This is an archive of past discussions with User:Terasail. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #147 is out: On identity
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we discuss the notion of identity and present our latest document about how we represent it, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2024-03-18.
Discussions
Open request for adminship: KonstantinaG07 3 (RfP scheduled to end after 20 March 2024 17:37 UTC)
Closed request for adminship: Zafer Adminship granted, welcome Zafer!
New requests for permissions/Bot:
PagesBot - Task: Adds no. of pages statements based on page(s) on items of type: scholarly article. Then adds a reference with based on heuristic equal to inferred from page(s).
Wicci'o'Bot - Task: Import identifiers of new properties created for TheTVDB (Q15616250), nientepopcorn (Q123434360) (and more properties I plan to request to be added shortly) inherent in the film and TV industry, using IMDb ID (P345) as source.
Closed request for comments: Duplicate Refs, Data Model and UI - (RfC closed 15 March 2024 18:57 UTC). The Community showed support for the proposal to change data model and UI for duplicated references. A Phabricator ticket has been opened: T360224
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call March 19, 2024: Please join us on March 19 for a community discussion about how GLAM professionals can incorporate Wikidata/linked data into their work week. Bring your success stories about institutional buy-in and how you’ve communicated the value of linked data to managers and colleagues. We hope to share some strategies that you can take back and use in your own workplace. This will be a followup of sorts to our call last May, and you can review some of what we talked about then, plus slides from our survey here: Notes from May 30, 2023 Meeting on Advocacy for Wikidata & Linked Data in Libraries.Agenda
Connecting Local Archive Data to Wikidata: Focusing on the Archives of National Debt Redemption Movement. By Yun, J., & Oh, S.G. Documents the findings of connecting Wikidata with the Korean NDRM.
Wikidata Lab: Dear Diary (Portugese) - Aims to share resources and capabilities for integration of Wikidata with other free knowledge projects, in particular the Querido Diário project, from Open Knowledge Brasil. Hosted by Porto, É. & Giulio Carvalho, G.
ORCID Scraper - helps users get DOIs from orcid.org for a specific author and curate them using Scholia. It gives users an overview of which DOIs are missing and helps them easily import missing articles one by one.
Newest WikiProjects: Polish Socialist Party - aims to document and enrich data and items (Leadership, sports clubs, commemorated buildings, art, publications etc.) that are connected with the Polish Socialist party.
WikiProject Highlights:
RfC: Slowking4 (2) - Comments are required on actions against the named editor.
Showcase Items: Mahatma Gandhi - The "Great Soul", lawyer, political ethicist and leader of the non-violent resistance to end Imperial British occupation of India.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
The notice "Language links are at the top of the page" that appears in the Vector 2022 skin main menu has been removed now that users have learned the new location of the Language switcher. [1]
IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers. [2]
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. [3][4][5]
RevisionSlider is an interface to interactively browse a page's history. Users in right-to-left languages reported RevisionSlider reacting wrong to mouse clicks. This should be fixed now. [7]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar). [8][9]
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 20. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. [10][11]
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #148 is out: On the way to internationalizing numbers
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we discuss our progresses with the implementation of renderers and parsers for natural numbers, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
2024 Women's Wiki Month Datathon (Indonesian) Between 24 - 26 March 2024, Wikimedia Indonesia is hosting a competitive Data-thon with Prizes available for editing and enriching Wikidata items on the topic of Women's Health. Full details on the project page.
Levelling Up Days 2024 is an online event designed to welcome new people to Wikidata, upgrade their editing skills and find out about useful tools and apps. Join us for a series of videos and discussions regarding Wikidata and its uses in and outside of the Wikimedia projects.
Program - the live portions of the event take place across the weekends 5-7 and 12-14 April
Ontology Explorer, also an Observable notebook, explore the subclasses in front or behind a Wikidata Item.
Tool of the week
Members of European Parliament by pac02. Explore visualisations of MEP's in the European Parliament. Country of origin, gender, political alignment and other properties from Wikidata can be explored.
Wikimedia Foundation Research Award of the Year 2023 - We encourage you to nominate and vote for research papers published in 2023 that focused on or benefited the Wikimedia projects (we're not biased but hope you vote for Wikidata-based Papers). Please submit your nominations by April 18, 2024.
In preparation for the Research Track of the 11th Wiki Workshop, there is now a Call for Contributions for the event scheduled virtually on June 20, 2024 (tentatively 12:00-19:00 UTC). The Wiki Workshop aims to bring together researchers who study all aspects of the Wikimedia Projects. We hope Wikidata and Wikibase are well represented! Submission deadline: April 22, 2024 (23:59 AoE)
Showcase Lexemes: अग्नि -the Sanskrit word for 'fire' and also the Hindu God of fire 'Agni'
Development
Wikibase REST API:
We worked on the ability to create Items via POST /entities/items (phab:T342990)
We worked on making it possible to modify the data of a Property via PATCH /entities/properties/{property_id} (phab:T347394)
EntitySchemas: We are getting back to making architecture improvements to enable the new datatype to link to EntitySchemas in statements.
IP masking: We wrapped up the work on adapting Wikibase for the upcoming IP masking changes.
Query Service: We added the ability to stop a query in the UI in order to not have to wait for a broken query to finish or run into a time-out. You can find the stop button below the run button in the query UI now.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
An update was made on March 18th 2024 to how various projects load site, user JavaScript and CSS in Vector 2022 skin. A checklist is provided for site admins to follow.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 26 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 27 March. It will be on all wikis from 28 March (calendar). [12][13]
The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)
Arbitration
An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".
Miscellaneous
Editors are invited to sign up for The Core Contest, an initiative running from April 15 to May 31, which aims to improve vital and other core articles on Wikipedia.
