitespace when used in filters

Hello,

Apologies if you are not reading this message in your native language. Please help translate to your language.

We are making a change to the AbuseFilter extension, which may impact the behavior of some existing filters. The rmspecials() function currently removes spaces in addition to special characters. We will change it such that it will only remove special characters. The existing rmwhitespace() can be used to remove spaces whenever applicable.

As reported on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/P12854 we believe at least one filter on your wiki has been identified to use the rmspecials() function. Please consider updating these filters by wrapping rmspecials() inside rmwhitespace() like this: rmwhitespace(rmspecials(....))

We need you to update the relevant filters within 2 weeks of this notice. If one of the community members with proper access is volunteering to take this on, we ask them to please respond below and notify User:Huji in their response or in the edit summary. If we don't hear back from you within 2 weeks, Huji will edit the relevant filters on your wiki per the global abuse filter maintainer policy, to ensure the filters won't break once the change is implemented. Thank you for your consideration!

Best regards,

--User:Huji (talk) 23:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC), sent via MediaWiki message delivery

 Done DannyS712 (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

i need help

how do you do that thing where if you click on the word it takes you to another page '''˜”*°•.˜”*°• Malifex •°*”˜.•°*”˜ ''' (talk) 16:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Malifex: I don't quite understand what you're asking. Could you explain a little more? Kind regards, --IWI (talk) 17:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

ok so like its blue or red and if it is red it creates the page but if its blue then it takes you to the page '''˜”*°•.˜”*°• Malifex •°*”˜.•°*”˜ ''' (talk) 17:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC) @ImprovedWikiImprovment: hello??

@Malifex: Sorry I still don't understand. --IWI (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I understand this. Red links are pages that do not exist (yet). Blue links means that a page exists on this wiki. If you see a red link, consider making a page for it. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

 (change conflict) Malifex, I believe you're referring to hyperlinks. We create a hyperlink by adding two brackets to either side of what you want to make a link to. For example, if I wanted to make a link to earth, I would add: [[earth]], which would show as earth. Because the page exists, the link will be blue. If the link showed as red, it means the page does not exist, and clicking on it would take you to the page to create it. Hope this helps! Vermont (talk) 18:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes I see what they were asking now. Thank you both :) --IWI (talk) 18:56, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@ImprovedWikiImprovement: no problem. always here to help. ShadowBallX2 (talk) 19:02, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

thanks!! '''˜”*°•.˜”*°• Malifex •°*”˜.•°*”˜ ''' (talk) 19:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Malifex I do notice you have received some warnings for vandalism etc. You are more than welcome to make good edits, but please do not vandalise anymore, you can test changes here. Thank you! --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

International Food Policy Research Institute

Infobox is broken --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:56, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thegooduser: User:Chenzw reverted some edits someone made earlier this month. It looks OK to me now, how about to you? --Auntof6 (talk) 04:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, looks fine now. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

IP masking

Here on metawiki. Just before WMF engages us I think it's sort of confirmed this will go on. Just a FYI but I think we will be affected heavily as we rely on IP editors quite a lot. It might be time for us to think through the issues and solutions. I don't think it will be implemented soon, but early prep might be well. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:58, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I've already got an issue with this, though I cannot discuss this here per DENY. I can email you about the issue I have if that's fine? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:18, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess is better to just send the concerns to WMF staff in charge of this project, Johan. His username is User:Johan (WMF). WMF need to know our concerns. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 08:27, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Twinkle Problem

Twinkle no longer logs my QD's when I have it checked to do so. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 00:44, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't look like an issue with Twinkle - I was not able to reproduce the issue when I enabled QD logging manually. Please check your browser configuration, as well as the browser's JavaScript console (Google this) for any errors when/after you attempt to tag an article for QD. Chenzw  Talk  12:15, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Seems to be working now. Twinkle always sometimes works and sometimes doesn't for me. --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 23:47, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Chenzw Am I supposed to wait until Twinkle is finished the dialogues on the box, before I close it? Maybe that's why it's not logging.... --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 22:22, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:WAM

Hello all, just a note that this year Wikipedia Asian Month will be starting soon. Do read through the rules in the page and we hope to see you participating. Do leave any of the organizers a note if unsure and happy editing. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:18, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Do note that for now the server is down, so for people wanting to submit their pages there is a need to wait, likewise we cannot judge. I had feedbacked to the international team for it. Camouflaged Mirage (talk) 16:53, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Hoaxes/test pages/machine translated content created by anonymous editor

I would like to call attention to contributions from the following IPv6 range:

• 2600:387:0:900:0:0:0:0/60 (talk • contribs • CA • deleted contribs • nuke contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log)
• probably related block performed by Operator873 - 2600:387:0:800:0:0:0:0/60 (talk • contribs • CA • deleted contribs • nuke contribs • logs • filter log • block user • block log)

Over the last 3 weeks or so, the IP range has been inserting what appears to be subtle vandalism in the form of random es interwiki links and/or links to newly created TV channels (supposedly). I say "supposedly" because the content on those new articles are nonsensical/indicative of machine translation efforts, and in some cases I am unable to validate the existence of those channels - some have been deleted as obvious hoaxes, and some by virtue (vice?) of lack of intelligible content, have been deleted under QD G1.

