Note: I prefer to keep discussions unfragmented. If you leave me a message here, I will respond to it here as an effort to keep the entire conversation in one place. Unless you request otherwise, I will ping you so that you know I have responded. By the same token, if I leave a comment on your talk page, please respond to it there.
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This user is aware of the designation of the following topics as contentious topics:
post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our second November issue. This will be the final bulletin for 2024 and we'll be back in late January 2025 with the next issue. Please help translate.
Upcoming and current events and conversations Talking: 2024 continues
Celebrating Chabota and his contributions to the movement.
Tech News: Chart extension is now available on Commons and Testwiki; a new version of the standard wikitext editor-mode syntax highlighter will be available as a beta feature; Edit Check will be relocated to a sidebar on desktop. More updates from tech news 50, 49, and 48.
Wikipedia 2024 Year in Review:Wikipedia 2024 Year in Review launched, showcasing the collective impact of Wikipedia and Wikipedia contributors in the last calendar year. The iOS App also released a personalized Year in Review to Italy and Mexico, with insights based on reading, editing, and donation history.
Wikipedia Android App: The Android team has launched the Rabbit Holes feature in the final release of the year as part of Wiki Experiences 3.1. Currently being tested in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, this feature suggests a search term and a reading list based on the user's last two visited articles. For more details or to share feedback, visit the project page.
Annual Goals Progress on Equity See also a list of all movement events: on Meta-Wiki
WikiCelebrate: From Challenges to Change-Making: We Wikicelebrate Chabota Isaac Kanguya, a passionate contributor from Zambia, whose journey through the Wikimedia movement embodies resilience, collaboration, and a commitment to representing underrepresented voices.
Conference: Announcing Central Asian WikiCon 2025 which will be hosted at Diplomat International School on April 19–20, 2025, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
Interested in improving event management on your home wiki? The CampaignEvents extension offers organizers features like event registration management, event/wikiproject promotion, finding potential participants, and more - all directly on-wiki. If you are an organizer or think your community would benefit from this extension, start a discussion to enable it on your wiki today. To learn more about how to enable this extension on your wiki, visit the deployment status page.
Updates for editors
Users of the iOS Wikipedia App in Italy and Mexico on the Italian, Spanish, and English Wikipedias, can see a personalized Year in Review with insights based on their reading and editing history.
Users of the Android Wikipedia App in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia can see the new Rabbit Holes feature. This feature shows a suggested search term in the Search bar based on the current article being viewed, and a suggested reading list generated from the user’s last two visited articles.
The global reminder bot is now active and running on nearly 800 wikis. This service reminds most users holding temporary rights when they are about to expire, so that they can renew should they want to. See the technical details page for more information.
The next issue of Tech News will be sent out on 13 January 2025 because of the end of year holidays. Thank you to all of the translators, and people who submitted content or feedback, this year.
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the Android Wikipedia App which had caused translatable SVG images to show the wrong language when they were tapped.
Updates for technical contributors
There is no new MediaWiki version next week. The next deployments will start on 14 January. [1]
I had an "edit conflict" with one of your closes, while adding my comments. They add more information, and presumably shouldn't impact the results of the close, so I went ahead and added them. But feel free to revert them if you think it's appropriate. - jc3721:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On 1 January 2025, a one-month backlog drive for good article nomination reviews will begin in hopes of addressing the growing backlog.
Barnstars will be awarded based on the number, length, and age of nominations reviewed.
Each article review will earn 1 point; for each 90 days an article has been in the backlog, an additional half-point is awarded; one extra point will be awarded for every 2500 total reviewed words.
Happy holidays, HouseBlaster! It was great meeting you and hanging out at WCNA. Culver's was the burger place! Here's to improving Wikipedia and good conversations at Wikipedia events in the new year! Daniel Quinlan (talk) 05:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more than happy to make this a tradition. I appreciate I haven't been as active as I would like to be on Wikipedia lately, and next year is looking to be just as hectic, if not more so, in real life. That said, I'm just glad I can help out in whatever small ways I can manage. Enjoy your holidays!