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
Users of the reading accessibility beta feature will notice that the default line height for the standard and large text options has changed. [14]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 2 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 3 April. It will be on all wikis from 4 April (calendar). [15][16]
Future changes
The Wikimedia Foundation has an annual plan. The annual plan decides what the Wikimedia Foundation will work on. You can now read the draft key results for the Product and Technology department. They are suggestions for what results the Foundation wants from big technical changes from July 2024 to June 2025. You can comment on the talk page.
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2024-03-11. Translations are available.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot: MONA.artpublic.bot (Task: The bot's function is to add information about artists specializing in public artwork in Québec, Canada. The bot will initially only add that an artist's genre of work is public art for a set of known public artists in Québec compiled by MONA Montréal from open data sets.)
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call April 2, 2024: Come join us for fun data modeling discussions! We'll create breakout rooms in Zoom for people to discuss 4 examples of cultural heritage items to contribute to Wikidata. Each group will choose categories, brainstorm properties for basic and enhanced description, and discuss challenges. Then we'll have some quality time at the end to compare notes and discuss our processes! Agenda
Wikidata Leveling Up Days, everything you need to know about Wikidata: 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 14 April. The event is taking place online and the videos are already available on the program page.
Press, articles, blog posts, videos
Blogs: Galerij der Groten op Wikidata (Dutch) - Wikimedia NL hosted an Edit-A-Thon on the Baroeg project, the task was to document and archive on Wikidata all of the bands that have played at the live music venue, the idea born from a stack of band flyers and posters hung in the bathroom(!) Join the next one Sunday April 14th.
Papers: Understanding Wikidata - Wikidata is extremely valuable as a data source to supplement, validate and extend existing knowledge bases and applications. To effectively utilize Wikidata in a Semantic Web application, one must understand its design, terminology and correspondence with ontological concepts (especially RDF and OWL). This paper attempts to explain and position this information. (by AWesterinen)
Videos
Wikipedia Weekly: Ep. 255 (Swedish) - Hosted by Jan Ainali and Magnus. This week covers scarcely clicked sources, API uses and wave at beautiful images.
Mapping Linguistic territories using Wikidata and SPARQL - a topic presented by Camilo Fique, shows how to use Wikidata and the WDQS as tools for mapping linguistics. In this example, Camilo uses toponyms, specifically Human Settlements.
Wikidatalite : Search, browse, and navigate Wikidata items with a mobile-friendly, simplified user interface.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
MEPs: Sitelinks and Gender differences - this Notebook by PAC explores the completeness or lack of content differentiated by gender of MEP's in the Wikimedia Projects, helping highlight lack of representation and information.
Azerbaijan - aims to organize data related to Azerbaijan.
WikiProject Paralympics - The goal of WikiProject Paralympics is to improve items about Paralympic Games, Paralympians, and Paralympic events.
Lieder - This project aims to collect all Lieder, Lieder cycles and Poems as well as Composers and Poets related to them.
Cultural venues - The aim of the present project is to create the world’s most complete high-quality database of cultural venues, such as theatres, concert halls, etc.
Cal State University Building/San Bernardino - Aims to document and lists guidelines for the California State University San Bernardino's participation in the California State University Wikidata Building Project.
Epigraphy - Aims to create Items of epigraphs on Wikidata.
Newest database reports: This query shows that there are 8000 botanists with a standard botanical abbreviation, IPNI code, and little else. Help expand, merge, and otherwise help us know who these folks are! (source)
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2024-04-08. Translations are available.
Did you manage to see the first weekend and sessions of the Leveling Up Days 2024, well fret not as there is another weekend of Wikidata-related sessions to come. Day 4 begins Friday April 12, join via Jitsi - see you there!
Wikidata - collect and use open data (Italian) - April 19 at the University of Catania, Léa Lacroix and Luca Martinelli (WMIT) will give an overview of Wikidata's use for sharing data, querying data and some of its main applications.
Build Open Data through Wikidata: a database integration model (Taiwanese) - April 9 19:00 - 20:00. Wang Wenyue (WMTW) will lead this discussion on how Wikidata can re-connect and index a topic that may be documented in multiple various places online.
Wikidata editing #113 (English) at Wikidata Leveling Up Days. Ainali and Abbe98 do some live editing on biographies of climate scientists and glaciologists.
Anti-Pattern Analyzer is a static website capable of checking the existence of 'anti-pattern 1' (AP1) occurrences given an entity from Wikidata. It can also check if a new statement would introduce new violations.
Other Noteworthy Stuff
Only 13 more days to go! The deadline to submit your project proposal to Wikimedia Deutschland's Open Call for Software Contributions is coming closer and closer. With this call, Wikimedia Deutschland aims to support projects that make Wikidata's data more accessible and usable for a wider audience.
API formatter URL (URI template from which "$1" can automatically be replaced with the effective property value on items; for API access and other machine-readable data)
Type of representation (Property to indicate the '''type of representation''' as a qualifier for Wikimedia Commons SDC Depicts statements of such Wikidata items, indicating the media type of the media file as can be derived from its registered property in Wikidata, being different from P18 (image).)
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
Web browsers can use tools called extensions. There is now a Chrome extension called Citation Needed which you can use to see if an online statement is supported by a Wikipedia article. This is a small experiment to see if Wikipedia can be used this way. Because it is a small experiment, it can only be used in Chrome in English.
A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
Readers using the Minerva skin on mobile will notice there has been an improvement in the line height across all typography settings. [19]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 9 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 10 April. It will be on all wikis from 11 April (calendar). [20][21]
New accounts and logged-out users will get the visual editor as their default editor on mobile. This deployment is made at all wikis except for the English Wikipedia. [22]
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #151 is out: New API for calling Wikifunctions and celebrating 1000 functions
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we discuss the new API for calling Wikifunctions, we celebrate our first 1,000 functions, and we take a look at the latest software developments. Also, there's a job opening for joining our team!