I hope to have more pairs of eyes on the newly created articles - caution should be exercised as some are legitimate TV channels with somewhat legitimate content on the article (e.g. UniMás (Latin America TV channel)), though they will need cleanup. Notability is not dependent on the state of sourcing (or lack thereof) in our version of the article. Chenzw  Talk  13:39, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I've checked the 2600:387:0:900:0:0:0:0/60 range and it doesn't appear the user in that range is related to the target I took action against. I nonetheless agree the edits from this range are problematic. Operator873^talkconnect 16:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-45

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 no longer read Wikimedia wikis if your browser uses very old TLS. This is because it is a security problem for everyone. It could lead to downgrade attacks. Since October 29, 2020, users who use old TLS versions will not be able to connect to Wikimedia projects. A list of browser recommendations is available. All modern operating systems and browsers are always able to reach Wikimedia projects. [36]
• There is a new automatic tracking category available: Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments. It collects pages which use the {{formatnum}} parser function with invalid (non-numeric) input, e.g. {{formatnum:TECHNEWS}}. Note that {{formatnum:123,456}} is also invalid input: as described in the documentation, the argument should be unformatted so that it can be reliably and correctly localised. The tracking category will help identify problematic usage and double-formatting. The new tracking category's name can be translated at translatewiki. [37]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from November 3. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from November 4. It will be on all wikis from November 5 (calendar).
• Administrators and stewards will be able to use a special page (Special:CreateLocalAccount) to force local account creation for a global account. This is useful when account creation is blocked for that user (by a block or a filter). [38]
• The Reply tool will be offered as an opt-in Beta Feature on most Wikipedias on November 4. This change excludes the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias, plus a few smaller Wikipedias with special circumstances. You can read the help page and the troubleshooting guide for more information. [39]

Future changes

• A discussion has been restarted about using a Unicode minus sign (− U+2212) in the output of {{formatnum}} when it is given a negative argument. [40]
• In the future IP addresses of unregistered users will not be shown for everyone. They will get an alias instead. There will be a new user right or an opt-in function for more vandal fighters to see the IPs of unregistered users. There would be some criteria for who gets the user right or opt-in. There will also be other new tools to help handle vandalism. This is early in the process and the developers are still collecting information from the communities before they suggest solutions.

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

16:09, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp

The articles Amber Heard and Johnny Depp need to be reviewed for BLP violations. I know there's a contentious issue but I don't know what the facts are. Naddruf (talk) 17:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Simple English

Hello, Should Userpages, and non-encyclopedic pages be in Simple English? --Thegooduser Let's Talk! :) 🍁 02:00, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

That partly depends on what you mean by non-encyclopedic pages. Ideally, everything here should be in simple language, but in practice we're more lenient with some things. Anything that people might see when they're only using content should definitely be in simple language. That includes articles, text in categories, pages in the help and Wikipedia namespaces, text that's displayed by templates, and possibly other things. That, IMO, is the minimum.

As far as pages used by people who are doing more than just reading content, those pages should also be in simple language. That could include talk pages (for all namespaces), template doc pages, and possibly other things -- even documentation text in templates and modules.

With individual user pages, I'd say that's up to the user. Keep in mind that using complex language there might discourage some users from communicating, but the user page isn't where active communication happens.

When it comes to talk pages, that's probably where we're most lenient. Using complex language there would make it harder for some of our users to participate. In a discussion between only two particular users on a user talk page, what matters may be only that those two users understand each other. On pages like simple talk, the admins' noticeboard, the various discussion pages, etc., it would matter more. I wouldn't flag a page or warn a user for complex language there, but ideally everything here should be in simple language. Not sure that's helpful, but ask more questions if you want. --Auntof6 (talk) 02:35, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Wiki of functions naming contest - Round 2

Hello. Reminder: Please help to choose the name for the new Wikimedia wiki project - the library of functions. The finalist vote starts today. The finalists for the name are: Wikicode, Wikicodex, Wikifunctions, Wikifusion, Wikilambda, Wikimedia Functions. If you would like to participate, then please learn more and vote now at Meta-wiki. Thank you! --Quiddity (WMF)

22:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)