Hi HouseBlaster! How should I use my sandbox? My previous mentor just focussed on a silly edit I did and would not provide much sincere guidance --peeeeeee-yew! (talk) 13:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Happy holidays to you too, Skuncc! You can use your sandbox to test edits, but it is completely optional: If you don't have anything you need to test, you are not required to use it. Happy editing, and let me know if you have any other questions :) HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:32, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if you are the one I should ask this to, but because you're the enforcer of my unban I'll just ask you (sorry if it's disturbing): Would adding an infobox to Novy God violate what I'm restricted from editing on or not? Viceskeeni2 (talk) 19:22, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Viceskeeni2: Adding an infobox would be okay, but mentioning Armenia or Azerbaijan would be a violation. You are always welcome to ask questions on my talk page about the topic ban. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 19:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. I am tempted to propose NOINDEXing AfDs (XfDs?) by default; there are definitely ones that should be hidden and I can't see the benefit for not using broad strokes. HouseBlaster (he/they) 03:11, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone, and welcome to the 26th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 1 August 2024. At press time, over 94% of the world has legally fallen prey to the merry celebrations of "Christmas", and so shall you soon. It's been a quiet 4 months, and we hope to see you with way more new scripts next year. Happy holidays! Aaron Liu (talk) 05:06, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Very useful for changelist patrollers, DiffUndo, by Nardog, is this edition's featured script. Taking inspiration from WP:AutoWikiBrowser's double-click-to-undo feature, it adds an undo button to every line of every diff from "show changes", optimizing partial reverts with your favorite magic spell and nearly fulfilling m:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Partial revert undo.
Doğu/Adiutor, a recent WP:Twinkle/WP:RedWarn-like userscript that follows modern WMF UI design, is now an extension. However, its sole maintainer has left the project, which still awaits WMF mw:code stewardship (among some audits) to be installed on your favorite WMF wikis.
DannyS712, our former chief editor, has ascended to MediaWiki and the greener purpley pastures of PHP with commits creating Special:NamespaceInfo and the __EXPECTUNUSEDTEMPLATE__ magic word to exclude a template from Special:UnusedTemplates! I wonder if Wikipedia has a templaters' newsletter...
BilledMammal/Move+ needs updating to order list of pages handle lists of pages to move correctly regardless of the discussion's page, so that we may avoid repeating fiasco history.
Andrybak/Unsigned helper forks Anomie/unsignedhelper to add support for binary search, automatic edit summaries after generating the {{unsigned}} template, support for {{undated}}, and support for generating while syntax highlighting is on.
Polygnotus/Move+ updates BilledMammal's classic Move+ to add automattic watchlisting of all pages—except the target page(s)—changed while processing a move.
In response to your holiday greeting on my talk page:
HouseBlaster,
I categorically deny your libels that I am "admirabl[y]" "dedicat[ed] [...] to Wikipedia" and a "great friend". I believe the appropriate rejoinder goes as follows: I'm rubber, you're glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you. What's more, I hereby take back and formally revoke the "greatly admire" thing so that you cannot again use it against me with such saccharine talk messages!
That being said, thank you for the holiday well-wishes. I toyed with jokingly sending you the very unsecular {{subst:Xmas4}} as a juxtaposition. Apparently I haven't casually conveyed my belief in the same faith as Andy Warhol and Oscar Wilde. (Hm, what else do I have in common with those two but which I don't note on my user page?)
SilverLocust, I am touched. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll even forgive you for the takeback I meant every word of what I wrote, and I do truly look forward to working with you some more in the new year. Merry Christmas and happiest holidays, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello HouseBlaster, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2025. Happy editing, GarudaTalk!23:57, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have recently sent personalized, beautiful holiday greetings, and edits relating to the subject of Christmas, which has made me very happy. This is a surprised thank you message and does imply that there is something good about your editing.
A special set of emoji applies to this area. They are specially designated to be less serious than the rest of the encyclopedia.
When editing about Christmas, editors may like to use the following codes to message others:
I wish you the best of luck on dealing with unblock requests that can require renames (you can optionally list that you have the global renamer permission on your user page). Also, if you need any help regarding edit filters, don't hesistate to ask me for assistance or similar matters, or another edit filter expert if I'm unavailable. I also thank you for supporting me on my GAFH nomination, as edit filters' regex and code are my expertise.
Hiya, Doipliss! Just as an FYI I am out of town until the 30th, but in the meantime I can try to help you out some. Just know my ability to do more hands-on stuff is limited :)Help:Getting started has some great information. If you want to do a particular task, the task center has a list of tasks which need doing. Don't hesitate to ask me any questions you have along the way, and remember: be bold in making changes! There is literally nothing you which takes more than a few clicks to undo, so don't be afraid to try making improvements. Best, HouseBlaster (he/they) 02:44, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed in the Android Wikipedia App which had caused translatable SVG images to show the wrong language when they were tapped.
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Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
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I meant every word of what I wrote, and I do truly look forward to working with you some more in the new year. Merry Christmas and happiest holidays, HouseBlaster (he/they) 22:01, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