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive.
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
Between 2 April and 8 April, on wikis using Flagged Revisions, the "Reverted" tag was not applied to undone edits. In addition, page moves, protections and imports were not autoreviewed. This problem is now fixed. [23][24]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 16 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 17 April. It will be on all wikis from 18 April (calendar). [25][26]
Default category sort keys will now affect categories added by templates placed in footnotes. Previously footnotes used the page title as the default sort key even if a different default sort key was specified (category-specific sort keys already worked). [27]
A new variable page_last_edit_age will be added to abuse filters. It tells how many seconds ago the last edit to a page was made. [28]
Future changes
Volunteer developers are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. Learn more.
Four database fields will be removed from database replicas (including Quarry). This affects only the abuse_filter and abuse_filter_history tables. Some queries might need to be updated. [29]
Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week. This is the Wikidata summary of the week before 2024-04-15. Translations are available.
Discussions
New requests for permissions/Bot:
AzBot - Task: adding a space in over 7k malformed Dutch descriptions per this request.
DifoolBot 3 - Task: fill in empty English/French/German labels and basic statements for persons with VIAF ID (P214) and a VIAF authority source GND ID (P227), IdRef ID (P269), Bibliothèque nationale de France ID (P268) or Library of Congress authority ID (P244)
The Leveling Up Days 2024 was concluded, you can watch the videos available on the program page and contribute to the captions on Wikimedia Commons.
Next Linked Data for Libraries LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group call April 16, 2024: We have our next LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group Call on Tuesday, 16 April, 2024 at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 17:00 UTC / 6pm CET (Time zone converter). The LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group is, amazingly, 5 years old this month, and we are planning a very Zoomy celebration befitting our virtual community. We are hoping you can join and share some reflections. Feel free to sign our anniversary card and update your Zoom background to something festive!Agenda
Documenting Nigeria's Supreme Court Cases - this online event is a contest to enrich and connect the verdicts and sitting Judges of Nigerian Supreme Court cases. Points will be awarded for contributions. Event ends: 28 April 00:00 UTC.
Working towards a Brazilian History Knowledge Graph - Mike Young describes the progress towards building a KG on Brazilian history and how Wikidata supported this endeavour, especially for linking poiticians, movements, constitutions, laws and events that may not be notable for individual Wikipedia articles.
Reimagining cultural heritage data - this article by Jason Evans documents the efforts of the Llyfgrell Genedlaethol Cymru (National Library of Wales) to open their archives and datasets to Wikidata and the creation of their Wikibase-powered SNARC Tool (Semantic Name Authority Repository Cymru).
Wikidata: your friendly (University's) knowledge graph - Christian Erlinger on behalf of the University of Innsbruck has produced this slidedeck showing how Wikidata can be used for science and research communication.
Demonstration of the XML-TEI Wikidata Geocoder Tool (French) - This tool from PhilippGam will showcase how the Wikidata Geocoder tool can extract information such as PersName, PlaceName, geographic coordinates and images from XML-TEI files. Try it here.
Wikidata for open museum data sharing - Rhonda Yearwood explains how Wikidata can facilitate and provide a platform for the open sharing of Museum and Gallery datasets.
Join the Wikidata Open Online Course starting April 22, 2024! Whether you're a beginner taking your first steps, an individual in need of a refresher on Wikidata concepts, or a seasoned trainer looking to level up your skills - this course is right for you. Register here: Wikidata:Open Online Course
Only 6 more days to submit your project proposal to Wikimedia Deutschland's Open Call for Software Contributions. With this call, Wikimedia Deutschland aims to support projects that make Wikidata's data more accessible and usable for a wider audience.
RTE substation ID (identifier of electrical substations operated by RTE in France)
API formatter URL (URI template from which "$1" can automatically be replaced with the effective property value on items; for API access and other machine-readable data)
Type of representation (Property to indicate the '''representation type''' as a qualifier for Wikimedia Commons SDC Depicts statements of such Wikidata items, indicating the media type of the media file as can be derived from its registered property in Wikidata, being different from P18 (image).)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
You can nominate your favorite tools for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award. Nominations will be open until May 10.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 23 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 24 April. It will be on all wikis from 25 April (calendar). [31][32]
Future changes
This is the last warning that by the end of May 2024 the Vector 2022 skin will no longer share site and user scripts/styles with old Vector. For user-scripts that you want to keep using on Vector 2022, copy the contents of Special:MyPage/vector.js to Special:MyPage/vector-2022.js. There are more technical details available. Interface administrators who foresee this leading to lots of technical support questions may wish to send a mass message to your community, as was done on French Wikipedia. [33]
Thanks for uploading File:Waveform (podcast) logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
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
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for the following wikis: Azerbaijani Wikipedia, Bengali Wikipedia, German Wikipedia, Persian Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, Hindi Wikipedia, Indonesian Wikipedia, Korean Wikipedia, Dutch Wikipedia, Portuguese Wikipedia, Romanian Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wikipedia, Vietnamese Wikipedia. These wikis participated to a test, where 50% of users got the new design, for one year. As this test gave positive results, the new design is deployed on these wikis as the default design. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at all wikis in the coming weeks. [34]
Kartographer maps can use an alternative visual style without labels, by using mapstyle="osm". This wasn't working in previews, creating the wrong impression that it wasn't supported. This has now been fixed. [43]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 30 April. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 1 May. It will be on all wikis from 2 May (calendar). [44][45]
Partial action blocks are now in effect on the English Wikipedia. This means that administrators have the ability to restrict users from certain actions, including uploading files, moving pages and files, creating new pages, and sending thanks. T280531
You are receiving this message because you previously participated in the UCoC process.
