This is an archive of past discussions. 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.
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. [1]
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. [2]
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. [3][4]
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. [5]
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.
Orphaned non-free image File:Right to dream logo 2021.png
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Thanks for uploading File:Right to dream logo 2021.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).
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.
I am unhappy with your edits on Coffee cake, for two reasons
the creation of a large number of links to disambiguation pages. At least 430 links, by the templates Template:Cakes and Template:Jewish cuisine. I hope you can fix that.
there are far more types of coffee cakes than the two listed in the dab. I make my coffee cakes with coffee in the batter and in the buttercream in between the layers and on top. No nuts whatsoever. But I feel uncomfortable adding it. Would it be a good idea to create an overview of the common variations of coffee cakes, like List of coffee cakes?
Hey, @The Banner. I'm sorry, where did I create links to 430 dabs? My apologies, my tech skills are not the best.
No objection to adding other types of items called "coffee cake" to the dab. Those were the three we could find. If there are other notable coffee-flavored cakes, by all means we should add them to that dab. I didn't find any. I think it's possible 'coffee-flavored cake' isn't actually a notable subject, at least per my research, which is unfortunately very much English-based.
List of coffee cakes is a little tricky, IMO. Are we talking list of Coffee cake (American) or list of Coffee-flavored cake? Because these are two profoundly different items. One is a cake flavored with coffee. One is a sweet bread served with coffee. Other than their name, they haven't got much in common. I definitely don't think we should be going through recipe sites and listing every recipe for a coffee-flavored cake we can find. We need to includ notable coffee-flavored cakes. Valereee (talk) 20:00, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
You created the links by changing "coffee cake" in the dab-page. The two mentioned templates are linking to this newly created dab-page. I have no idea what is the correct link. I think this edit hampered proceedings a bit.
Honestly, neither Tiramisu nor Coffee and walnut cake even mention "coffee cake" or "coffeecake". I'm not sure why this has even become an issue. It seems like a EngVar problem. There's an American sweet bread that is called a coffee cake, which is a notable subject. In other variations of English, the term is understood to mean something else: a cake flavored with coffee. That something else does not seem to be a standalone notable subject. Valereee (talk) 20:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Australia report: Partner Project between Wikimedia Australia, the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) and the School of Information and Communication Studies at Charles Sturt University (CSU SICS)
Hello. I wanted to let you know that in your recent contributions to Cheung Chau fishball, you seemed to act as if you were the owner of the page. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to Wikipedia. This means that editors do not own articles, including ones they create, and should respect the work of their fellow contributors. If you create or edit an article, remember that others are free to change its content. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. UKWikiGuy (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
The only edit I've made to that page in over a year is to remove the orphan tag, because I de-orphaned it. Not sure what you're objecting to here, @UKWikiGuy. Valereee (talk) 14:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
the thread closed. Did what I already said in it answer your question? I will be very happy to give you a dispassionate explanation of "what is Google indexing" if you would like one. They are using well-known techniques for controlling what Google can and cannot access. When people say things like "once it is on the internet it is there forever", usually this is in reference to social media posts that have gone viral, but I understand why the distinction might not be clear to a non-technical user. Elinruby (talk) 06:41, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
I didn't actually ask a question, I don't think? You'd said I didn't understand how google indexing works, and I agreed -- did you think I was asking for an explanation of google indexing? I wasn't. I hadn't even brought search engines up; literally the only mention of google I made was to quote you when you named the private forum. I certainly never said "what is Google indexing" -- yes, I know what it is, but I don't care how it works -- nor did I say "once it is on the internet it is there forever". (Nor do I believe that; I've had enough experience trying to access sources that never got archived by Wayback to know it's not true.) At any rate, my concern has nothing to do with that discussion being findable via search engine.
My concern is exactly what I said: the discussion of a colleague, referring to them as an imbecile, starts out in a public space. Eventually moving it private doesn't mitigate the harm and may actually make it worse by calling attention to this private area where colleagues 'too embarrassing to discuss in public' can be talked about slightly more privately. I would not be shocked to learn that there were people creating accounts over the past few days so they could check that forum out. People love that shit. As long as it's not about them. Valereee (talk) 12:03, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Sorry hard-wired help desk response I guess then. Just following up. Certainly not trying to push a technical explanation down your throat <g> As for your surmise, I have not particularly noticed that, although we were up to 75 unregistered guests last night at one point, which is quite a bit higher than usual. I do see your concern, but the problem is not as I see it in the fleeting existence visibility of a post saying yeah I think we should move the thread. And since we are managing to speak like adults here, let me ask you to consider being accused of harassing someone when you have done nothing of the kind, and having the admonition be immortalized with an admonition not to call any names, when you haven't done that either. And that *is* on the internet forever, and I guarantee that it will be brought up the next time someone says my citation needed was a personal attack. Anyway, just saying. Nice talking to you, and have a nice day. Elinruby (talk) 16:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Hey, @Elinruby, I certainly didn't intend to accuse you of harassment or calling names, and I apologize that it felt that way. I have no knowledge of you doing either, so if that's what my posts felt like, I'm very sorry. It wasn't what I intended. Valereee (talk) 18:29, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
That was the basic theory. That having been in the thread at all, even saying something as innocuous in itself as "Aha. That's why", constituted harassment because BADSITES BADSITES BADSITES. The thread was closed as "let's all stop the namecalling", which I protested, but given that the mob had its pitchforks out, perhaps there was truth to the theory that it was better for the project if it all just stopped, and possibly also even for me. Watch, though. As soon as I get back to source verification about the genocide at Canadian residential schools, however, I will be mean for pointing out that a certain source is not reliable, and that thread absolutely will come up. The one Star Mississippi closed as "nothing to do here" still does after all, even if the "incivility" was giving someone a contentious topics alert. Again, just saying. This post does not require a reply or any action on your part. Thank you for reading it. Elinruby (talk) 20:43, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Tech News: 2024-29
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. [8]
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.
Could you please explain why you have closed my discussion? Unilateral actions with no justification seem to be a pattern of behaviour within wikipedia SnarkyDragon (talk) 22:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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. [9]
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. [10]
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. [11]
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.
I noticed your intervention in 2021 on the Talk page of a user who was later blocked, opened another account, was blocked again, and is now using a series of IP addresses to continue his project. I've managed to open a discussion at User talk:86.147.210.198, but I'm really not sure how best to proceed. Do you have any insights?
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:) [12]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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:) [13]
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
On 2 August 2024, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Tomato sandwich, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that many enthusiasts say that a good tomato sandwich is so messy, it should be eaten over the kitchen sink? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tomato sandwich. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Tomato sandwich), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.
Administrator changes
Technical news
Miscellaneous
Hello. I wanted to let you know that in your recent contributions to Cheung Chau fishball, you seemed to act as if you were the owner of the page. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to Wikipedia. This means that editors do not own articles, including ones they create, and should respect the work of their fellow contributors. If you create or edit an article, remember that others are free to change its content. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. UKWikiGuy (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
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.
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