This is a reminder that the voting period for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) ends on May 9, 2024. Read the information on the voting page on Meta-wiki to learn more about voting and voter eligibility.
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. Community members were invited to submit their applications for the U4C. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, please review the U4C Charter.
Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #153 is out: Team meeting and Quarterly plan
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we discuss the results of our team meeting held in San Francisco, USA, as well as presenting the objectives that we will pursue in the next months.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive.
The newsletter will not be returning to a monthly format (mainly because the author is busy failing every exam imaginable) and is on a bimonthly schedule for the foreseeable future.
The second round of the WikiCup was very competitive, requiring the highest points total to advance since 2014. Two TOL editors, AryKun and Fritzmann2002, advanced to the third round.
The March edition of our monthly rolling contest was won by simongraham, who amassed 118 points from 21 articles on various species of jumping spider; in second place was Quetzal1964 with 109 points from 53 articles on marine ray-finned fish.
Quetzal1964 and simongraham were also the top two in the April edition, although Quetzal was ahead this time, with 68 points to simongraham's 48. In the annual leaderboard, Quetzal and simongraham are in first and second place respectively, with 291 and 246 points; in third place is Snotoleks, with 76 points.
... that the cherry blossom was used symbolically in Japanese World War II propaganda, with falling petals representing "young soldiers' sacrifice for the emperor"? (8 March)
... that the Kīlauea lava cricket disappears from a lava field as soon as any plants start to grow there? (13 March)
... that Julian Assange's lawyer argued that the rules set by the Ecuadorian embassy requiring Assange to take care of his pet cat Michi were "denigrating"? (13 March)
... that mule deer sometimes prefer the flavor of one Rocky Mountain juniper tree, like "ice cream", over another? (21 March)
... that the skeleton panda sea squirt was known on the Internet for its skeleton-like appearance years before its formal description? (26 March)
... that only one fruit but several thousand seeds were known when Allenbya collinsonae was named? (26 March)
... that while named for alliums, the fossil Paleoallium(pictured) was not necessarily directly related to any allium species? (27 March)
... that the extinct genus Mixtotherium, meaning 'mixed beast', has traits of both extinct primates and hyraxes? (28 March)
... that the fossil fern Dickwhitea was described from a single block of chert? (28 March)
... that only six years after its 2016 discovery, the Meratus blue flycatcher(pictured) was found being sold in Indonesian songbird markets? (30 March)
... that the spirit liverwort is called such because of its proximity to the Māori afterlife? (31 March)
... that cultures of the fungus Lentinus brumalis have been flown on three different satellites? (31 March)
... that the English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper claimed that eating alkanet leaves would make a person's spit deadly to serpents? (31 March)
Eufriesea purpurata
Korowai gecko
Paleoallium billgenseli fossil
Male Meratus blue flycatcher
April DYKs
... that despite its name meaning 'unscented', Hypericum × inodorum can smell strongly of goat? (1 April)
... that color-changing cats(artist's impression pictured) could help us communicate with the future? (2 April)
... that the white-tailed jay(example pictured) found in Ecuador and Peru was once thought to have been brought to Mexico by pre-Columbian trade? (5 April)
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
Example of a talk page with the new design, in French.
The appearance of talk pages changed for all wikis, except for Commons, Wikidata and most Wikipedias (a few have already received this design change). You can read the detail of the changes on Diff. It is possible to opt-out these changes in user preferences ("Show discussion activity"). The deployment will happen at remaining wikis in the coming weeks. [46][47]
Interface admins now have greater control over the styling of article components on mobile with the introduction of the SiteAdminHelper. More information on how styles can be disabled can be found at the extension's page. [48]
Wikimedia Enterprise has added article body sections in JSON format and a curated short description field to the existing parsed Infobox. This expansion to the API is also available via Wikimedia Cloud Services. [49]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 May. It will be on all wikis from 9 May (calendar). [50][51]
When you look at the Special:Log page, the first view is labelled "All public logs", but it only shows some logs. This label will now say "Main public logs". [52]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
On Wikisource there is a special page listing pages of works without corresponding scan images. Now you can use the new magic word __EXPECTWITHOUTSCANS__ to exclude certain pages (list of editions or translations of works) from that list. [54]
If you use the user-preference "Show preview without reloading the page", then the template-page feature "Preview page with this template (what's this?)" will now also work without reloading the page. [55]
Kartographer maps can now specify an alternative text via the alt= attribute. This is identical in usage to the alt= attribute in the image and gallery syntax. An exception for this feature is wikis like Wikivoyage where the miniature maps are interactive. [56]
The old Guided Tour for the "New Filters for Edit Review" feature has been removed. It was created in 2017 to show people with older accounts how the interface had changed, and has now been seen by most of the intended people. [57]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 14 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 15 May. It will be on all wikis from 16 May (calendar). [58][59]
The Special:Search results page will now use CSS flex attributes, for better accessibility, instead of a table. If you have a gadget or script that adjusts search results, you should update your script to the new HTML structure. [60]
Future changes
In the Vector 2022 skin, main pages will be displayed at full width (like special pages). The goal is to keep the number of characters per line large enough. This is related to the coming changes to typography in Vector 2022. Learn more. [61]
Two columns of the pagelinks database table (pl_namespace and pl_title) are being dropped soon. Users must use two columns of the new linktarget table instead (lt_namespace and lt_title). In your existing SQL queries:
Replace JOIN pagelinks with JOIN linktarget and pl_ with lt_ in the ON statement
Below that add JOIN pagelinks ON lt_id = pl_target_id
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
The Nuke feature, which enables administrators to mass delete pages, will now correctly delete pages which were moved to another title. [64]
New changes have been made to the UploadWizard in Wikimedia Commons: the overall layout has been improved, by following new styling and spacing for the form and its fields; the headers and helper text for each of the fields was changed; the Caption field is now a required field, and there is an option for users to copy their caption into the media description. [65][66]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 May. It will be on all wikis from 23 May (calendar). [67][68]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It will change on 22 May in some skins (Timeless, Modern, CologneBlue, Nostalgia, and Monobook). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in all other skins. The developers are also considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Several bugs related to the latest updates to the UploadWizard on Wikimedia Commons have been fixed. For more information, see T365107 and T365119.
In March 2024 a new addPortlet API was added to allow gadgets to create new portlets (menus) in the skin. In certain skins this can be used to create dropdowns. Gadget developers are invited to try it and give feedback.
Some CSS in the Minerva skin has been removed to enable easier community configuration. Interface editors should check the rendering on mobile devices for aspects related to the classes: .collapsible, .multicol, .reflist, .coordinates, .topicon. Further details are available on replacement CSS if it is needed.
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 May. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 May. It will be on all wikis from 30 May (calendar). [69][70]
When you visit a wiki where you don't yet have a local account, local rules such as edit filters can sometimes prevent your account from being created. Starting this week, MediaWiki takes your global rights into account when evaluating whether you can override such local rules. [71]
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #157 is out: A single singular or a plurality of plurals?
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we discuss the various implications of linguistic functions about singulars and plurals, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
It is now possible for local administrators to add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without JavaScript. Documentation is available. [72]
The message name for the definition of the tracking category of WikiHiero has changed from "MediaWiki:Wikhiero-usage-tracking-category" to "MediaWiki:Wikihiero-usage-tracking-category". [73]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 4 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 5 June. It will be on all wikis from 6 June (calendar). [75][76]
Future changes
Next week, on wikis with the Vector 2022 skin as the default, logged-out desktop users will be able to choose between different font sizes. The default font size will also be increased for them. This is to make Wikimedia projects easier to read. Learn more.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
The software used to render SVG files has been updated to a new version, fixing many longstanding bugs in SVG rendering. [77]
The HTML used to render all headings is being changed to improve accessibility. It was changed last week in some skins (Vector legacy and Minerva). Please test gadgets on your wiki on these skins and report any related problems so that they can be resolved before this change is made in Vector-2022. The developers are still considering the introduction of a Gadget API for adding buttons to section titles if that would be helpful to tool creators, and would appreciate any input you have on that.
The HTML markup used for citations by Parsoid changed last week. In places where Parsoid previously added the mw-reference-text class, Parsoid now also adds the reference-text class for better compatibility with the legacy parser. More details are available. [78]
Problems
There was a bug with the Content Translation interface that caused the tools menus to appear in the wrong location. This has now been fixed. [79]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 11 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 12 June. It will be on all wikis from 13 June (calendar). [80][81]
The new version of MediaWiki includes another change to the HTML markup used for citations: Parsoid will now generate a <span class="mw-cite-backlink"> wrapper for both named and unnamed references for better compatibility with the legacy parser. Interface administrators should verify that gadgets that interact with citations are compatible with the new markup. More details are available. [82]
On multilingual wikis that use the <translate> system, there is a feature that shows potentially-outdated translations with a pink background until they are updated or confirmed. From this week, confirming translations will be logged, and there is a new user-right that can be required for confirming translations if the community requests it. [83]
Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia Newsletter #159 is out: New Type: Igbo calendar months
There is a new update for Abstract Wikipedia and Wikifunctions. Please, come and read it!
In this issue, we introduce a new enumeration type, this time for the thirteen months of the Igbo calendar, and we take a look at the latest software developments.
Want to catch up with the previous updates? Check our archive!
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
People who attempt to add an external link in the visual editor will now receive immediate feedback if they attempt to link to a domain that a project has decided to block. Please see Edit check for more details. [84]
The dark mode beta feature is now available on category and help pages, as well as more special pages. There may be contrast issues. Please report bugs on the project talk page. [87]
Problems
Cloud Services tools were not available for 25 minutes last week. This was caused by a faulty hardware cable in the data center. [88]
Last week, styling updates were made to the Vector 2022 skin. This caused unforeseen issues with templates, hatnotes, and images. Changes to templates and hatnotes were reverted. Most issues with images were fixed. If you still see any, report them here. [89]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 June. It will be on all wikis from 20 June (calendar). [90][91]
Starting June 18, the Reference Edit Check will be deployed to a new set of Wikipedias. This feature is intended to help newcomers and to assist edit-patrollers by inviting people who are adding new content to a Wikipedia article to add a citation when they do not do so themselves. During a test at 11 wikis, the number of citations added more than doubled when Reference Check was shown to people. Reference Check is community configurable. [92]
Mailing lists will be unavailable for roughly two hours on Tuesday 10:00–12:00 UTC. This is to enable migration to a new server and upgrade its software. [93]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Editors will notice that there have been some changes to the background color of text in the diff view, and the color of the byte-change numbers, last week. These changes are intended to make text more readable in both light mode and dark mode, and are part of a larger effort to increase accessibility. You can share your comments or questions on the project talkpage. [94]
The text colors that are used for visited-links, hovered-links, and active-links, were also slightly changed last week to improve their accessibility in both light mode and dark mode. [95]
Problems
You can copy permanent links to talk page comments by clicking on a comment's timestamp. This feature did not always work when the topic title was very long and the link was used as a wikitext link. This has been fixed. Thanks to Lofhi for submitting the bug. [96]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 June. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 June. It will be on all wikis from 27 June (calendar). [97][98]
Starting 26 June, all talk pages messages' timestamps will become a link at English Wikipedia, making this feature available for you to use at all wikis. This link is a permanent link to the comment. It allows users to find the comment they were linked to, even if this comment has since been moved elsewhere. You can read more about this feature on Diff or on Mediawiki.org. [99]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
Over the next three weeks, dark mode will become available for all users, both logged-in and logged-out, starting with the mobile web version. This fulfils one of the top-requested community wishes, and improves low-contrast reading and usage in low-light settings. As part of these changes, dark mode will also work on User-pages and Portals. There is more information in the latest Web team update. [100]
Logged-in users can now set global preferences for the text-size and dark-mode, thanks to a combined effort across Foundation teams. This allows Wikimedians using multiple wikis to set up a consistent reading experience easily, for example by switching between light and dark mode only once for all wikis. [101]
If you use a very old web browser some features might not work on the Wikimedia wikis. This affects Internet Explorer 11 and versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari older than 2016. This change makes it possible to use new CSS features and to send less code to all readers. [102][103]
Wikipedia Admins can customize local wiki configuration options easily using Community Configuration. Community Configuration was created to allow communities to customize how some features work, because each language wiki has unique needs. At the moment, admins can configure Growth features on their home wikis, in order to better recruit and retain new editors. More options will be provided in the coming months. [104]
Editors interested in language issues that are related to Unicode standards, can now discuss those topics at a new conversation space in MediaWiki.org. The Wikimedia Foundation is now a member of the Unicode Consortium, and the coordination group can collaboratively review the issues discussed and, where appropriate, bring them to the attention of the Unicode Consortium.
Local administrators can now add new links to the bottom of the site Tools menu without using JavaScript. Documentation is available on MediaWiki. (T6086)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
The CampaignEvents extension is now available on Meta-wiki, Igbo Wikipedia, and Swahili Wikipedia, and can be requested on your wiki. This extension helps in managing and making events more visible, giving Event organizers the ability to use tools like the Event registration tool. To learn more about the deployment status and how to request this extension for your wiki, visit the CampaignEvents page on Meta-wiki.
Editors using the iOS Wikipedia app who have more than 50 edits can now use the Add an Image feature. This feature presents opportunities for small but useful contributions to Wikipedia.
A problem with the color of the talkpage tabs always showing as blue, even for non-existent pages which should have been red, affecting the Vector 2022 skin, has been fixed.
Future changes
The Trust and Safety Product team wants to introduce temporary accounts with as little disruption to tools and workflows as possible. Volunteer developers, including gadget and user-script maintainers, are kindly asked to update the code of their tools and features to handle temporary accounts. The team has created documentation explaining how to do the update. Learn more.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Wikimedia developers can now officially continue to use both Gerrit and GitLab, due to a June 24 decision by the Wikimedia Foundation to support software development on both platforms. Gerrit and GitLab are both code repositories used by developers to write, review, and deploy the software code that supports the MediaWiki software that the wiki projects are built on, as well as the tools used by editors to create and improve content. This decision will safeguard the productivity of our developers and prevent problems in code review from affecting our users. More details are available in the Migration status page.
The Wikimedia Foundation seeks applicants for the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). This group will bring technical contributors and Wikimedia Foundation together to co-define a more resilient, future-proof technological platform. Council members will evaluate and consult on the movement's product and technical activities, so that we develop multi-generational projects. We are looking for a range of technical contributors across the globe, from a variety of Wikimedia projects. Please apply here by August 10.
Editors with rollback user-rights who use the Wikipedia App for Android can use the new Edit Patrol features. These features include a new feed of Recent Changes, related links such as Undo and Rollback, and the ability to create and save a personal library of user talk messages to use while patrolling. If your wiki wants to make these features available to users who do not have rollback rights but have reached a certain edit threshold, you can contact the team. You can read more about this project on Diff blog.
Next week, functionaries, volunteers maintaining tools, and software development teams are invited to test the temporary accounts feature on testwiki. Temporary accounts is a feature that will help improve privacy on the wikis. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page. [107]
Editors who upload files cross-wiki, or teach other people how to do so, may wish to join a Wikimedia Commons discussion. The Commons community is discussing limiting who can upload files through the cross-wiki upload/Upload dialog feature to users auto-confirmed on Wikimedia Commons. This is due to the large amount of copyright violations uploaded this way. There is a short summary at Commons:Cross-wiki upload and discussion at Commons:Village Pump.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature News
Stewards can now globally block accounts. Before the change only IP addresses and IP ranges could be blocked globally. Global account blocks are useful when the blocked user should not be logged out. Global locks (a similar tool logging the user out of their account) are unaffected by this change. The new global account block feature is related to the Temporary Accounts project, which is a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors that are no longer made public.
Later this week, Wikimedia site users will notice that the Interface of FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") is improved and consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface and Wikimedia's design system. The FlaggedRevs interface experience on mobile and Minerva skin was inconsistent before it was fixed and ported to Codex by the WMF Growth team and some volunteers. [108]
Wikimedia site users can now submit account vanishing requests via GlobalVanishRequest. This feature is used when a contributor wishes to stop editing forever. It helps you hide your past association and edit to protect your privacy. Once processed, the account will be locked and renamed. [109]
Have you tried monitoring and addressing vandalism in Wikipedia using your phone? A Diff blog post on Patrolling features in the Mobile App highlights some of the new capabilities of the feature, including swiping through a feed of recent changes and a personal library of user talk messages for use when patrolling from your phone.
Wikimedia contributors and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) organisations can now learn and measure the impact Wikimedia Commons is having towards creating quality encyclopedic content using the Commons Impact Metrics analytics dashboard. The dashboard offers organizations analytics on things like monthly edits in a category, the most viewed files, and which Wikimedia articles are using Commons images. As a result of these new data dumps, GLAM organisation can more reliably measure their return on investment for programs bringing content into the digital Commons. [110]
Project Updates
Come share your ideas for improving the wikis on the newly reopened Community Wishlist. The Community Wishlist is Wikimedia’s forum for volunteers to share ideas (called wishes) to improve how the wikis work. The new version of the wishlist is always open, works with both wikitext and Visual Editor, and allows wishes in any language.
Learn more
Have you ever wondered how Wikimedia software works across over 300 languages? This is 253 languages more than the Google Chrome interface, and it's no accident. The Language and Product Localization Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports your work by adapting all the tools and interfaces in the MediaWiki software so that contributors in our movement who translate pages and strings can translate them and have the sites in all languages. Read more about the team and their upcoming work on Diff.
How can Wikimedia build innovative and experimental products while maintaining such heavily used websites? A recent blog post by WMF staff Johan Jönsson highlights the work of the WMF Future Audience initiative, where the goal is not to build polished products but test out new ideas, such as a ChatGPT plugin and Add a Fact, to help take Wikimedia into the future.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Editors using the Visual Editor in languages that use non-Latin characters for numbers, such as Hindi, Manipuri and Eastern Arabic, may notice some changes in the formatting of reference numbers. This is a side effect of preparing a new sub-referencing feature, and will also allow fixing some general numbering issues in Visual Editor. If you notice any related problems on your wiki, please share details at the project talkpage.
Bugs status
Some logged-in editors were briefly unable to edit or load pages last week. These errors were mainly due to the addition of new linter rules which led to caching problems. Fixes have been applied and investigations are continuing.
Editors can use the IP Information tool to get information about IP addresses. This tool is available as a Beta Feature in your preferences. The tool was not available for a few days last week, but is now working again. Thank you to Shizhao for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 28 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
There are new features and improvements to Phabricator from the Release Engineering and Collaboration Services teams, and some volunteers, including: the search systems, the new task creation system, the login systems, the translation setup which has resulted in support for more languages (thanks to Pppery), and fixes for many edge-case errors. You can read details about these and other improvements in this summary.
There is an update on the Charts project. The team has decided which visualization library to use, which chart types to start focusing on, and where to store chart definitions.
One new wiki has been created: a Wikivoyage in Czech (voy:cs:) [111]
Hey there, welcome to the 25th issue of the Wikipedia Scripts++ Newsletter, covering all our favorite new and updated user scripts since 1 March 2024. We've got a ton of wonderful editors taking back their pitchforks today. Don't worry, for they come in peace, to forcibly fix and extend existing scripts you use with sheer passion. There's so many, them forks have got what's basically their own column now! gift us with some rows before it's too late Aaron Liu (talk) 04:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
To a lesser extent, the same goes for PrimeHunter/Search sort. I wish someone would integrate the sorts into the sort menu instead of adding 11 portlet links.
An easily configurable script to add a link to the #p-vector-user-menu-overflow portlet with a name, target, and icon. This one should be a relatively easier one. I would do it myself, but I'm too busy rotting away on Celeste (video game).
After the ＲＩＩＪ update, Aaron Liu: Watchlyst Greybar Unsin has a dismiss button that allows you to mark an item as read in one click and cycle to the next Watchlist item.
Lordseriouspig/StatusChangerImproved is just like Enterprisey's script, except you select your status from a dropdown instead of cycling through them with a button. The WMF operates out of car-centric infrastructure anyway. Shame!
Newly maintained scripts
Aaron Liu has created Duplinks from Evad37/duplinks-alt; his fork adds a config variable to automatically highlight duplicate links on the loading of any page where the portlet link would've appeared.
Tired of staring at a bunch of filtering text and waiting for darn filter logs to load? Msz2001/AbuseFilter analyzer can parse abuse filters into a visual syntax tree and evaluate locally on-demand!
Polygnotus/DuplicateReferences finds references with the same link and displays the number of them along with a button to add the {{duplicated citations}} tag under the references section. Being lazy has never been easier!
fastest gun on the net Ponor/really-quick-block really quick add to contribution lists three buttons awesome
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [112][113]
Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.
Project updates
Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Two new parser functions will be available this week: {{#dir}} and {{#bcp47}}. These will reduce the need for Template:Dir and Template:BCP47 on Commons and allow us to drop 100 million rows from the "what links here" database. Editors at any wiki that use these templates, can help by replacing the templates with these new functions. The templates at Commons will be updated during the Hackathon at Wikimania. [114][115]
Communities can request the activation of the visual editor on entire namespaces where discussions sometimes happen (for instance Wikipedia: or Wikisource: namespaces) if they understand the known limitations. For discussions, users can already use DiscussionTools in these namespaces.
The tracking category "Pages using Timeline" has been renamed to "Pages using the EasyTimeline extension" in TranslateWiki. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match.
Project updates
Editors who help to organize WikiProjects and similar on-wiki collaborations, are invited to share ideas and examples of successful collaborations with the Campaigns and Programs teams. You can fill out a brief survey or share your thoughts on the talkpage. The teams are particularly looking for details about successful collaborations on non-English wikis.
The new parser is being rolled out on Wikivoyage wikis over the next few months. The English Wikivoyage and Hebrew Wikivoyage were switched to Parsoid last week. For more information, see Parsoid/Parser Unification.
The latest quarterly Language and Internationalization newsletter is available. It includes: New design previews for Translatable pages; Updates about MinT for Wiki Readers; the release of Translation dumps; and more.
Users wishing to permanently leave may now request "vanishing" via Special:GlobalVanishRequest. Processed requests will result in the user being renamed, their recovery email being removed, and their account being globally locked.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Stewards can now specify if global blocks should prevent account creation. Before this change by the Trust and Safety Product Team, all global blocks would prevent account creation. This will allow stewards to reduce the unintended side-effects of global blocks on IP addresses.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Editors who want to re-use references but with different details such as page numbers, will be able to do so by the end of 2024, using a new sub-referencing feature. You can read more about the project and how to test the prototype.
Editors using tracking categories to identify which pages use specific extensions may notice that six of the categories have been renamed to make them more easily understood and consistent. These categories are automatically added to pages that use specialized MediaWiki extensions. The affected names are for: DynamicPageList, Kartographer, Phonos, RSS, Score, WikiHiero. Wikis that have created the category locally should rename their local creation to match. Thanks to Pppery for these improvements. [118]
Technical volunteers who edit modules and want to get a list of the categories used on a page, can now do so using the categories property of mw.title objects. This enables wikis to configure workflows such as category-specific edit notices. Thanks to SD001 for these improvements. [119][120]
Bugs status
Your help is needed to check if any pages need to be moved or deleted. A maintenance script was run to clean up unreachable pages (due to Unicode issues or introduction of new namespaces/namespace aliases). The script tried to find appropriate names for the pages (e.g. by following the Unicode changes or by moving pages whose titles on Wikipedia start with Talk:WP: so that their titles start with Wikipedia talk:), but it may have failed for some pages, and moved them to Special:PrefixIndex/T195546/ instead. Your community should check if any pages are listed there, and move them to the correct titles, or delete them if they are no longer needed. A full log (including pages for which appropriate names could be found) is available in phab:P67388.
Editors who volunteer as mentors to newcomers on their wiki are once again able to access lists of potential mentees who they can connect with to offer help and guidance. This functionality was restored thanks to a bug fix. Thank you to Mbch331 for filing the bug report. You can read about that, and 18 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
The application deadline for the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) has been extended to September 16. Members will help by providing advice to Foundation Product and Technology leadership on short and long term plans, on complex strategic problems, and help to get feedback from more contributors and technical communities. Selected members should expect to spend roughly 5 hours per month for the Council, during the one year pilot. Please consider applying, and spread the word to volunteers you think would make a positive contribution to the committee.
Learn more
The 2024 Coolest Tool Awards were awarded at Wikimania, in seven categories. For example, one award went to the ISA Tool, used for adding structured data to files on Commons, which was recently improved during the Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon. You can see video demonstrations of each tool at the awards page. Congratulations to this year's recipients, and thank you to all tool creators and maintainers.
The latest Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is available, and includes some highlights from Wikimania, an upcoming Language community meeting, and other news from the movement.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Feature news
Administrators can now test the temporary accounts feature on test2wiki. This was done to allow cross-wiki testing of temporary accounts, for when temporary accounts switch between projects. The feature was enabled on testwiki a few weeks ago. No further temporary account deployments are scheduled yet. Temporary Accounts is a project to create a new type of user account that replaces IP addresses of unregistered editors which are no longer made public. Please share your opinions and questions on the project talk page.
Later this week, editors at wikis that use FlaggedRevs (also known as "Pending Changes") may notice that the indicators at the top of articles have changed. This change makes the system more consistent with the rest of the MediaWiki interface. [121]
Bugs status
Editors who use the 2010 wikitext editor, and use the Character Insert buttons, will no longer experience problems with the buttons adding content into the edit-summary instead of the edit-window. You can read more about that, and 26 other community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Project updates
Please review and vote on Focus Areas, which are groups of wishes that share a problem. Focus Areas were created for the newly reopened Community Wishlist, which is now open year-round for submissions. The first batch of focus areas are specific to moderator workflows, around welcoming newcomers, minimizing repetitive tasks, and prioritizing tasks. Once volunteers have reviewed and voted on focus areas, the Foundation will then review and select focus areas for prioritization.
Do you have a project and are willing to provide a three (3) month mentorship for an intern? Outreachy is a twice a year program for people to participate in a paid internship that will start in December 2024 and end in early March 2025, and they need mentors and projects to work on. Projects can be focused on coding or non-coding (design, documentation, translation, research). See the Outreachy page for more details, and a list of past projects since 2013.
Learn more
If you're curious about the product and technology improvements made by the Wikimedia Foundation last year, read this recent highlights summary on Diff.
To learn more about the technology behind the Wikimedia projects, you can now watch sessions from the technology track at Wikimania 2024 on Commons. This week, check out:
IP info feature displays data from Spur, an IP addresses database. Previously, the only data source for this feature was MaxMind. Now, IP info is more useful for patrollers. [2]
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 19 March. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 20 March. It will be on all wikis from 21 March (calendar). [8][9]
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
Arbitration
Miscellaneous
A new Edit Recovery feature has been added to all wikis, available as a user preference. Once you enable it, your in-progress edits will be stored in your web browser, and if you accidentally close an editing window or your browser or computer crashes, you will be prompted to recover the unpublished text. Please leave any feedback on the project talk page. This was the #8 wish in the 2023 Community Wishlist Survey.
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Bureaucrat changes
Got anything good? Tell us about your new, improved, old, or messed-up script here!
Featured script
Improve a script
Requested scripts
Updated scripts
Newly maintained scripts
New scripts
_logo.png&action=edit&redlink=1){kind=link}
_logo.png){kind=link}
The redirect Wikipedia:VRT permissions agents has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 August 25 § Wikipedia:VRT permissions agents until a consensus is reached. 1234qwer1234qwer4 17:51, 25 August 2024 (UTC)